Talk:DEMOnstration Power Plant

Redirect

DEMO is the name of a proposed fusion reactor, so i chose to create a page here. This unfortunalty ment removing a redirevt page to Demo (comics). I hope no one is bovvered. mastodon 23:50, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

The redirect should never have been to the article on the comics anyway. It should have been to the DAB page at demo. The hatnote covers this. Andrewa (talk) 02:57, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Notability

Is the project famous enough to deserve its own article? There are no references of any kind. --Elonka 16:19, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Hopefully I have corrected this problem and the notability tag can be removed. I will not remove it myself, however. --Ben Best 07:46, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

To bolster the argument, you may want to check "What Links Here" for this page [1] --Ben Best 07:48, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I removed the notability tag and added a link to a presentation of the EFDA activities which include research related to DEMO - ClaudeSB 13:58, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

400, 480 or 500 seconds?

The ITER article says that ITER is designed to run for 500 seconds (and in another place: 'for 8 minutes' - or 480 seconds). This article says 400 seconds. I'm going to assume the ITER article is correct and change it to 500 here. If anyone has knowledge that 400 is indeed the right number then they need to fix the ITER article as well as this one. SteveBaker 18:45, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

From iter.org: ITER will produce about 500 MW of fusion power in nominal operation, for pulses of 400 seconds and longer.--83.38.193.187 17:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Radioactive waste

Article currently reads As a prototype commercial fusion reactor DEMO could make fusion energy (which does not produce the global warming or pollution of fossil fuel, nor the long-lived radioactive waste of fission energy) available within 20 years. The ITER article quotes a Greenpeace activist as saying Nuclear fusion has all the problems of nuclear power, including producing nuclear waste and the risks of a nuclear accident.

They can't both be right, and I actually think Greenpeace has it right here on the waste issue. According to the current article (and AFAIK), DEMO will use the D + T reaction. But the current article also states It is hoped that careful material choice will mean that the wastes produced in this way will have much shorter half lives than the waste from fission reactors, with wastes remaining harmful for less than one century. These are weasel words. Yes, many would like to think this will happen, because unless it does happen, fusion won't be able to compete with fission on environmental grounds, as many would like to think it will. But there is no evidence as yet to support this hope, and there are many reasons to doubt it.

But whoever is right, the claim that DEMO could make fusion energy (which does not produce... the long-lived radioactive waste of fission energy) available within 20 years is clearly POV. And even the most optimistic material from the ITER participants themselves doesn't support it. Rather, testing of these materials won't even start until IFMIF comes online about 2017, having taken ten years to build. If DEMO then takes another ten years to build, the testing program for its lining materials would need to be completed in zero years in order to meet the twenty year deadline.

This is obviously not going to happen, but it's only half the story. It's also interesting to note that IFMIF will only subject the materials to real-time testing. The possibility of accelerating the testing program, as was done for fission reactor cladding materials in particular, by using an even higher neutron flux does not exist, because higher fluxes are just not available. They are pulling out all stops to even achieve that predicted neutron flux of DEMO, without trying to exceed it. So, even if you only want to keep the lining material for two years between changes, which is probably too short an interval for any commercial reactor, each test of each new formulation will take two years... and that's also assuming 100% availability of IFMIF for those two years. Andrewa 02:00, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

The material testing is already in progress, albeit with less suitable neutron sources. The new facilities are being built to accelerate the process, and provide more reliable data to ensure it will indeed be successful. Also, even if normal steel was to be used, the longevity of the waste would still be orders of magnitudes shorter than existing nuclear reactors. The potential for a serious accident which would end up causing harm to humans is almost nil, as outlined in the article on fusion power. Also, when it comes to materials, my understanding is that the plan is to use Vanadium based alloys for the structural materials, and possibly carbon for the plasma-facing compounds. Vanadium produces no long-lived isotopes upon neutron irradiation, and while carbon would result in some radioactive waste, it would be dramatically less troublesome than the fission products, let alone the actinides. In light of this, I would argue that the greenpeace statement is extremely misleading at best, outright false at worst. It is clear that even if the materials project is not successful, the waste generated would still be orders of magnitude lower in quantity and longevity than that from nuclear reactors, and the risk of accidents causing harm to the public is similarly much less. 85.230.195.192 03:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

You may be right about the accident potential... or not. It's not the topic here.

