Reddit reviews A Piece of the Sun: The Quest for Fusion Energy

You won't find any argument from me concerning the fact that ITER is an expensive, time-consuming, bureaucratic and poorly managed project. There are improved concepts out there, including better ones in the tokamak regime. I personally am involved with a startup that seeks to commercialize a spheromak configuration into something called a dynomak (www.ctfusion.net), which could reduce the cost of fusion by a factor of 10 below tokamaks. All that being said, tokamaks perform the best out of any other device today. Part of the reason why is surely that the majority of funding has been spent on it, but realize that the physics going into ITER is based on decades of learning from many failures. As someone working in the field, I'd encourage you to read this book (http://www.amazon.com/Piece-Sun-Quest-Fusion-Energy/dp/1468308890) as it describes the history of fusion in quite some detail. It really put ITER more in context. I still think there are many different ideas that we should be pursuing in parallel, but do realize we're not just sitting on our asses doing nothing because we want job security. Fusion really is very hard, so much so that we had to invent a whole new branch of physics to understand what's going on, called plasma physics. We have built hundreds of small reactors, and we have determined that with the technology of the time, ITER was one of the best shots at making a net gain reactor based on our data. Using improved technology, of course, would improve the design point, but the issue with ITER is just how long it is taking... technology tends to become obsolete over time. Do not think of ITER as being the consensus of the mainline fusion community of what we should be doing today. It isn't unanimously accepted as the right path, not even close, but at this point governments around the world have spent so much money that there's nearly unstoppable inertia behind it at this point. Governments choose what they fund, scientists can only give their opinions about those choices. You would be amazed at how little power we actually have over the decision process of what gets funded. But, we'll see what happens if it is further delayed and even more expensive. If we completely scrapped ITER and used new technology to redesign a net-gain tokamak, it would look different and likely be less expensive.

That being said, myself, and many others, are thinking of ways to bring about fusion quicker, and for a much lower price than a conventional tokamak. And, though ITER represents the best chance at making fusion work at this point, I do not believe it will scale into an economical power plant. We have to start thinking differently, which is part of the reason why I'm focused on an alternative fusion idea that could solve the economic problems facing fusion without throwing out all the ideas that we know work. Some of the biggest errors you can make while doing something new is that you listen to much to past failures that you don't try anything new, or that you don't listen enough and end up repeating past mistakes thinking its a new discovery. There's a optimal point in between where I think we'll have the best chance of making something work that is also economically attractive.

Fun/informative books:


[A Piece of the Sun: The Quest for Fusion Energy: By Daniel Clery] (https://www.amazon.com/Piece-Sun-Quest-Fusion-Energy/dp/1468308890)

[Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking by Charles Seife] (https://www.amazon.com/Sun-Bottle-Strange-History-Thinking/dp/0670020338)

[An Indispensable Truth - How Fusion Power Can Save the Planet, by F.F. Chen] (http://www.springer.com/us/book/9781441978196)

[A Green Sun by Charles Gray] (https://www.amazon.com/Green-Sun-The-Fusion-Book-ebook/dp/B005GBPEAE)
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Technical books:

[Physics of Fully Ionized Gases by Lyman Spitzer Jr.] (https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Fully-Ionized-Gases-Revised/dp/0486449823)

[The Physics of Inertial Fusion: Beam Plasma Interaction, Stefano Atzeni] (https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Inertial-Fusion-Hydrodynamics-International/dp/0199568014)

[Tokamaks by Wesson] (https://books.google.com/books/about/Tokamaks.html?id=BH9vx-iDI74C)

[The Release of Thermonuclear Energy by Inertial Confinement: Ways Towards Ignition by Friedwardt Winterberg] (https://www.amazon.com/Release-Thermonuclear-Energy-Inertial-Confinement/dp/9814295906/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473696256&sr=1-1&keywords=winterberg+inertial+confinement)
Note: This last book by F. Winterberg contains some of the most difficult mathematics (perhaps something that a Junior in Math might not mind) but contains an extraordinary wealth of new fusion ideas - something that old guard fusioneers would like to see in the hands of the young.
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Mathematics is the portal to advanced skills in fusion physics and nuclear engineering. It is not really possible to find a professional first position in the fusion field without a high level of mathematics competency.

For those that have already had two years of college calculus I would recommend the following book if you are interested in a career in fusion.

[Higher Math for Beginners by Y.B. Zeldovich] (https://www.amazon.com/Higher-Mathematics-Beginners-application-physics/dp/B000IW9YSO/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473696949&sr=1-2&keywords=Higher+for+Beginners+Zeldovich)
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Student Internship at the Nation’s National Labs
You get paid while you learn lots of terrific fusion related stuff and there is an avenue leading to a first job in the field of your choice (something everyone needs).
http://see.orau.org/ProgramDescription.aspx?Program=10055
https://internships.llnl.gov/
http://www.lanl.gov/education/undergrad/internships.shtml
http://science.energy.gov/wdts/suli/
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NIF Laser Fusion in Fulldome -true out of this world new technology
(note: this high-rez image is interactive - click on picture and drag with your mouse to see additional views of the NIF target chamber)
http://www.xrez.com/case-studies/nif-laser-fusion-in-fulldome/
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Fusion is a lot closer than most of the main stream analysts currently believe.
Fusion from the engineering side perhaps does not get as much publicity, but many fusion jobs in funded projects have a lot of engineering content. It may actually be easier to get your first position if you have a math or engineering focus (only so many physics professionals get hired, even in really large fusion programs).