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Fusion power
Bouillabaisse sushi
Feb 5th 2004
From The Economist print edition
A site will soon be chosen for a new international fusion reactor. This is a pity
IF AVANT-GARDE cuisine is any guide, Japanese-French fusion does not work all that well. And the interminable discussions over the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) suggest that what is true of cooking is true of physics. Japan and France (along with much of the rest of Europe, under the banner of an organisation called Euratom) are supposed to be joining America, China, Russia and South Korea in a project called ITER, which aims to build a fusion reactor.
Such a reactor would generate power by merging the nuclei of hydrogen atoms, and thus liberating the so-called binding energy whose absence, paradoxically, helps to hold complicated atomic nuclei together. This is a process similar to the one that powers the sun. Moreover, unlike previous attempts to do so, ITER would produce more energy than it consumed in getting the hydrogen nuclei hot enough to fuse in the first place.
The current imbroglio is over who gets the reactor, and with it the economic boost of a multibillion-dollar construction project. The two sites remaining in the competition are Cadarache in France and Rokkasho in Japan.
America is siding with Japan, while the French have the backing of the Chinese and the Russians. The South Koreans seem to be sitting on the fence, although leaning--if that is not stretching the metaphor too far--towards Europe. Meetings of ministers in December failed to resolve the issue (indeed, Canada withdrew from the project entirely) and the date for a decision keeps getting pushed back. According to spokesmen from the Japanese embassy in London, early March is now the target.
It is unusual for ministers to be discussing scientific projects of this nature, even ones as expensive as ITER. But the reason for all the attention is not that politicians have suddenly developed a particular interest in physics, but that the question of where to put ITER has become--so observers believe--another proxy for the debate over the war on Iraq. America is commonly thought to be supporting Rokkasho in return for Japan's support in Iraq. Meanwhile, the Russians and Chinese may be trying to spite the Americans by siding with the French. Nor are the French helping the situation by threatening (unlike the Japanese) to pull out of the project entirely if they do not get their way.
One ludicrous compromise would place the reactor in Japan and the data and control centre in France, or vice versa. Such gerrymandering recalls the worst of the International Space Station, a collaborative effort which is a scientific boondoggle, and contrasts badly with collaborations such as CERN, the European centre for particle physics, which is a model for international co-operation on big science projects. So, given ITER's price tag (about $5 billion to build, and another $5 billion in running costs for a 20-year operational lifespan and a ten-year decommissioning period), it might not be a bad outcome if the whole thing did go belly up. Although visionaries have long been lured to the idea of fusion because the fuel, being a constituent of water, is unlikely ever to run out, the economics of the process are dubious.
Boon or boondoggle?
Sceptics (including this newspaper) have pointed out that workable fusion power has seemed perpetually 30 years away since the first experiments were done in the 1950s. Even if the 30-year horizon were actually true on this occasion, the discount rate over three decades, and the opportunity cost of all those billions, would probably make it uneconomic. Nor is the world in obvious need of another way to generate electricity.
There are, of course, arguments on the other side. On the 30-year-horizon question Robert Goldston, the head of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), America's premier fusion laboratory, points out that, although a forecast made in 1980 that an ITER-like project would be finished by now has obviously not come true, that projection relied on America's fusion budget increasing three-fold. Instead, he says, the budget was slashed by a factor of three.
In addition, Gia Tuong Hoang and Jean Jacquinot of Euratom point out in an article in the January issue of Physics Today that the performance of fusion reactors like those at PPPL and ITER has been doubling every 1.8 years. This, they observe, beats Moore's law, the famous observation that the number of transistors on a computer chip doubles every two years.
On the face of it, that sounds impressive. But even if this trend continues, it will take, according to a report compiled last year by Britain's Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, until 2043 for fusion to become commercially viable. This forecast is even worse than the traditional 30-year horizon. A doubling every 1.8 years would lead to something like a 4m-fold improvement in performance over four decades. That sounds impressive but, in fact, it shows just how primitive existing fusion technology is. And the analogy with Moore's law is specious for another reason. Even the most primitive computer chips were useful, and found a market. Commercially, fusion is just money down the drain until a reactor that is powerful and reliable enough can be built.
And so fusion advocates are reduced to the last refuge of the desperate engineer--spin-offs. No doubt these would come. Reactors of the ITER design, known as tokamaks (from the Russian for "toroidal magnetic chamber"), look like giant, hollow doughnuts. They work by heating special isotopes of hydrogen contained in the hollow of the doughnut to the point where the electrons and atomic nuclei in the gas part company to create an electrically conducting mixture called a plasma. Further heating speeds the nuclei up to the point where, if they collide, they merge and release the binding energy that will eventually, so the plan goes, be harnessed to make electricity.
