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Unfortunately there are no realists in a position to really affect Government investment. Why is every nation not committing an investment on the scale of the

by dwd 7y ago

Unfortunately there are no realists in a position to really affect Government investment. Why is every nation not committing an investment on the scale of the Apollo/Manhattan Projects? Politically it should be sell-able as a near-term investment (jobs) and future prosperity (cheaper renewable energy). Governments should be putting billions into fusion, wave/tidal generation (nothing should be too expensive), upgrading all hydro to pumped hydro as well as developing more. Ideas like this: https://www.arup.com/projects/bendigo-underground-pumped-hydro https://www.arup.com/projects/bendigo-underground-pumped-hyd... should be fully supported and funded. As each of the dozens of 400m+ deep underground coal mines around the world are wound down and replaced with wind or solar generation, convert them to pumped hydro, providing jobs for displaced coal miners and saving their communities in the process.

rayiner 7y ago
The Manhattan project cost $4 billion per year for 6 years. Apollo cost $15 billion per year for 11 years. (All today’s dollars.) The US currently subsidies renewables at about $7 billion annually.
- harryh 7y ago
  That's a pretty interesting stat. Though the renewables subsidy doesn't look as generous if you compare things in % of GDP terms.
  - dwd 7y ago
    It would be interesting to see the amount of carbon reduction that 7 billion in annual subsidies generates compared to what you would get investing it in replacing coal plants with the equivalent pumped hydro. The current US Government investment seems pretty small. https://www.hydropower.org/country-profiles/usa https://www.hydropower.org/country-profiles/usa
basch 7y ago
Isnt that basically ITER? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/a-star-in-a-bottle https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/a-star-in-a-bo...
- dwd 7y ago
  Yes, but why just ITER? Can we really wait until 2035 at which point it's still just a PoC before working on DEMO, and how many DEMOs can we build quickly after that? There is promising work coming out of Lockheed's Skunk Works, using a completely different design and MIT has SPARC. Given ITER is pretty well locked in on the Tokamak design they've chosen and it a matter of building it, why not fund as many ideas as possible as while most may not work, you just don't know whether one results in a discovery and pivot that changes everything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_Compact_Fusion_Reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_Compact_Fusion... https://www.psfc.mit.edu/sparc https://www.psfc.mit.edu/sparc
dredmorbius 7y ago
Funding aside, the Manhattan & Apollo projects were (by comparison) simple, with clear objectives, and a compelling rationalisation. Manhattan needed to build a vialbe, air-transportable, nuclear bomb. It arrived at two independent designs, both effective to task, and succeeded in assimilating materials for at least several more weapons (on the order of 6 IIRC), over the course of WWII. The rationalisation was both defeating, and not losing military supremacy over, an enemy. (Germany was also working on a nuclear weapon.) Apollo needed to land a man on the Moon and return him, alive, to Earth. Rationales varied, but one compelling argument was as a proof-of-capability of US technological capacity as regards missile design, reliability, control, targeting, with the additional constraints of solving life-support systems challenges capable of keeping meat-puppets alive for a week in space. Drag-racing and Lunar golf were bonus stretch targets. Each project was relatively independent of other complex technological systems, and wasn't concerned with a tightly-coupled, long-term, widespread integration. Manhattan's gadgets needed to fit in Bock's Car's bomb bay. Apollo's designs, once the fundamental mission was completed, were largely abandoned. Several technologies survived, but the project as a whole did not. Both projects saw numerous exceedingly close approaches with disaster. Manhattan's tail-tickling proved unwise, the US are still cleaning up Hanford (and as yet have no final management plan), and there were several near-catastrophic handling mishaps at Oak Ridge. (Though in total the project was remarkably smooth.) Apollo's record was, to my knowledge, far worse. An entire crew were lost in ground testing, one very nearly in space (13), and missions 8, 11, 12, and probably others, saw one or more potentially fatal / mission-loss incidents and events. Margins for safety were extraordinarily slim. (Subsequent history with the Space Shuttle and two total vehicle losses shows that risks persisted decades later.) The Global Energy Sustainability Project is far more complex. It is building not a simple tool or one-shot mission, but a total system. That system needs to be tighly integrated, as an integral component, of the worldwide technical economic system. It needs to function from now until doomsday, or at least until some replacement regime is established. It challenges what's arguably been the most lucrative and critical as well as geopolitically salient sector of the global economy, which is to say it upsets a vast set of economic, financial, political, military, and national interests. Pains are localised, benefits are diffuse. Success depends on global coordination and cooperation, or barring that, sacrifice and effectiveness on local scales which counters the actions of any defectors. This is almost certainly the Biggest of the Big Problems.

