Honda Motor Co will unveil a prototype of its eagerly awaited low-cost hybrid car due for launch in early 2009 at the Paris auto show next month, Japan's No.2 automaker.
The five-door, five-seater compact hatchback — Honda's second attempt at a dedicated hybrid car after it discontinued production of the two-seater Insight in 2006 — will also be called Insight.
Honda is looking to close the gap with pioneer Toyota Motor Corp with a new family of cheaper, more fuel-efficient gasoline-electric cars by slashing the cost and weight of its hybrid system.
Honda has said it wants to sell 200,000 units of the new Insight annually, half of that in North America. The car, which executives said they wanted to sell for less than 2 million yen ($18,500), will also be sold in Japan and Europe starting next spring.
Honda, which launched its first hybrid car, the Insight, in 1999, now only offers one hybrid model — the Civic — after halting production of the underpowered Accord hybrid.
In the first seven months of this year, Civic hybrid sales grew 27 percent globally from the year before to 39,361 units as consumers seek more mileage from dearer fuel.
Rival Toyota sold almost 280,000 hybrid vehicles in the same period for a rise of 8 percent, with supply falling far short of demand.
Toyota is also looking to step up its game by lowering the price premium on its third-generation Prius, to be shown at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit next January. The world's biggest automaker wants to sell at least 1 million hybrid vehicles annually soon after 2010, offering the hybrid option on all of its vehicles by 2020.
Australia Electricity Supply Shortfall highlights AEMO's warning of reduced reserves as coal retirements outpace capacity, risking load shedding. Calls for 1GW strategic reserves and investment in renewables, storage, and dispatchable power in Victoria.
Key Points
It is AEMO's forecast of reduced reserves, higher outage risk, and a need for 1GW strategic backup capacity.
✅ AEMO urges 1GW strategic reserves in Victoria and South Australia
✅ Investment needed: renewables, storage, grid and reliability services
Australia’s electricity operator has warned of threats to electricity supply including a shortfall in generation and reduced power reserves on the horizon.
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has called for further investment in the country’s energy portfolio as retiring coal plants are replaced by intermittent renewables poised to eclipse coal, leaving the grid with less back-up capacity.
AEMO has said this increases the chances of supply interruption and load shedding.
It added the federal government should target 1GW of strategic reserves in the states most at risk – Victoria and South Australia, even as the Prime Minister has ruled out taxpayer-funded power plants in the current energy battle.
CEO of the Clean Energy Council, Kane Thornton, said the shortfall in generation, reflected in a short supply of electricity, was due a decade of indecisiveness and debate leading to a “policy vacuum”.
He added: “The AEMO report revealed that the new projects added to the system under the renewable energy target will help to improve reliability over the next few years.
“We need to accept that the energy system is in transition, with lessons from dispatchable power shortages in Europe, and long term policy is now essential to ensure private investment in the most efficient new energy technology and solutions.”
Yukon Electricity Demand Record underscores peak load growth as winter cold snaps drive heating, lighting, and EV charging, blending hydro, LNG, and diesel with renewable energy and planned grid-scale battery storage in Whitehorse.
Key Points
It is the territory's new peak electricity load, reflecting winter demand, electric heating, EVs, and mixed generation.
✅ New peak: 104.42 MW, surpassing 2020 record of 103.84 MW
✅ Winter peaks met with hydro, LNG, diesel, and renewables mix
✅ Customers urged to shift use off peak hours and use timers
A new record for electricity demand has been set in Yukon. The territory recorded a peak of 104.42 megawatts, according to a news release from Yukon Energy.
The new record is about a half a megawatt higher than the previous record of 103.84 megawatts recorded on Jan. 14, 2020.
While in general, over 90 per cent of the electricity generated in Yukon comes from renewable resources each year, with initiatives such as new wind turbines expanding capacity, during periods of high electricity use each winter, Yukon Energy has to use its hydro, liquefied natural gas and diesel resources to generate the electricity, the release says.
But when it comes to setting records, Andrew Hall, CEO of Yukon Energy, says it's not that unusual.
"Typically, during the winter, when the weather is cold, demand for electricity in the Yukon reaches its maximum. And that's because folks use more electricity for heating their homes, for cooking meals, there's more lighting demand, because the days are shorter," he said.
