ITER: Opinion of Japanese Nobel Prize winner Masatoshi Koshiba
May 31, 2011
TOKYO (AFP)
The last Japanese Nobel Prize winner in physics, Professor Masatoshi Koshiba questions the validity of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project, accusing its promoters of trying to pass off a balloon as a lantern.
Citing a Chinese proverb - "A sheep's head, but dog's meat" - Professor Koshiba, 77, a specialist in fundamental physics, criticizes ITER supporters for presenting the project as "the energy source of the next generation," which he says it is not.
Aiming to produce clean and safe energy by recreating the mechanisms at work in the hearts of stars, the ITER project should enter its operational phase in 2014 and be operated for 20 years, with an estimated budget of around ten billion euros.
The 2002 physics Nobel Prize winner believes that ITER does not meet "a number of conditions, namely safety and economic costs," to be considered a next-generation, almost inexhaustible energy source.
Indeed, "in ITER, the fusion reaction produces high-energy neutrons, 14 MeV (mega-electron volts)," a level never achieved before, explains Mr. Koshiba, who is 77 years old. "Although scientists have already experimented with low-energy neutrons, these 14 MeV neutrons are completely new and no one currently knows how to handle them," warns the emeritus professor of the University of Tokyo.
Currently, he points out, nuclear fission releases neutrons with an average energy of only one or two MeV.
For Mr. Koshiba, scientists must first solve this problem of 14 MeV neutrons "by building walls or absorbers" before claiming it is a new and sustainable energy source.
It is, he says, a very costly solution. "If they have to replace the absorbers every six months, it will cause operational shutdowns that will result in an additional cost of energy," criticizes the physicist. "This project is no longer in the hands of scientists, but in those of politicians and businessmen.
Scientists can no longer make any changes," he laments before adding:
- I am afraid.
The European Union, Russia, China, the United States, South Korea, and Japan are participating in the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) project. Two sites are in fierce competition to host the installation: Cadarache, in the southeast of France, and Rokkasho-Mura, in the north of Japan. The European Union, Moscow, and Beijing support the French candidacy, while Washington and, apparently, Seoul, prefer the Japanese site. Gathered for the first time in Washington on December 20, the six partners failed to agree on the choice of site.
A second meeting should take place at the end of February. Until the final decision, France and Japan are engaged in an intense pressure campaign.
"I hope the French government has the honor of accepting ITER in its own country," says Mr. Koshiba ironically.
It has already been done ....