by dwd 7y ago

rayiner 7y ago

The Manhattan project cost $4 billion per year for 6 years. Apollo cost $15 billion per year for 11 years. (All today’s dollars.) The US currently subsidies renewables at about $7 billion annually.

harryh 7y ago
That's a pretty interesting stat. Though the renewables subsidy doesn't look as generous if you compare things in % of GDP terms.
- dwd 7y ago
  It would be interesting to see the amount of carbon reduction that 7 billion in annual subsidies generates compared to what you would get investing it in replacing coal plants with the equivalent pumped hydro. The current US Government investment seems pretty small. https://www.hydropower.org/country-profiles/usa https://www.hydropower.org/country-profiles/usa

basch 7y ago

Isnt that basically ITER? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/a-star-in-a-bottle https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/a-star-in-a-bo...

dwd 7y ago
Yes, but why just ITER? Can we really wait until 2035 at which point it's still just a PoC before working on DEMO, and how many DEMOs can we build quickly after that? There is promising work coming out of Lockheed's Skunk Works, using a completely different design and MIT has SPARC. Given ITER is pretty well locked in on the Tokamak design they've chosen and it a matter of building it, why not fund as many ideas as possible as while most may not work, you just don't know whether one results in a discovery and pivot that changes everything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_Compact_Fusion_Reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_Compact_Fusion... https://www.psfc.mit.edu/sparc https://www.psfc.mit.edu/sparc

dredmorbius 7y ago

Funding aside, the Manhattan & Apollo projects were (by comparison) simple, with clear objectives, and a compelling rationalisation. Manhattan needed to build a vialbe, air-transportable, nuclear bomb. It arrived at two independent designs, both effective to task, and succeeded in assimilating materials for at least several more weapons (on the order of 6 IIRC), over the course of WWII. The rationalisation was both defeating, and not losing military supremacy over, an enemy. (Germany was also working on a nuclear weapon.) Apollo needed to land a man on the Moon and return him, alive, to Earth. Rationales varied, but one compelling argument was as a proof-of-capability of US technological capacity as regards missile design, reliability, control, targeting, with the additional constraints of solving life-support systems challenges capable of keeping meat-puppets alive for a week in space. Drag-racing and Lunar golf were bonus stretch targets. Each project was relatively independent of other complex technological systems, and wasn't concerned with a tightly-coupled, long-term, widespread integration. Manhattan's gadgets needed to fit in Bock's Car's bomb bay. Apollo's designs, once the fundamental mission was completed, were largely abandoned. Several technologies survived, but the project as a whole did not. Both projects saw numerous exceedingly close approaches with disaster. Manhattan's tail-tickling proved unwise, the US are still cleaning up Hanford (and as yet have no final management plan), and there were several near-catastrophic handling mishaps at Oak Ridge. (Though in total the project was remarkably smooth.) Apollo's record was, to my knowledge, far worse. An entire crew were lost in ground testing, one very nearly in space (13), and missions 8, 11, 12, and probably others, saw one or more potentially fatal / mission-loss incidents and events. Margins for safety were extraordinarily slim. (Subsequent history with the Space Shuttle and two total vehicle losses shows that risks persisted decades later.) The Global Energy Sustainability Project is far more complex. It is building not a simple tool or one-shot mission, but a total system. That system needs to be tighly integrated, as an integral component, of the worldwide technical economic system. It needs to function from now until doomsday, or at least until some replacement regime is established. It challenges what's arguably been the most lucrative and critical as well as geopolitically salient sector of the global economy, which is to say it upsets a vast set of economic, financial, political, military, and national interests. Pains are localised, benefits are diffuse. Success depends on global coordination and cooperation, or barring that, sacrifice and effectiveness on local scales which counters the actions of any defectors. This is almost certainly the Biggest of the Big Problems.