"It usually happens either in December or sometimes in January, when we get a cold snap."
He said generally over the years, electricity demand has grown.
"We get new home construction, construction of new apartment buildings. And typically, those new homes are all heated by electricity, maybe not all of them but the majority," Hall said.
Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation's solar farm now generating electricity In taking action on climate, this Arctic community wants to be a beacon to the world
Efforts to curb climate change add to electricity demand There are also other reasons, ones that are "in the name of climate change," Hall added.
That includes people trying to limit fossil fuel heating by swapping to electric heating. And, he said some Yukoners are switching to electric vehicles as incentives expand across the North.
"Over time, those two new demands, in the name of climate change, will also contribute to growing demand for electricity," he said.
While Yukon did reach this new all time high, Hall said the territory still hadn't hit the maximum capacity for the week, which was 118 megawatts, and discussions about a potential connection to the B.C. grid are part of long-term planning.
Yukon Energy's hydroelectric dam in Whitehorse. Yukon Energy's CEO, Andrew Hall, said demand of 104 megawatts wasn't unexpected, nor was it an emergency. The corporation has the ability to generate 118 megawatts. (Paul Tukker/CBC) Tips to curve demand "When we plan our system, we actually plan for a scenario, guided by the view that sustainability is key to the grid's future, where we actually lose our largest hydro generating facility," Hall said.
"We had plenty of generation available so it wasn't an emergency situation, and, even as other provinces face electricity shortages, it was more just an observation that hey, our peaks are growing."
He also said it was an opportunity to reach out to customers on ways to curve their demand for electricity around peak times, drawing on energy efficiency insights from other provinces, which is typically between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., and between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., Monday to Friday.
For example, he said, people should consider running major appliances, like dishwashers, during non-peak hours, such as in the afternoon rather than in the morning or evening.
During winter peaks, people can also use a block heater timer on vehicles and turn down the thermostat by one or two degrees.
'We plan for each winter' Hall said Yukon Energy is working to increase its peak output, including working on a large grid scale battery to be installed in Whitehorse, similar to Ontario's energy storage push now underway.
When it comes to any added load from people working from home due to COVID-19, Hall said they haven't noticed any identifiable increase there.
"Presumably, if someone's working from home, you know, their computer is at home, and they're not using the computer at the office," he said.
Yukon Energy one step closer to having largest battery storage site in the North He said there shouldn't be any concern for maxing out the capacity of electricity demand as Yukon moves into the colder winter months, since those days are forecast for.
"This number of 104 megawatts wasn't unexpected," he said, adding how much electricity is needed depends on the weather too.
Lockdown Electricity Demand Trends reveal later mornings, weaker afternoons, and delayed peaks as WFH, streaming, and video conferencing reshape energy demand curves, grid forecasting, and residential electricity usage across Europe, New York, Tokyo, and Singapore.
Key Points
Shifts in power use during lockdowns: later ramps, weaker afternoons, and higher, delayed evening peaks.
✅ WFH and streaming raise residential load; industrial demand falls
Life in lockdown means getting up late, staying up till midnight and slacking off in the afternoons.
That’s what power market data in Europe show in the places where restrictions on activity have led to a widespread shift in daily routines of hundreds of millions of people.
It’s a similar story wherever lockdowns bite. In New York City electricity use has fallen as much as 18% from normal times at 8am. Tokyo and three nearby prefectures had a 5% drop in power use during weekdays after Japan declared a state of emergency on April 7, according to Tesla Asia Pacific, an energy forecaster.
Italy’s experience shows the trend most clearly since the curbs started there on March 5, before any other European country. Data from the grid operator Terna SpA gives a taste of what other places are also now starting to report, with global daily demand dips observed in many markets as well.
1. People are sleeping later
With no commute to the office people can sleep longer. Normally, electricity demand began to pick up between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. Now in Germany, it’s clear coffee machines don’t go on until between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., said Simon Rathjen, founder of the trading company MFT Energy A/S.
Germany, France and Italy -- which between them make up almost two thirds of the euro-zone economy -- all have furlough measures that allow workers to receive a salary while temporarily suspended from their jobs. The U.K. also has a support package. Many of these workers will be getting up later.
"Now I have quite a relaxed start to the morning,” said David Freeman, an analyst in financial services from London. "I don’t get up until about half an hour before I need to start work.”