Some spin-offs may come from a better understanding of high-temperature plasmas, though they are hard to predict. More plausible spin-offs would be in the field of superconductivity. The electromagnets needed to "confine" the hydrogen while it is heated to fusion temperatures will rely on superconducting wire to feed electricity to them. Superconductivity (which employs a combination of special materials and low temperatures to achieve resistance-free electrical transmission) is another "nearly" technology which has been promising more than it has delivered for many decades. But it is a lot more "nearly" than fusion, and a concerted, technically demanding push in this area might, just, bring it to the point where it could break out of the specialist applications to which it is now confined and contribute to, say, long-distance power transmission.
Whether these spin-offs would justify the price-tag, though, is questionable. If they are worth pursuing, it would surely be better to invest in projects focused on them, rather than hoping they will magically emerge from something else. All in all, ITER seems more boondoggle than boon. Governments should spend their research money on other things.
Copyright ? 2004 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
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Cosmology
Things fall apart
Feb 5th 2004
From The Economist print edition
What if the dark energy and dark matter essential to modern explanations of the universe don't really exist?
IT WAS beautiful, complex and wrong. In 150AD, Ptolemy of Alexandria published his theory of epicycles--the idea that the moon, the sun and the planets moved in circles which were moving in circles which were moving in circles around the Earth. This theory explained the motion of celestial objects to an astonishing degree of precision. It was, however, what computer programmers call a kludge: a dirty, inelegant solution. Some 1,500 years later, Johannes Kepler, a German astronomer, replaced the whole complex edifice with three simple laws.
Some people think modern astronomy is based on a kludge similar to Ptolemy's. At the moment, the received wisdom is that the obvious stuff in the universe--stars, planets, gas clouds and so on--is actually only 4% of its total content. About another quarter is so-called cold, dark matter, which is made of different particles from the familiar sort of matter, and can interact with the latter only via gravity. The remaining 70% is even stranger. It is known as dark energy, and acts to push the universe apart. However, the existence of cold, dark matter and dark energy has to be inferred from their effects on the visible, familiar stuff. If something else is actually causing those effects, the whole theoretical edifice would come crashing down.
According to a paper just published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society by Tom Shanks and his colleagues at the University of Durham, in England, that might be about to happen. Many of the inferences about dark matter and dark energy come from detailed observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). This is radiation that pervades space, and is the earliest remnant of the Big Bang which is thought to have started it all. Small irregularities in the CMB have been used to deduce what the early universe looked like, and thus how much cold, dark matter and dark energy there is around.
Dr Shanks thinks these irregularities may have been misinterpreted. He and his colleagues have been analysing data on the CMB that were collected by WMAP, a satellite launched in 2001 by NASA, America's space agency. They have compared these data with those from telescopic surveys of galaxy clusters, and have found correlations between the two which, they say, indicate that the clusters are adding to the energy of the CMB by a process called inverse Compton scattering, in which hot gas boosts the energy of the microwaves. That, they say, might be enough to explain the irregularities without resorting to ghostly dark matter and energy.
Dr Shanks is not the only person questioning the status quo. In a pair of papers published in a December issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Sebastien Vauclair of the Astrophysics Laboratory of the Midi-Pyr?n?es, in Toulouse, and his colleagues also report the use of galaxy clusters to question the existence of dark energy. But their method uses the clusters in a completely different way from Dr Shanks, and thus opens a second flank against the conventional wisdom.
Cosmological theory says that the relationship between the mass of a galaxy cluster and its age is a test of the value of the "density parameter" of the universe. The density parameter is, in turn, a measure of just how much normal matter, dark matter and dark energy there is. But because the mass of a cluster is difficult to measure directly, astronomers have to infer it from computer models which tell them how the temperature of the gas in a cluster depends on that cluster's mass.
Even measuring the temperature of a cluster is difficult, though. What is easy to measure is its luminosity. And that should be enough, since luminosity and temperature are related. All you need to know are the details of the relationship, and by measuring luminosity you can backtrack to temperature and then to mass.
That has been done for nearby clusters, but not for distant ones which, because of the time light has taken to travel from them to Earth, provide a snapshot of earlier times. So Dr Vauclair and his colleagues used XMM-Newton, a European X-ray-observation satellite that was launched in 1999, to measure the X-ray luminosities and the temperatures of eight distant clusters of galaxies. They then compared the results with those from closer (and therefore apparently older) clusters.
The upshot was that the relationship between mass and age did not match the predictions of conventional theory. It did, however, match an alternative model with a much higher density of "ordinary" matter in it.
That does not mean conventional theory is yet dead. The Newton observations are at the limits of accuracy, so a mistake could have crept in. Or it could be that astronomers have misunderstood how galaxy clusters evolve. Changing that understanding would be uncomfortable, but not nearly as uncomfortable as throwing out cold, dark matter and dark energy.
