13 ms·

From the comments: > ITER was designed before the newest generations of superconductors were available. ITER is now succumbing to the escalation of commitment

From the comments: > ITER was designed before the newest generations of superconductors were available. ITER is now succumbing to the escalation of commitment that sunk-costs engender. SPARK [sic] has the advantage of an agile development model and new materials and technology that combined, dramatically shortens the path to breakeven and the reduction in costs to do so. Just imagine where we'd be if fusion science were given equal footing with other investment endeavors.

tasty_freeze 8y ago
The US spends more than $850B every single year on the military. If a tiny fraction of that was spent in gaining complete energy independence, it would pay for itself in that we wouldn't need as big of a military.
- reubenswartz 8y ago
  A wonderful thought, but the size of the military budget is a feature, not a bug, for those who allocate it.
  - jacobush 8y ago
    Maybe we can get the military industrial complex into the nuclear industrial complex instead? Though one must be careful what one is wishing for I guess.
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      From the "Schlock Mercenary" web comic: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a really big gun." Yes, be careful what you wish for.
    - reubenswartz 8y ago
      For the trillions we have flushed down the drain in the Middle East, we could have weaned ourselves off foreign oil with renewables, without even getting into nuclear. Sadly, it goes back to the “feature, not a big” thing. :(
- _iyig 8y ago
  It may surprise you to hear that the U.S. is on track for energy independence by 2022, based on increased American oil and gas production (third-biggest oil producing country in the world) and flat domestic demand. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/07/united-states-will-be-a-net-energy-exporter.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/07/united-states-will-be-a-net-...
  - gameswithgo 8y ago
    Yes, but that won't last very long.
    - pitaj 8y ago
      What do you mean?
      - api 8y ago
        Oil and gas are non-renewable.
      - jhallenworld 8y ago
        He probably means this: https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/energy/environmental-costs-benefits-fracking https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/energy/e... Initial production after fracking is high, but drops off fast.
      - Coincoin 8y ago
        “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”
      - gameswithgo 8y ago
        There is a fixed amount of oil in the earth. The next barrel of oil is always harder to get at than the last. The USA had a major technical revolution in getting fracking to work, and the price of oil got high enough for it to be profitable, and we did something amazing and are pumping a ton more oil than we were previously. Eventually that frackable oil will run low again too. The price of oil will go up, making perhaps new reserves proftable, maybe those won't be int he USA, or maybe solar/wind will be more attractive than oil at that point. it is unknown! but we certainly shouldn't make long term 10-20-50 year plans on the assumption that the USA will be energy independent due to oil.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  Pumping a few billion into fusion research would also be a great jobs program to train highly qualified people.
- eloff 8y ago
  Not to get too far off track, but I always thought in a magical alternate universe in which I could make US policy, I'd modernize the nuclear Arsenal and ditch spending on everything else in the military. Couldn't play global policeman anymore, but nobody seems grateful to the US for that anyway. And let's face it, if it really came to a confrontation with another world power, it will end in nuclear war even if it doesn't start out like that. It seems to me that everyone is still fighting the last war. Why do you need conventional forces in a nuclear world?