2. Less productive afternoons
There is a deeper dip in electricity use in the afternoons. Previously, power use rose between 2pm and 5pm. Now it dips as people head out for a walk or some air, according to UK demand data from National Grid Plc
It’s "as though we are living through a month of Sundays”, said Iain Staffell, senior lecturer in sustainable energy at Imperial College London.
3. Evenings in
From 6pm electricity use begins to rise steeply as people finish work and start chores. Restrictions like work and home schooling that prevent much daytime TV watching lifts in the early evening. This following chart for Germany shows the evening peak for power use coming during later hours.
The evening is when electricity use is highest, with most people confined to their homes. Netflix Inc reported a record 15.8 million paid subscribers – almost double the figure forecast by Wall Street analysts. Video-streaming services like Netflix and YouTube have found a captive audience. The new Disney+ service surpassed 50 million subscribers in just five months, a faster pace than predicted.
Internet traffic is skyrocketing, with a surge in bandwidth-intensive applications like streaming services and Zoom. This may mean that monthly broadband consumption of as much as 600 gigabytes, about 35% higher than before, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
In Singapore, electricity use has dropped off significantly since the country’s "circuit-breaker” efforts to keep people at home began April 7. Electricity use has fallen and stayed low during the day. But late at night is a different story, as power demand fell sharply immediately after the lockdown began, it has steadily crept back in the past two weeks, perhaps a sign that Tiger King and The Last Dance have been finding late-night fans in the city state.
In Ottawa, COVID-19 closures made it seem as if the city had fallen off the electricity grid, according to local reports.
4. Staying up late
We’re going to bed later too. Demand doesn’t start to drop off until 10pm to 12am, at least an hour later than before.
"My children are definitely going to bed later,” said Liz Stevens, a teaching assistant from London. "Our whole routine is out the window.”
It’s challenging for those that need to predict behaviour – power grids and electricity traders. Forecasting is based on historical data, and there isn’t anything to go into the models gauging use now.
The closest we can get is looking at big events like football World Championships when people are all sitting down at the same time, according to Rathjen at MFT.
"Forecasting demand right now is very tricky,” said Chris Kimmett, director of power grids at Reactive Technologies Ltd. "A global pandemic is uncharted territory."
What normal looks like when the crisis passes is also an open question. Different countries are set to unravel their measures in their own ways, and global power demand has already surged above pre-pandemic levels in some analyses, with Germany and Austria loosening restrictions first and Italy remaining under tight control. Some changes may be permanent, with both workers and employers becoming more comfortable with working from home.
5. Different sectors consume more
In China, which is further along recovering from the pandemic than Europe or the US, the sharp contraction in overall power output masks a shift in daily routines.
Eating habits have changed. Restaurants are expanding delivery and even offering grocery services as the preference for dining at home persists. Household electricity consumption in China probably increased from activities such as cooking and heating, according to IHS Markit, which said that residential demand rose by 2.4% in the first two months as people stayed in.
The increase in technology use also drove China’s power demand from the telecom and web-service sectors to rise by 27%, the consultancy said.
Overall, China power demand in the first quarter of the year fell 6.5% from the same period in 2019 to 1.57 trillion kilowatt-hours, China’s National Energy Administration said last week. Industry uses about 70% of the country’s electricity, while the commercial sector and households account for 14% each. – Bloomberg
European Solar Inverter Demand surges as photovoltaics and residential solar expand during the clean energy transition, driven by high natural gas prices; Germany leads, boosting Enphase and SolarEdge sales for rooftop systems and grid-tied installations.
Key Points
Rising European need for solar inverters, fueled by residential PV growth, high energy costs, and clean energy policies.
✅ Germany leads EU rooftop PV installations
✅ Enphase and SolarEdge see revenue growth
✅ High gas prices and policies spur adoption
Solar equipment makers are expected to post higher quarterly profit, benefiting from strong demand in Europe for critical components that convert energy from the sun into electricity, amid record renewable momentum worldwide.
The continent is emerging as a major market for solar firms as it looks to reduce its dependence on the Russian energy supply and accelerate its clean energy transition, with solar already reshaping power prices in Northern Europe across the region, brightening up businesses of companies such as Enphase Energy (ENPH.O) and SolarEdge Technologies (SEDG.O), which make solar inverters.
