4 ms·

ITER is far behind that growth curve because its cost is beyond what a university or national research lab is filling to fund. To unlike a lot of other projects

ITER is far behind that growth curve because its cost is beyond what a university or national research lab is filling to fund. To unlike a lot of other projects before it, it is this massively political beast. Involving politician by itself introduces at least a decade of delay. The triple product is the correct figure of merit and JT-60U did great there. But it was a plasma experiment and did not have the shielding that is necessary to run it with D-T fuel that produces a lot of neutron during fusion. But we know a lot more about neutron fielding than we know about magnetically confined fusion. Improving the plasma handling and the triple product is much harder than adding shielding.

credit_guy 7y ago
> The triple product is the correct figure of merit and JT-60U did great there. Look. If you have a graph where you show a certain point called "figure-of-merit" being above a so called break-even point, every layperson in this world will assume that you get more energy out than you put in. If you then say that it's breakeven for a different reaction, they'll either question your sanity, or they'll accuse you of bait-and-switch. If you don't understand why you get your funding cut, you'll think life is unjust or cruel. Other people will nod sympathetically when you'll complain of the unfairness of this world , but secretly they'll disagree with you.
- petschge 7y ago
  Well, lay people have no clue. And probably should not be in charge of funding.
  - credit_guy 7y ago
    The money comes from them, you know? One way or another, they are in charge of funding, and the way to help them make better decision is to be truthful, not to massage the message (you want to tell me it's really ok to compare a figure of merit for a reaction with the breakeven point for another reaction? * ) So, here's what Zubrin has to say about nuclear fusion and ITER [1]: "While, driven by international rivalry, the world's national fusion programs did advance forcefully between 1960 and 1990, the decision to consolidate all of them into a unified global effort to build the International Experiment Reactor (ITER) has caused nearly all progress to screech to a halt since the 1990s." Why did this happen? Could it be because laypeople in charge of funding listened to scientists lobbying for a cool (and expensive) magaproject? [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HDSSKHJ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HDSSKHJ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?... ( * ) in all fairness, you only argued that the figure-of-merit it a good metric, which I don't contest.

credit_guy 7y ago

> The triple product is the correct figure of merit and JT-60U did great there. Look. If you have a graph where you show a certain point called "figure-of-merit" being above a so called break-even point, every layperson in this world will assume that you get more energy out than you put in. If you then say that it's breakeven for a different reaction, they'll either question your sanity, or they'll accuse you of bait-and-switch. If you don't understand why you get your funding cut, you'll think life is unjust or cruel. Other people will nod sympathetically when you'll complain of the unfairness of this world , but secretly they'll disagree with you.

petschge 7y ago
Well, lay people have no clue. And probably should not be in charge of funding.
- credit_guy 7y ago
  The money comes from them, you know? One way or another, they are in charge of funding, and the way to help them make better decision is to be truthful, not to massage the message (you want to tell me it's really ok to compare a figure of merit for a reaction with the breakeven point for another reaction? * ) So, here's what Zubrin has to say about nuclear fusion and ITER [1]: "While, driven by international rivalry, the world's national fusion programs did advance forcefully between 1960 and 1990, the decision to consolidate all of them into a unified global effort to build the International Experiment Reactor (ITER) has caused nearly all progress to screech to a halt since the 1990s." Why did this happen? Could it be because laypeople in charge of funding listened to scientists lobbying for a cool (and expensive) magaproject? [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HDSSKHJ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HDSSKHJ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?... ( * ) in all fairness, you only argued that the figure-of-merit it a good metric, which I don't contest.