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>Why is it so underfunded? - Oil/coal/natural gas lobbyists and interests which hinder tax payer funded research. - The fact that there is no guarantee we wil
by ryanmercer 8y ago
>Why is it so underfunded?
- Oil/coal/natural gas lobbyists and interests which hinder tax payer funded research.
- The fact that there is no guarantee we will ever figure it out and no idea whatsoever as to how much it will cost to figure it out. Investors like returns, in their lifetime, leaving largely tax payer funded research as the greatest source of funds... see above.
And then with government-funded research... if a government figures out fusion, what do you do with it? Do you license it to private industry? Do you make state-owned power plants?
If you give it to private it industry, it's going to get to other nations. If it gets to other nations, you lose non-electrical power and create potential strategic issues, which means you are motivated NOT to share the technology.
It sucks.
I wish we could all just get along, fund stuff like this and space exploration, and get over petty politics before our species goes extinct.
- DennisP 8y agoGiven climate change, giving it to other nations is exactly the right thing to do, even from a purely self-interested perspective. Nobody wins if coal plants in China tip us into runaway warming.
- andygates 8y agoAnd that's another reason ITER et al are very broad international projects: everyone wins when the project wins, and nobody can stall one project by poaching Von Braun for their own scheme.
- pfdietz 8y agoI'd argue fusion is actually overfunded, if you go by its likelihood to actually deliver a competitive source of energy. A clean sheet energy R&D program would invest very little in nuclear fusion.