Inside The Most Expensive Science Experiment Ever
Inside ITER Graham Murdoch Many machines over the past 60 years have been billed as the one that will make the big breakthrough in fusion science, only to stumble. This one could be different. Some people have spent their whole working lives researching fusion and then retired feeling bitter at what they see as a wasted career. But that hasn't stopped new recruits joining the effort every year: optimistic young graduates keen to get to grips with a complicated scientific problem that has real implications for the world. Their numbers have been increasing in recent years, perhaps motivated by two factors: there is a new machine under construction, a huge global effort that may finally show that fusion can be a net producer of energy; and the need for fusion has never been greater, considering the twin threats of dwindling oil supplies and climate change. The new machine is the International Thermonuclear...