Wall Street expects Enphase and SolarEdge to post a combined adjusted net income of $323.8 million for the April-June quarter, a 56.7% jump from a year earlier, even as demand growth slows in the United States.
The energy crisis in Europe is not as acute as last year when Western sanctions on Russia severely crimped supplies, but prices of natural gas and electricity continue to be much higher than in the United States, Raymond James analyst Pavel Molchanov said.
As a result, demand for residential solar keeps growing at a strong pace in the region, with Germany being one of the top markets and solar adoption in Poland also accelerating in recent years across the region.
About 159,000 residential solar systems became operational in the first quarter in Germany amid a solar power boost that reflects policy and demand, a 146% rise from a year earlier, according to BSW solar power association.
Adoption of solar is also helping European homeowners have greater control over their energy costs as fossil fuel prices tend to be more volatile, Morningstar analyst Brett Castelli said.
SolarEdge, which has a bigger exposure to Europe than Enphase, said its first-quarter revenue from the continent more than doubled compared with last year.
In comparison, growth in the United States has been tepid due to lukewarm demand in states like Texas and Arizona where cheaper electricity prices make the economics of residential solar less attractive, even though solar is now cheaper than gas in parts of the U.S. market.
Higher interest rates following the U.S. Federal Reserve's recent actions to tame inflation are also weighing on demand, even as power outage risks rise across the United States.
Analysts also expect weakness in California where a new metering reform reduces the money credited to rooftop solar owners for sending excess power into the grid, underscoring how policy shifts can reshape the sector. The sunshine state accounts for nearly a third of the U.S. residential solar market.
Enphase will report its results on Thursday after the bell, while SolarEdge will release its second-quarter numbers on Aug. 1.
Wind Turbine Cancer Claim debunked: Iowa Republican senators back wind energy as fact-checks and DOE research find no link between turbine noise and cancer, limited effects on property values, and manageable wildlife impacts.
Key Points
Claims that turbine noise causes cancer, dismissed by studies and officials as unsupported by evidence.
✅ Grassley and Ernst call the claim idiotic and ridiculous
✅ DOE studies find no cancer link; property impacts limited
President Donald Trump may not be a fan of wind turbines, as shown by his pledge to scrap offshore wind projects earlier, suggesting that the noise they produce may cause cancer, but Iowa's Republican senators are big fans of wind energy.
Sen. Chuck Grassley called Trump's cancer claim "idiotic." On Thursday, Sen. Joni Ernst called the statement "ridiculous."
"I would say it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous," Ernst said, according to WHO-TV.
She likened the claim that wind turbine noise causes cancer to the idea that church bells do the same.
"I have church bells that ring all the time across from my office here in D.C. and I know that noise doesn't give me cancer, otherwise I'd have 'church bell cancer,'" Ernst said, adding that she is "thrilled" to have wind energy generation in Iowa, which aligns with a quarter-million wind jobs forecast nationwide. "I don't know what the president is drawing from."
Trump has a history of degrading wind energy and wind turbines that dates back long before his Tuesday claim that turbines harm property values and cause cancer, and often overlooks Texas grid constraints that can force turbines offline at times.
Not only are wind farms disgusting looking, but even worse they are bad for people's health.
"Not only are wind farms disgusting looking, but even worse, they are bad for people's health," Trump tweeted back in 2012.
Repeated fact-checks have found no scientific evidence to support the claim that wind turbines and the noise they make can cause cancer. The White House has reportedly provided no evidence to support Trump's cancer claim when asked this week
"It just seems like every time you turn around there's another thing the president is saying -- wind power causes cancer, I associate myself with the remarks of Chairman Grassley -- it's an 'idiotic' statement," Pelosi said in her weekly news conference on Thursday.
The president made his latest claim about wind turbines in a speech on Tuesday at a Republican spring dinner, as the industry continued recovering from the COVID-19 crisis that hit solar and wind energy.
"If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations, your house just went down 75 percent in value -- and they say the noise causes cancer," Trump said Tuesday, swinging his arm in a circle and making a cranking sound to imitate the noise of windmill blades. "And of course it's like a graveyard for birds. If you love birds, you never want to walk under a windmill. It’s a sad, sad sight."