  - ant6n 8y ago
    Influence is gained and lost in proxy wars
  - Misdicorl 8y ago
    Global police isn't the goal it's the method. The goal is influence and access to global resources.
  - pdonis 8y ago
    > Why do you need conventional forces in a nuclear world? Because you don't want your only options for dealing with other countries to be "do nothing" and "start a nuclear war".
    - eloff 8y ago
      What's wrong with do nothing? What business is of the US what happens in the rest of the world? I mean as much as people criticize the role they played, I think the world is better off for it. But it's a thankless job. Turning inward and leaving the world to go as it will is a valid strategy. Perhaps even the best one for the US. Nukes are good enough for self defense.
      - hulahoof 8y ago
        Would you fire the nukes if a non-mainland territory like Guam or Puerto Rico was invaded? What if the invaders are non-nuclear armed? There is a wide range of responses between nothing and total nuclear annihilation, even without world police status.
- lifeformed 8y ago
  One thing I think about is how boring and unambitious our institutions are. Apple has a quarter trillion in cash just sitting around. They could develop fusion or build some space stations. Bezos has 150B. We are spending a trillion on some shitty planes. The big money holders only think about incrementing some integers in their bank account. Yeah, yeah, I know why. It's just so... lame. Build a moon colony! Cure cancer! Create free energy! Make experimental cities! Push the limits of human civilization! No, let's instead dump the fruits of society into optimizing ads and making our phones 20 microns thinner and bombing some poor people.
  - DennisP 8y ago
    Bezos is spending a billion a year on colonizing space.
pfdietz 8y ago
If fusion were treated on an equal footing with other endeavors it would get almost no funding, because examined without sunk cost thinking it isn't at all promising as an energy source.
- i_am_proteus 8y ago
  I think it would be more accurate to say these things about fusion energy: - It is not viable yet, and probably won't be for decades, if at all - Funding necessary to explore fusion energy's viability is at least order of magnitude $10^10 - The 'steady-state' economics of fusion energy, should it become viable, cannot presently be estimated with any real fidelity
  - robotrout 8y ago
    After reading the book "A Piece of the Sun - The Quest for Fusion Energy", I came to understand just how hairy these reactors have grown. A simple idea has needed to have layer upon layer of complexity added to it, up until the point that I'm not sure it would be viable even if it did work in the lab. Not only will each commercial reactor, should anybody attempt one, be extremely complex and therefore non-robust, but there's still the issue of neutron contamination, making the whole thing brittle and ready for the nuclear waste disposal team to rip out most of it in a few years time.
    - Retric 8y ago
      A lot of the current complexity relates to the fact these are experiments not production systems. We want to be able to change a great deal of different things with high precision while gathering data, not simply generate power. Production systems would likely have much higher gas contamination for example and operate at a steady state for months. Also, ITER is actually rather small from a power production standpoint, 500MW thermal power ~= 150MW of electricity where we have plenty of fusion reactors several times that size. Luckily things get much easier when you scale fusion power.
      - 8y ago