And yes, a great deal of materials testing is already taking place, but as you also point out, the neutron sources currently available give us very little idea of how the materials will fare in a commercial plant. That's all in the future.

It's far from clear that even if the materials project is not successful, the waste generated would still be orders of magnitude lower in quantity and longevity than that from nuclear reactors, this is speculation, and unlikely speculation at that. No, normal steel can't be used as it would contaminate the plasma (if it could be used, they would use it), and that's a big problem with vanadium as well. Yes, multiple layers of various materials are a possibility, see Plasma-facing material#Proposed materials.

If the materials project is not successful, then the whole project will fail. Otherwise, they wouldn't be spending billions of dollars on it.

The PFM problem may be solved, there is no doubt about that (and again, otherwise they wouldn't be spending all this money trying to solve it). Or it may not be. The AGR cladding material problem was never solved, which was why that class of reactors was a failure. In glorious hindsight, the Brits should have just built bigger and better Magnox plants, or gone to the LWR as they are now. And that's all because the proposed cladding material couldn't withstand the neutron flux (and some of the work that showed that it wouldn't was done at AAEC, where I also worked but not on that).

ITER will have about 100 times the neutron flux of an AGR. I have seen no figures for DEMO. Andrewa (talk) 06:25, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I have removed the "unverified claims" tag. Whether anybody here thinks this is possible or not, it is the focus of much fusion research and up to scientists to label as speculation. Most of the peer reviewed work on ITER makes similar claims. Rpf (talk) 17:17, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree and think it should be removed again. It's a different kind of speculation. If we can't have that then we would have to remove the entire article because it's about something which doesn't exist, so it's all speculation. Kallog (talk) 06:45, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree for the reasons User:Kallog gave. User:Johnfos's re-added the template on 2009-01-18 with the revision log:

"Re-adding Speculation tag. I have never read such a speculative article. Even ref 2 begins by saying: 'The steps beyond ITER are open at this stage.'" The "future power plant" covers the article's form of speculation; the speculation template applies to notable refutation from the scientific community, which does not include Johnfos's views. I have removed the template. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dmyersturnbull (talk • contribs) 07:47, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

This document may be of interest http://www.iop.org/Jet/fulltext/JETR99013.pdf SkippyUK (talk) 09:43, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Who and Where?

Presumably somewhere in Europe (France?), but where and by who is it to be built? And c14 years design then c9 years construction so it is a long-term project! Hugo999 (talk) 01:50, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

India they have a few plans for a test reactor that could conveniently be converted to a DIY 'demo' if iter is successful — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.137.43.29 (talk) 22:12, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

DEMO doesn't refer to any specific project, but rather the step beyond ITER - the demonstration of fusion as a source of electrical energy. Many countries have proposed DEMO designs, and it is likely that there will be more than one variant built once break-even thermal energy production has been demonstrated in ITER.150.203.179.56 (talk) 05:35, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Have you a source for this? It's a very interesting claim. The unprecedented degree of international cooperation that was necessary to build ITER was motivated entirely by the enormous cost. Several countries have built fusion reactors on the general scale of JET, but there's only ever expected to be one ITER. I'd have thought that similar considerations would have meant that there will only be one DEMO. Andrewa (talk) 05:44, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

China seems keen to have its own DEMO ahead of Europe/Japan. - Rod57 (talk) 02:44, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

The broader approach agreement ~2005 between the ITER consortium and Japan implies that France (as host for ITER) must support Japan as host for DEMO. - Rod57 (talk) 02:44, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

How much electrical power will it generate

It's rather speculative. The article currently reads DEMO is intended to be the first fusion reactor to generate electrical power. Nobody is saying how much electrical power this might be. The first fission reactor to generate electrical power was Experimental Breeder Reactor I in 1951. Four light globes' worth in fact, see the photo. It's not recorded exactly how much electrical power was being consumed by the reactor's pumps etc. at the time AFAIK, but it was a lot more than the electrical power required to light those four light globes.

