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Most of the funding I've seen has gone into maintenance for existing projects, nuclear weapons research, and the ITER boondoggle. But if you have any sources of

Most of the funding I've seen has gone into maintenance for existing projects, nuclear weapons research, and the ITER boondoggle. But if you have any sources of projects that have received billions of dollars that have been about power creation, I'm 100% open to changing my tune.

ChrisArgyle 11y ago
Check out the US DOE budget [1]. For fusion energy alone they spent ~$400 million per year for the last several years. In addition they spent ~$1.3b on nuclear physics and high energy physics. From my experience as an undergrad lab assistant I can tell you that many of the funded physics experiments are indirectly related to fusion research because they study the byproducts of our best understood fusion reactor, the sun. [1] http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/04/f0/Highlights.pdf http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/04/f0/Highlights.pdf edit: clarity
- guimarin 11y ago
  For anyone who reads this comment and is confused about what we are talking about. On page 17, Fusion research for the NIF of ~480M is outlined. We could debate for a long time about how this is more of PR move, and not realistic. In the parent, this is where I talk about Nuclear Weapons research. For this to make power you literally need to drop millions of pellets of gold plated deuterium one after the other to create 'power', all the while firing the lasers like 100X faster than they can currently be fired. You decide if that's attainable. On page 44, the supposed ~400M a year is outlined and in the discussion notes. "The FY 2014 Budget Request funds U.S. contributions to the ITER project for long-lead procurements required in construction of the facility; the majority of these contributions will be spent on in-kind hardware sourced from U.S. industries, national laboratories, and universities" Which is basically a retelling of my comment about the ITER 'boondoggle'. There is also a gov't sentence on how they money will go to existing projects, which is really lip service to Fusion research and mostly used for Public Education (very good!) General research on the 'sun' is very far afield to say that it applies to harnessing fusion to create electricity.

ChrisArgyle 11y ago

Check out the US DOE budget [1]. For fusion energy alone they spent ~$400 million per year for the last several years. In addition they spent ~$1.3b on nuclear physics and high energy physics. From my experience as an undergrad lab assistant I can tell you that many of the funded physics experiments are indirectly related to fusion research because they study the byproducts of our best understood fusion reactor, the sun. [1] http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/04/f0/Highlights.pdf http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/04/f0/Highlights.pdf edit: clarity

guimarin 11y ago
For anyone who reads this comment and is confused about what we are talking about. On page 17, Fusion research for the NIF of ~480M is outlined. We could debate for a long time about how this is more of PR move, and not realistic. In the parent, this is where I talk about Nuclear Weapons research. For this to make power you literally need to drop millions of pellets of gold plated deuterium one after the other to create 'power', all the while firing the lasers like 100X faster than they can currently be fired. You decide if that's attainable. On page 44, the supposed ~400M a year is outlined and in the discussion notes. "The FY 2014 Budget Request funds U.S. contributions to the ITER project for long-lead procurements required in construction of the facility; the majority of these contributions will be spent on in-kind hardware sourced from U.S. industries, national laboratories, and universities" Which is basically a retelling of my comment about the ITER 'boondoggle'. There is also a gov't sentence on how they money will go to existing projects, which is really lip service to Fusion research and mostly used for Public Education (very good!) General research on the 'sun' is very far afield to say that it applies to harnessing fusion to create electricity.