tasty_freeze 8y ago

The US spends more than $850B every single year on the military. If a tiny fraction of that was spent in gaining complete energy independence, it would pay for itself in that we wouldn't need as big of a military.

reubenswartz 8y ago
A wonderful thought, but the size of the military budget is a feature, not a bug, for those who allocate it.
- jacobush 8y ago
  Maybe we can get the military industrial complex into the nuclear industrial complex instead? Though one must be careful what one is wishing for I guess.
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    From the "Schlock Mercenary" web comic: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a really big gun." Yes, be careful what you wish for.
  - reubenswartz 8y ago
    For the trillions we have flushed down the drain in the Middle East, we could have weaned ourselves off foreign oil with renewables, without even getting into nuclear. Sadly, it goes back to the “feature, not a big” thing. :(
_iyig 8y ago
It may surprise you to hear that the U.S. is on track for energy independence by 2022, based on increased American oil and gas production (third-biggest oil producing country in the world) and flat domestic demand. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/07/united-states-will-be-a-net-energy-exporter.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/07/united-states-will-be-a-net-...
- gameswithgo 8y ago
  Yes, but that won't last very long.
  - pitaj 8y ago
    What do you mean?
    - api 8y ago
      Oil and gas are non-renewable.
    - jhallenworld 8y ago
      He probably means this: https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/energy/environmental-costs-benefits-fracking https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/energy/e... Initial production after fracking is high, but drops off fast.
    - Coincoin 8y ago
      “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”
    - gameswithgo 8y ago
      There is a fixed amount of oil in the earth. The next barrel of oil is always harder to get at than the last. The USA had a major technical revolution in getting fracking to work, and the price of oil got high enough for it to be profitable, and we did something amazing and are pumping a ton more oil than we were previously. Eventually that frackable oil will run low again too. The price of oil will go up, making perhaps new reserves proftable, maybe those won't be int he USA, or maybe solar/wind will be more attractive than oil at that point. it is unknown! but we certainly shouldn't make long term 10-20-50 year plans on the assumption that the USA will be energy independent due to oil.
maxxxxx 8y ago
Pumping a few billion into fusion research would also be a great jobs program to train highly qualified people.
eloff 8y ago
Not to get too far off track, but I always thought in a magical alternate universe in which I could make US policy, I'd modernize the nuclear Arsenal and ditch spending on everything else in the military. Couldn't play global policeman anymore, but nobody seems grateful to the US for that anyway. And let's face it, if it really came to a confrontation with another world power, it will end in nuclear war even if it doesn't start out like that. It seems to me that everyone is still fighting the last war. Why do you need conventional forces in a nuclear world?
- ant6n 8y ago
  Influence is gained and lost in proxy wars
- Misdicorl 8y ago
  Global police isn't the goal it's the method. The goal is influence and access to global resources.
- pdonis 8y ago
  > Why do you need conventional forces in a nuclear world? Because you don't want your only options for dealing with other countries to be "do nothing" and "start a nuclear war".
  - eloff 8y ago
    What's wrong with do nothing? What business is of the US what happens in the rest of the world? I mean as much as people criticize the role they played, I think the world is better off for it. But it's a thankless job. Turning inward and leaving the world to go as it will is a valid strategy. Perhaps even the best one for the US. Nukes are good enough for self defense.
    - hulahoof 8y ago
      Would you fire the nukes if a non-mainland territory like Guam or Puerto Rico was invaded? What if the invaders are non-nuclear armed? There is a wide range of responses between nothing and total nuclear annihilation, even without world police status.
lifeformed 8y ago
One thing I think about is how boring and unambitious our institutions are. Apple has a quarter trillion in cash just sitting around. They could develop fusion or build some space stations. Bezos has 150B. We are spending a trillion on some shitty planes. The big money holders only think about incrementing some integers in their bank account. Yeah, yeah, I know why. It's just so... lame. Build a moon colony! Cure cancer! Create free energy! Make experimental cities! Push the limits of human civilization! No, let's instead dump the fruits of society into optimizing ads and making our phones 20 microns thinner and bombing some poor people.
- DennisP 8y ago
  Bezos is spending a billion a year on colonizing space.

pfdietz 8y ago

If fusion were treated on an equal footing with other endeavors it would get almost no funding, because examined without sunk cost thinking it isn't at all promising as an energy source.

i_am_proteus 8y ago
I think it would be more accurate to say these things about fusion energy: - It is not viable yet, and probably won't be for decades, if at all - Funding necessary to explore fusion energy's viability is at least order of magnitude $10^10 - The 'steady-state' economics of fusion energy, should it become viable, cannot presently be estimated with any real fidelity
- robotrout 8y ago
  After reading the book "A Piece of the Sun - The Quest for Fusion Energy", I came to understand just how hairy these reactors have grown. A simple idea has needed to have layer upon layer of complexity added to it, up until the point that I'm not sure it would be viable even if it did work in the lab. Not only will each commercial reactor, should anybody attempt one, be extremely complex and therefore non-robust, but there's still the issue of neutron contamination, making the whole thing brittle and ready for the nuclear waste disposal team to rip out most of it in a few years time.
  - Retric 8y ago
    A lot of the current complexity relates to the fact these are experiments not production systems. We want to be able to change a great deal of different things with high precision while gathering data, not simply generate power. Production systems would likely have much higher gas contamination for example and operate at a steady state for months. Also, ITER is actually rather small from a power production standpoint, 500MW thermal power ~= 150MW of electricity where we have plenty of fusion reactors several times that size. Luckily things get much easier when you scale fusion power.
    - 8y ago