And that's the result DEMO is promising. ITER in operation will consume considerable quantities of liquid nitrogen and liquid helium, providing 1,300 kW and 75 kW of cooling respectively (in addition to the 450 MW water cooling system). DEMO will consume far more of these liquid gases, the 15% bigger is linear dimension and is a minimum, so it will be at least 1.5 times the size in volume with 1.3 times the surface area, and it will run hotter, and most important it will operate continuously, rather than in bursts of up to 8 minutes maximum which is the goal for ITER. Providing these liquid gases will consume a considerable amount of energy, which along with the energy needed to maintain the enormous magnetic fields will all come from the electricity supply.

So DEMO, like ITER, will consume a great deal of electrical power. Unlike ITER it will produce some too, but only a token amount compared to its electric input. Or at least that is the plan when you cut out the weasel words such as prototype commercial. That phrase to me implies that a series of plants similar to DEMO might be commercially viable. Not a chance. DEMO won't even produce a net amount of electricity.

Electrical break-even will be achieved by the plant after DEMO, at best. Andrewa (talk) 06:00, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Many DEMO presentations (eg Technical challenges on the path to DEMO. Stork. Sept 2011 suggest >2GW generation of which ~1GW used by DEMO and >1GW available to grid - but intermittent (eg 8 hr pulses). - Rod57 (talk) 23:13, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Interestingly - it implies DEMO will need a 1GW feed (from the grid?) to form and ignite the plasma ? - Rod57 (talk) 12:47, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 6 April 2015

Discussion closed - no consensus

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus. --BDD (talk) 14:17, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

DEMO → ? – DEMO should redirect to Demo; topic is not wp:notable. <<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> (talk) 15:25, 6 April 2015 (UTC) <<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> (talk) 15:25, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:DIFFCAPS. If the article truly is not about a notable topic, you need to look at WP:AFD, not WP:RM Red Slash 19:50, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
• Comment "DEMO" only gets the same hits as "Demo (music)" on its own. I think that all this RM would need is a suitable destination. GregKaye 20:02, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

From the Scholar search "Demonstration Fusion Reactors" OR "demonstration Power Plant" I don't see that "DEMO" is at all prominently used.

Ngrams (case insensitive) suggests "demonstration power plant" over "demonstration fusion reactor" or "demonstration power reactor" and other option tried.

Ngrams (case sensitive) suggests "demonstration power plant" over "DEMOnstration power plant" or "DEMOnstration Power Plant"

• Suggest move: DEMO → Demonstration power plant as per WP:PRECISE and WP:UCRN GregKaye 20:38, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

  Careful with Ngrams as they only have data to 2008 I believe. DEMO was only proposed in the early 2000s timeframe. --Izno (talk) 22:43, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

• That's horrible, much worse than the current title. There are many demonstration power plants in the world, this is not the only one. -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 03:58, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

• Numbers can also be added to the Scholar results in that:

"Demonstration Power Plant" gets "About 1,470 results" while

"Demonstration Power Plant" AND demo gets "About 480 results"

GregKaye 01:29, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

• Those stats are meaningless, since there are many different demonstration power plants in those results. They are not unique to this power plant. -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 04:00, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

• Rename to DEMO (fusion power plant), and repoint the current title to the disambiguation page. -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 03:58, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

65.94.43.89 In that case, should the opening text say something like "DEMO, a form of demonstration power plant..."? Our text currently reads: "DEMO (DEMOnstration Power Plant) ..." and yet from scanning results of my scholar search on: "Demonstration Power Plant" AND demo I do not see support for a stylisation as "DEMOnstration Power Plant". What proportion of the ~ 1,470 results for "Demonstration Power Plant" do you think apply to other topics, what are those topics and which Wikipedia articles apply to them?

WP:UCRN says in regard to any topic/topic area: "Wikipedia prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources) as such names will be the most recognizable and the most natural." GregKaye 09:03, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

If you performed a more associated search, you'd find "demonstration power plant" "demo" "ITER" together would restrict the search to fusion power plants, including "The physics of DEMO" (doi:10.1088/0741-3335/52/12/124033) ; ITER is an experimental fusion reactor -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 09:35, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Pinging former contributors to the talk page: Jrockley, Andrewa, Elonka, Benbest, ClaudeSB, SteveBaker, Rpf, Kallog, Dmyersturnbull, SkippyUK, Hugo999, 85.230.195.192, 83.38.193.187 - GregKaye 17:20, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I think renaming to DEMO (fusion power plant) is an excellent idea. Does someone have material and motivation to write a general Demonstration power plant article? --Ben Best:Talk 14:24, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