Wind turbines are not, in fact, proven to have widespread negative impacts on property values, according to the Department of Energy's Office of Scientific and Technical Information in the largest study done so far in the U.S., even as some warn that a solar ITC extension could be devastating for the wind market, and there is no peer-reviewed data to back up the claim that the noise causes cancer.
I am considered a world-class expert in tourism. When you say, 'Where is the expert and where is the evidence?' I say: I am the evidence.
It's true wildlife is affected by wind turbines -- particularly birds and bats, with research showing whooping cranes avoid turbines when selecting stopover sites. One study estimated between 140,000 and 328,000 birds are killed annually by collisions with turbines across the U.S. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated, however, that other human-related impacts also contribute to declines in population.
The wind industry works with biologists to find solutions to the impact of turbines on wildlife, and the Department of Energy awards grants each year to researchers addressing the issue, even as the sector faced pandemic investment risks in 2020. But, overall, scientists warn that climate change itself is a bigger threat to bird populations than wind turbines, according to the National Audobon Society.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi: "It just seems like every time you turn around, there's another thing. The president is saying wind power causes cancer. I associate myself with the remarks of Chairman Grassley; It's an 'idiotic' statement"
ITER Nuclear Fusion advances tokamak magnetic confinement, heating deuterium-tritium plasma with superconducting magnets, targeting net energy gain, tritium breeding, and steam-turbine power, while complementing laser inertial confinement milestones for grid-scale electricity and 2025 startup goals.
Key Points
ITER Nuclear Fusion is a tokamak project confining D-T plasma with magnets to achieve net energy gain and clean power.
✅ Tokamak magnetic confinement with high-temp superconducting coils
✅ Deuterium-tritium fuel cycle with on-site tritium breeding
✅ Targets net energy gain and grid-scale, low-carbon electricity
It sounds like the stuff of dreams: a virtually limitless source of energy that doesn’t produce greenhouse gases or radioactive waste. That’s the promise of nuclear fusion, often described as the holy grail of clean energy by proponents, which for decades has been nothing more than a fantasy due to insurmountable technical challenges. But things are heating up in what has turned into a race to create what amounts to an artificial sun here on Earth, one that can provide power for our kettles, cars and light bulbs.
Today’s nuclear power plants create electricity through nuclear fission, in which atoms are split, with next-gen nuclear power exploring smaller, cheaper, safer designs that remain distinct from fusion. Nuclear fusion however, involves combining atomic nuclei to release energy. It’s the same reaction that’s taking place at the Sun’s core. But overcoming the natural repulsion between atomic nuclei and maintaining the right conditions for fusion to occur isn’t straightforward. And doing so in a way that produces more energy than the reaction consumes has been beyond the grasp of the finest minds in physics for decades.
But perhaps not for much longer. Some major technical challenges have been overcome in the past few years and governments around the world have been pouring money into fusion power research as part of a broader green industrial revolution under way in several regions. There are also over 20 private ventures in the UK, US, Europe, China and Australia vying to be the first to make fusion energy production a reality.
“People are saying, ‘If it really is the ultimate solution, let’s find out whether it works or not,’” says Dr Tim Luce, head of science and operation at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), being built in southeast France. ITER is the biggest throw of the fusion dice yet.
Its $22bn (£15.9bn) build cost is being met by the governments of two-thirds of the world’s population, including the EU, the US, China and Russia, at a time when Europe is losing nuclear power and needs energy, and when it’s fired up in 2025 it’ll be the world’s largest fusion reactor. If it works, ITER will transform fusion power from being the stuff of dreams into a viable energy source.
Constructing a nuclear fusion reactor ITER will be a tokamak reactor – thought to be the best hope for fusion power. Inside a tokamak, a gas, often a hydrogen isotope called deuterium, is subjected to intense heat and pressure, forcing electrons out of the atoms. This creates a plasma – a superheated, ionised gas – that has to be contained by intense magnetic fields.
The containment is vital, as no material on Earth could withstand the intense heat (100,000,000°C and above) that the plasma has to reach so that fusion can begin. It’s close to 10 times the heat at the Sun’s core, and temperatures like that are needed in a tokamak because the gravitational pressure within the Sun can’t be recreated.
