Fusion Plant

Fusion Plant!
Considering the 5 billion overhead, do you think prices of electricity will raise or lower in the short-term after the construction?
Do you think it will actually work self-sustaining for a long amount of time?

"Iter officials are hoping to decide where the fusion reactor will be based within the next few years or so and have agreed to meet in Vienna in May. "

Well, lets see a joint project between China and The USA + A major expenditure of capital + The need to decide where it will be located = TROUBLE^2.

I don't think drawing straws will work here.

[Edited on 6-10-2003 by AZLS1]

That's not true,

The Americans just provide the cash and don't want anything else to do with the project mostly.. They are not even proposing to have it on their on soil. They'd rather go with a European site, probably Spain then, over France of course!

Is the U.S. government trying to insulate itself from criticism over another fusion dissapointment?

The UK already has an amazing fusion prototype plant (JET)... I think it'd be cool if we had it on our soil, however, if one plant supplies electricity for the world, you need to consider how you're gunna run electrical power lines across the oceans..
I reckon it'd be worth the money though imho, once the overhead pays off, free power... and it'd be very important for future space travels, potentially

I believe that Princeton has a fusion test reactor that is given millions each year by the government to study mass fusion production.

Just do a quick search on the internet and I'm sure you'll pull up something on it.

Cool, but the point is we dont have a commerical one yet =(