• Rename to DEMO (fusion power plant), and repoint the current title to the disambiguation page, per 65.94.43.89. "DEMO (fusion power plant)" would seem like a logical title for an article about demonstration power plants in general - of which there are many. I'd support a redirect from Demonstration power plant to DEMO (fusion power plant), leaving open the option to make Demonstration power plant be an article about the more general topic in the future - but I agree that DEMO should redirect to Demo - relying on capitalization is a bad idea. SteveBaker (talk) 04:34, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Proposal and support appears to be based entirely on poor research, or perhaps none at all. Non-notable? Indeed! Read WP:GNG and then say that without laughing. Andrewa (talk) 18:07, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:DIFFCAPS. If the notability is an issue, it should be taken to Afd and not to RM. No objection for DEMO (fusion power plant) if needed for disambiguation of DEMO. However, currently there is no other article titled DEMO. Beagel (talk) 10:02, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
  • There's more than one thing called "DEMO" listed at the dab page -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 05:17, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

While I agree with the IP above that we shouldn't allow trivial disambiguation using only capitalisation (nor any other trivial difference), at present consensus is to do so, and unless we can overturn that (IMO very silly) consensus we should abide by it. Consensus can change and if we have consensus here to ignore that rule, that might be a valid first step to changing the rule in due course. My opinion unfortunately is that there's not a snowball's chance of that and that we should just accept the rule and move on.

Disclosure: I believe this is an extremely important article because of my belief that there is an enormous amount of misinformation surrounding fusion power, some of it deliberate to the point that some might even see the suggestion above that DEMO is non-notable as part of this campaign. I assume good faith but think we need to be aware. Opponents of fission power put forward among their arguments that fusion will soon make it obsolete, and that fusion will create no significant amounts of nuclear waste. My personal opinion is that maintaining the plasma facing material will create such enormous amounts of high-level nuclear waste when compared to fission power that fusion will be neither economic nor politically acceptable. We will not know for sure in my lifetime, but meantime, good Wikipedia articles are an important safeguard against wild and baseless speculation. Andrewa (talk) 18:07, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I think it's a red herring to discuss whether fission or fusion is better. When it comes to renaming the article, it doesn't matter a damn how you feel. The only question is whether the subject of this article is notable or not - and it clearly is - and whether the name "DEMO" is the common name of the device and sufficiently non-confusing to use as the name of the article. Whether the thing works our not, is safe or not, is efficient or not or is polluting or not is entirely irrelevant to this discussion. SteveBaker (talk) 04:48, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Agree with most of this. I thought a disclosure would be helpful, as my views are well known in some circles and I don't want to be accused of using Wikipedia to push my own barrow. Obviously there's a difficult line to draw here, in that the disclosure itself does necessarily air my own views to some extent at least! But perhaps I went too far in explaining them above. Apologies.

Glad you agree that it clearly is notable. Perhaps we should not speculate as to why the suggestion was made, but again I think we need to be aware that suppressing accurate information about fusion research (and several other technical subject areas relevant to nuclear power) is a goal of some potent political forces.

By far the more relevant issue is that of using capitalisation to disambiguate. Perhaps it's a dead horse, as I suspect, but it was raised rather strongly above. Any thoughts? Andrewa (talk) 18:11, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Timeline updating

The Timeline section gives the dates presented in 2004. To what extent were the dates dependent on the progress of ITER and IFMIF (eg does the engineering design (due 2024) needs results from extended operation of ITER and IFMIF?) and has there been any later revision to the DEMO timeline eg due to delays in ITER ? - Rod57 (talk) 18:03, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Beyond ITER The 2004 timeline shows ITER and IFMIF operating from early 2015 and feeding into the engineering design of DEMO in 2022, 4 years after the start of D-T operation at ITER. ITER is hoped to start D-T tests in 2027 - so maybe the engineering design of DEMO will be delayed approx 9 years. IFMIF construction isn't planned yet - so what will replace that design input ? - Rod57 (talk) 21:54, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Technical challenges on the path to DEMO. Stork. Sept 2011 seems to suggest a 7 year delay and slide 9 says system design can't start until 2029. - Rod57 (talk) 22:49, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

I found the EFDA 2012 roadmap and used it to update the timeline section. - Rod57 (talk) 02:48, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Funding and progress eg on conceptual design

Have any funds been allocated for any part of the DEMO idea ? How many groups are working on a conceptual design ? What progress has been made on a conceptual design since 2004 ? (no hints at Preparing for ITER and developing DEMO) - Rod57 (talk) 18:20, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Is ARIES-ACT1 Design and analysis of the ARIES-ACT1 fusion core a candidate design for DEMO (as implied by the Porkolab presentation (already used [49] in the article criticisms)) ? - Rod57 (talk) 20:16, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Sept 2014 "DEMO might not be a tokamak".