When atomic nuclei do start to fuse, vast amounts of energy are released. While the experimental reactors currently in operation release that energy as heat, in a fusion reactor power plant, the heat would be used to produce steam that would drive turbines to generate electricity, even as some envision nuclear beyond electricity for industrial heat and fuels.
Tokamaks aren’t the only fusion reactors being tried. Another type of reactor uses lasers to heat and compress a hydrogen fuel to initiate fusion. In August 2021, one such device at the National Ignition Facility, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, generated 1.35 megajoules of energy. This record-breaking figure brings fusion power a step closer to net energy gain, but most hopes are still pinned on tokamak reactors rather than lasers.
In June 2021, China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor maintained a plasma for 101 seconds at 120,000,000°C. Before that, the record was 20 seconds. Ultimately, a fusion reactor would need to sustain the plasma indefinitely – or at least for eight-hour ‘pulses’ during periods of peak electricity demand.
A real game-changer for tokamaks has been the magnets used to produce the magnetic field. “We know how to make magnets that generate a very high magnetic field from copper or other kinds of metal, but you would pay a fortune for the electricity. It wouldn’t be a net energy gain from the plant,” says Luce.
One route for nuclear fusion is to use atoms of deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of hydrogen. They fuse under incredible heat and pressure, and the resulting products release energy as heat
The solution is to use high-temperature, superconducting magnets made from superconducting wire, or ‘tape’, that has no electrical resistance. These magnets can create intense magnetic fields and don’t lose energy as heat.
“High temperature superconductivity has been known about for 35 years. But the manufacturing capability to make tape in the lengths that would be required to make a reasonable fusion coil has just recently been developed,” says Luce. One of ITER’s magnets, the central solenoid, will produce a field of 13 tesla – 280,000 times Earth’s magnetic field.
The inner walls of ITER’s vacuum vessel, where the fusion will occur, will be lined with beryllium, a metal that won’t contaminate the plasma much if they touch. At the bottom is the divertor that will keep the temperature inside the reactor under control.
“The heat load on the divertor can be as large as in a rocket nozzle,” says Luce. “Rocket nozzles work because you can get into orbit within minutes and in space it’s really cold.” In a fusion reactor, a divertor would need to withstand this heat indefinitely and at ITER they’ll be testing one made out of tungsten.
Meanwhile, in the US, the National Spherical Torus Experiment – Upgrade (NSTX-U) fusion reactor will be fired up in the autumn of 2022, while efforts in advanced fission such as a mini-reactor design are also progressing. One of its priorities will be to see whether lining the reactor with lithium helps to keep the plasma stable.
Choosing a fuel Instead of just using deuterium as the fusion fuel, ITER will use deuterium mixed with tritium, another hydrogen isotope. The deuterium-tritium blend offers the best chance of getting significantly more power out than is put in. Proponents of fusion power say one reason the technology is safe is that the fuel needs to be constantly fed into the reactor to keep fusion happening, making a runaway reaction impossible.
Deuterium can be extracted from seawater, so there’s a virtually limitless supply of it. But only 20kg of tritium are thought to exist worldwide, so fusion power plants will have to produce it (ITER will develop technology to ‘breed’ tritium). While some radioactive waste will be produced in a fusion plant, it’ll have a lifetime of around 100 years, rather than the thousands of years from fission.
At the time of writing in September, researchers at the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion reactor in Oxfordshire were due to start their deuterium-tritium fusion reactions. “JET will help ITER prepare a choice of machine parameters to optimise the fusion power,” says Dr Joelle Mailloux, one of the scientific programme leaders at JET. These parameters will include finding the best combination of deuterium and tritium, and establishing how the current is increased in the magnets before fusion starts.
The groundwork laid down at JET should accelerate ITER’s efforts to accomplish net energy gain. ITER will produce ‘first plasma’ in December 2025 and be cranked up to full power over the following decade. Its plasma temperature will reach 150,000,000°C and its target is to produce 500 megawatts of fusion power for every 50 megawatts of input heating power.
“If ITER is successful, it’ll eliminate most, if not all, doubts about the science and liberate money for technology development,” says Luce. That technology development will be demonstration fusion power plants that actually produce electricity, where advanced reactors can build on decades of expertise. “ITER is opening the door and saying, yeah, this works – the science is there.”
