JET and ITER nuclear fusion

Key figures from the energy balance. What colorful glossy brochures to the responsible politicians conceal, but is very easy to understand.

The jubilant news that JET has ignited a fusion fire that has already delivered 90% of the energy that was previously used to heat up the plasma. ITER will finally achieve a positive energy balance. Almost EUR 10 billion in research funds will be invested for this, which will then of course be lacking elsewhere.

Let's dream of a 1:5 record
Let's imagine that ITER would achieve a 1:5 balance instead of a 1:0.9 balance. Would this be the end of our energy worries? No, far from it, even 1:5 would be an absolute disaster, a thing that would be completely unusable as a power plant because of the waste heat.

Balance sheet fraud
The trick is that high-quality electrical energy has to be invested first, but only inferior thermal energy is harvested. Behind nuclear fusion is what has been state of the art in thermal power plants for over 100 years: a very simple steam engine. This steam engine converts the thermal energy from the reactor into electricity. Normal nuclear power plants are calculated to be 35% efficient at converting thermal energy into electrical energy. But they run continuously. Here, however, we are talking about a cycle of loading the reactor, igniting it, creating a vacuum and starting all over again. Let's be optimistic and assume 30%. So a 1:5 balance looks like this: I invest 100 units of electricity to ignite the plasma. I get 500 units of heat from this. From the 500 units of heat, 150 units of electricity are generated. But to ignite the reactor again, I can only supply 50 units of electricity to the grid, because I need 100 to invest in the next ignition.

Politics - political targets of PEGE
	Nonpolitical, pragmatic, on the other side of ideologies counts in our politic only one target: A long time lasting civilization able to develop further on a stable base.

Philosophy
	Long-term planning and stability have to be the guiding rules of politics. A philosophy based on the mathematic branch of games theory.

Living standard
	What is living standard? How is living standard correctly measured? Is it possible, that our living standard declines drastic, while uncorrect numbers want to make us belive it's like paradise?

Taxes tax politics
	The consequences of the tax politic for humans and environment. The politicians claim to fight for humans and the environment, but the tax politics shows the exact opposit.

Energy politic
	Decades of wrong energy politic. Instead of more living standard with less energy usage, partial the contrary was reached. A result of the wrong tax politic.

Fuel cycle in nuclear fusion reactors
	In a torus system as planned for ITER, only a small amount of deuterium and tritium is fused per combustion cycle before the resulting helium leads to the process being aborted.

Cooling - the limits of nuclear fusion
	Whether burning fossil fuels, splitting nuclei or fusing nuclei, every power plant requires cooling. The cooling requirement for nuclear fusion in particular is very high.

Electricity costs for the fusion reactor
	Cost forecast for the production of electricity from nuclear fusion. Extrapolation of known facts to a profitability calculation for fusion power plants.

Correctly interpreting the energy balance
	If an energy balance of 1:5 were to be achieved at ITER, the experiment would still have failed, because this would be unusable when converted to power plant operation.

The nuclear fusion reactor as a breeder for plutonium 239
	If electricity production in a nuclear fusion reactor is already too expensive, then there will be a tremendous desire to breed plutonium 239 with it.

Nuclear fusion - entry into the total nuclear state
	If the first nuclear fusion reactor goes into operation at a time of exploding oil prices and energy shortages, it will not be possible to stop plutonium breeding.