Dec 2014 says DEMO conceptual design starting. - Rod57 (talk) 15:04, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

K-DEMO project. 2012 - Progress in Developing the K-DEMO Device Configuration. Brown et al. 2013 says K-DEMO is, and refs 4 & 5 imply ARIES-RS and ARIES-AT are DEMO candidates. - Rod57 (talk) 02:49, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Technical design section should be deleted

It says nothing specific to DEMO and isn't worth reading - Delete the lot ? - Rod57 (talk) 02:54, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

still true. I'll separate the a few lines at the end based on the Stork 2009 document (142 slides) as Conceptual design ? - Rod57 (talk) 22:15, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Tritium supply

Article currently reads in part both ITER and DEMO will produce their own tritium, dispensing with the fission reactor currently used for this purpose. The source given is archived here and reads in part Global inventory for tritium is presently around twenty kilos, which ITER will draw upon during its operational phase and later Certain modules in ITER will be used during later-stage operation to test tritium breeding concepts.

That's a long way from what the article seems to say. ITER will produce some Tritium, but not nearly enough to fuel itself. Perhaps not very much at all. Andrewa (talk) 01:04, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

National DEMO-phase machines are being developed, e.g., the UK STEP; there is no ITER consortium DEMO: the closest may be the CFETR, which does envisage tritium breeding. So... Johncdraper (talk) 09:06, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes... So? References? Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Many hope that the Tritium supply will not be a problem, just as they hope that the radioactive waste will not be a problem. And we can report these hopes and cite the authorities who hold them. But at present we are reporting these hopes in Wikipedia's voice. That's the problem. Andrewa (talk) 08:01, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Major Updates Needed: DEMOs, Plural

The editor at 150.203.179.56, on 21 October 2013, was right: "DEMO doesn't refer to any specific project, but rather the step beyond ITER - the demonstration of fusion as a source of electrical energy. Many countries have proposed DEMO designs, and it is likely that there will be more than one variant built once break-even thermal energy production has been demonstrated in ITER."

The assumption by Andrewa, 24 October 2013 (UTC) was entirely reasonable: "Have you a source for this? It's a very interesting claim. The unprecedented degree of international cooperation that was necessary to build ITER was motivated entirely by the enormous cost. Several countries have built fusion reactors on the general scale of JET, but there's only ever expected to be one ITER. I'd have thought that similar considerations would have meant that there will only be one DEMO."

Reasonable it was, current it was not. It less-current now, seven years later. As a result, a lot of information in this page is outdated, including the page name which should be plural. Here is a proposal for revision of the lead.

Please discuss (and please help Wikify the urls I've provided)

---

DEMO (DEMOnstration Power Station) is a class of proposed nuclear fusion power stations that are intended to build upon the ITER experimental nuclear fusion reactor. The objectives of DEMO-class reactors are usually understood to lie somewhere between those of ITER and a “first of a kind” commercial station, sometimes referred to as PROTO.

Although some individuals in the fusion community conceived a DEMO reactor as a single international project that would be designed and built by the ITER partners, no such collaboration developed. In 2012, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) established a series of annual DEMO Programme Workshops to discuss the various developing ideas for DEMO-class devices. The European Union, and the other six partners of ITER each have their own plans for a DEMO-class rector, or similar device. The 2019 US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine ‘Final report of the committee on a Strategic Plan for U. S. Burning Plasma Research’ displays the timelines for various DEMO-class reactors except for Russia.

---

Much of the discussions on this page are about the EU DEMO design, and editors should carefully review this article to ensure that the EU DEMO design references are identified as such. Clearly, lots more on this page will need updating, but I'm offering the above as a starting point.