On the other hand, a universe that requires three completely different sorts of stuff to explain its essence does have a whiff of epicycles about it. As Albert Einstein supposedly said, "Physics should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Put Dr Shanks's and Dr Vauclair's observations together, and one cannot help but wonder whether Ptolemy might soon have some company in the annals of convoluted, discarded theories.
Copyright ? 2004 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

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Big Brother in Britain: Does more surveillance work?
By Mark Rice-Oxley | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
KINGSTON, ENGLAND - It was all over in 54 seconds. One moment the four friends were strolling home after a night out, the next they were nursing injuries inflicted by a knife-wielding assailant.
Another sad tale of crime and impunity in modern Britain? Not quite, for the incident last April in this town in southeast England was filmed from start to finish on surveillance cameras. Police were rapidly alerted; a suspect was quickly identified, apprehended, convicted, and sentenced. Case closed.
It's successes like these that are giving CCTV, or closed-circuit television, a good name in Britain. The technology has become popular and widespread, with the result that Britons are by far the most watched people on earth, with one camera for every 14 people, according to recent estimates.
More than 4 million cameras observe all aspects of life, from town centers to transport systems, office towers to banks, commercial zones to residential areas, restaurants, bars, and even churches.
In 1990, just three towns had systems. Now some 500 do, after a decade in which more than ?250 million ($460 million) of public money was funneled into CCTV systems.
"The British public seem to like it," says Martin Gill, professor of criminology at Leicester University. "One of the great problems of our lives is crime and disorder, and people feel it can be tackled by having cameras on the wall."
But serious question marks hang over the technology and its dark Orwellian implications. Many cameras are hidden or not signposted, in breach of regulations. Several cases of abuse have been documented, raising fears of snooping or worse.
Civil liberty groups complain that the intrusive lens scanning for suspicious characters contravenes that pillar of civil society - the presumption of innocence.
Research meanwhile suggests that the camera systems may not actually deter criminals.
"One of the concerns about CCTV is that it can give a false sense of security," says Barry Hugill of Liberty, a civil liberties and human rights group based in London. "I suspect that the reason why people are happy with CCTV is that they say it makes us safer and stops crime. But we don't think there's evidence that that is the case."
Indeed, research has yet to support the case for CCTV.
A government review 18 months ago found that security cameras were effective in tackling vehicle crime but had limited effect on other crimes. Improved streetlighting recorded better results.
A new report being drawn up by Professor Gill for the government promises to be no more favorable in its assessment of CCTV as a crime-fighting tool.
"I have talked to offenders about this," says Gill. "They say they are not concerned by security cameras, unless they were actually caught by one."
Britain is a case apart from Europe, where most countries embraced the technology only in the late 1990s - and then with caution. According to researchers now preparing a report on comparative systems, France tends to limit coverage to high-risk locations and public buildings, while in Spain, surveillance is tightly controlled. In Austria, it is used primarily for traffic and transport systems. In Germany, it was severely restricted in public spaces until recently.
But in Britain, the public has had a soft spot for CCTV ever since it was used to dramatic effect to solve a wretched crime more than 11 years ago.
Most people can still picture the grainy footage of two juveniles leading 2-year-old Jamie Bulger by the hand out of a shopping mall in Liverpool. He was found dead days later. Without those images, experts say, police would have been looking for a culprit with an entirely different profile from the 11-year-old offenders.
"Since Jamie Bulger's case over here, the public see CCTV not as Big Brother but as a benevolent father," says Peter Fry, director of the CCTV user group, a 600-member association of organizations who use the technology.
"If you ask the public what they would like to do about crime, No. 1 is more police on the street and No. 2 is more CCTV," he adds.
The trend coincides with a growing culture of snooping in Britain, where speed cameras rule the highway, residents post their own cameras to spy on trespassers, and the favorite TV shows revolve around hidden cameras observing bland people lounging around.
But not everyone is reassured by the idea of lenses capable of reading a car license plate from half a mile away. Anecdotal evidence suggests the technology can be used for voyeurism, and concerns remain about who gets access to the tapes, which are typically held for a month before being erased.
In one case, a man's attempted suicide was caught on camera and passed on to television. Mr Lazell says he sometimes gets individuals calling on him to use the technology to spy on partners.
Prof. Clive Norris, deputy director of the center for criminological research at Sheffield University, told a recent conference that the technology "enables people to be tracked and monitored and harassed and socially excluded on the basis that they do not fit into the category of people that a council or shopping center wants to see in a public space."
Legislation requires authorities to clearly signal where cameras are in operation, yet as many as 80 percent are thought to break this rule.
Some cameras are being developed with face-recognition technology that raises further alarms.