I believe the TIMELINE section "The following timetable was presented at the IAEA Fusion Energy Conference in 2004 by Christopher Llewellyn Smith" is weakly supported and overstates the significance of Smith's presentation. First, the source provided is secondary, not primary. More important, Smith's ideas do not represent any form of official position or consensus. It is one person's conference paper. Moreover, it is easy to find earlier precedents for the DEMO reactor concepts, such as this one, https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:27039500 "The activities on conceptual study of fusion DEMO-reactor were started in Russia in 1992."

StevenBKrivit (talk) 01:27, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Hey, I just wikified your proposed mods. Check out the syntax, it's quite easy to learn.--Geek3 (talk) 16:04, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

@StevenBKrivit: Stephen, as the person who attempted the first major update of this page for years, and as someone who is engaging with ITER senior management on the geopolitics of fusion, I agree that ITER Member States are now de facto treating DEMO as a phase, which means multiple DEMO-class machines. However, for a considerable time, the EU Roadmap (Long Version) has treated DEMO as being a single machine, and while referencing 'DEMO-class design studies' and the CFETR in Section 5.2 of the Roadmap, it largely still does. So, at least from the EU position, I view usage as being in the process of shifting. Would you agree? If so, I might tweak the emphasis in the article slightly. Johncdraper (talk) 08:32, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi John,

Thank you for your considerate response. Yes, I have seen the document from the 1st IAEA DEMO programme workshop before. It certainly does talk about DEMO in the singular. And I have spoken with a few scientists who confirm that, around that time period, there was an informal discussion about an international DEMO. I have also seen documents from subsequent IAEA DEMO Workshops where DEMO is discussed in the plural.

So I do concur that that there was at one time an intent to chart a course for a single international DEMO reactor. However, to my knowledge, (please correct me if am wrong) there was never any forward motion beyond that. No conceptual design activity let alone completed design.

I see that you mentioned how the EU Roadmap has "treated DEMO as being a single machine." Actually they don't. One of the lead scientists in the EU DEMO project is Hartmut Zohm. The head of the EU DEMO programme is Tony Donne. The three of us know each other and have been in regular communication for several years. Some time ago, I asked them both about this. They both are very clear that when *they* write about DEMO, they mean EU DEMO. They simply don't feel the need to write "EU DEMO." I encourage you to ask them yourself if you wish.

I don't know of any facts that indicate more than a passing intent, a decade ago, for an international DEMO project. I am also aware of a lot of rhetoric by the ITER Organization public relations department - as well as Donne's organization, EUROfusion, that creates the appearance (by lack of specificity) that there will be an international DEMO. There is a political agenda to this appearance because an international DEMO is far easier to conceive than 7 partners attempting to convince each of their own countries to fund their own individual reactors, each larger than ITER, without the financial support of the other 34 nation-participants in ITER. So that's why I strongly favor steering this Wikipedia article more in the direction of facts rather than appearances.

And for completeness, and for historical accuracy, I believe it would be appropriate for us to mention the following:

== DEMO HISTORY ==

The DEMO reactor concept goes back to the 1970s. A graph by W.M. Stacey shows that by 1979, there were completed DEMO designs by General Atomics and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

A 1987 IAEA document shows design parameters for a DEMO reactor in the US by Argonne National Laboratory, a DEMO reactor in Italy called FINTOR, (Frascati, Ispra, Napoli Tokamak Reactor), a DEMO reactor at Culham (U.K.) and a European DEMO reactor called NET (Next European Torus). The major parameters of NET were 628 MW net electrical power and 2200 MW gross thermal power output, nearly the same as the current EU DEMO design.

At a June 1986 meeting organized by the IAEA, participants agreed on the following, concise definition for a DEMO reactor: "The DEMO is a complete electric power station demonstrating that all technologies required for a prototype commercial reactor work reliably enough to develop sufficient confidence for such commercial reactors to be competitive with other energy sources. The DEMO does not need to be economic itself nor does it have to be full scale reactor size."

— Preceding unsigned comment added by StevenBKrivit (talk • contribs) 04:31, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

@StevenBKrivit: Okay, that's reasonably clear. Things are in flux right now re whether the EU DEMO will be international. I think you should add the DEMO History section. But, the 1986 paragraph would come before the 1987 paragraph, right? Johncdraper (talk) 08:56, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

References