"There are privacy concerns," says Mr Hugill of Liberty. "There are people who believe that we have fundamental human right to go about our business without being spied on. CCTV is spying. It's monitoring your every move."
Naturally, surveillance enthusiasts scoff at such logic, saying that operators will not be focusing on the average member of the public, but on anyone acting out of the ordinary.
For Mr. Lazell, it's a trade-off: a little liberty for greater security.
"All progress offers compromise," he comments. "Would you be prepared to take down all cameras in the Underground and let terrorists move about without being seen?"
from the February 06, 2004 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0206/p07s02-woeu.html

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Britain's latest security bid: a national ID card
Blair's cabinet announced this week that it will phase in cards that will ultimately become mandatory.
By Mark Rice-Oxley | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
LONDON - Britain's growing preoccupation with Big Brother surveillance is set to be transformed by government plans to issue identity cards.
In a clear sign of a continuing post-9/11 concern for security, Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet served notice this week of its intention to introduce the high-tech cards, which will contain personal details and biometric data about individuals.
The cards will be linked to a national database that will be able to authenticate identities. The system is to be phased in over several years, but the government ultimately expects it to be compulsory.
Police have welcomed the move, saying it will help combat terrorism and illegal immigration. The government also hopes to wield the technology to fight employment and benefit fraud.
But opponents argue that the move will do little to hamper real criminals or terrorists, and mutter darkly about Orwellian tendencies and assaults on personal freedoms.
There is also concern about the scheme's steep cost, evaluated at about ?3 billion ($5 billion), not to mention the untried technology, which includes iris scanning and possibly fingerprinting for 60 million people.
"We think it's unnecessary, expensive, and will almost certainly lead to infringement of basic civil liberties," says Barry Hugill of the human rights group Liberty. "It is stated that an ID card would help in the battle against terrorism. I have never seen any evidence to back this up."
The ID program will enhance a growing surveillance culture in a country that often is extremely touchy on issues such as asylum, immigration, terrorism and street crime.
It also puts Britain out in front of five English-speaking countries that have mulled the idea - though only Canada is actively examining a national card.
Mindful of the controversy, the British plan involves a gradual approach. The national database will be built over the next three years, and the card will be tested on a trial group and then offered as a voluntary piece of ID.
But it will be compulsory for anyone replacing an expiring passport or applying for a new driver's license.
The country's 4.6 million foreign nationals will also be required to have the card. Individuals will have to bear the cost - as much as ?77 ($130) - and police and security services will be able to access the data.
The government says that within 10 years, participation will be at 80 percent, paving the way for compulsory, universal cards, which would be needed for everything from job interviews to health checkups and benefit claims. It claims a 60 percent public approval rating in its own surveys.
"It is important to move towards a system where we are able to minimize the risks of fraud and abuse and, indeed, minimize the threats to our security," Mr. Blair said as the plans were unveiled this week.
The counterterrorism argument is a powerful one in Britain at the moment. Earlier this week, a survey by the Control Risks Group consultancy found London to be the preeminent terrorist target in Western Europe.
Police chief Sir John Stevens said that it was "absolutely essential" to have proper means of identification given the "dangerous world we live in."
But critics note that the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 atrocities in New York were all in possession of forged papers.
"The concept that the card will tackle benefit fraud or terrorism is flawed," says Mark Oaten, a member of parliament for the opposition Liberal Democrats. "It could create a false sense of security. The determined terrorist will get through anyway."
Continental Europe's record provides little encouragement. France was no safer from Algerian terrorists in the 1990s because of its ID card. Russian paperwork today appears useless in the face of Chechen suicide bombers.
And police tendencies in these and other countries to target ethnic minorities in ID checks merely fosters resentment. "Anyone dark-skinned is more likely to be targeted," says Mr. Hugill, insisting that this will be the case in Britain, where the police have been accused of being institutionally racist. "The fear remains that cards would lead to the targeting of nonwhite citizens, especially in the current climate of near hysteria surrounding asylum seekers."
"The minute you start valuing security more than liberty, you will create ... problems of resentment and alienation among minority groups," he adds. "This could create an atmosphere in which it is easier for fundamentalists to recruit."
Questions have also been raised about the formidable task of collating - and safeguarding - information. Liberty and other rights groups argue that the cards are a further affront to personal freedom and privacy in a society already bristling with closed-circuit systems and road-traffic cameras.
Not everyone buys theories of a burgeoning Big Brother society. "Anyone who has worked in government thinks it laughable that the state can be watching you 24 hours a day," says Nick Pearce, acting director of the Institute for Public Policy Research. "The Anglo-Saxon world is addressing this debate from a new perspective," he says. "No one pretends ID cards are the answer to terrorism. But they are starting to ask what we need to do to secure our identity in the world and manage migration better."

from the November 14, 2003 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1114/p06s01-woeu.html