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eh, do they expect to find anything new? To me, fusion research need more $$ and a higher priority as it has extremely practical applications for all humanity,
by ardit33 6y ago
eh, do they expect to find anything new?
To me, fusion research need more $$ and a higher priority as it has extremely practical applications for all humanity, from energy independence to global warming.
21b Euros is a lot of money, and apart the ongoing ITER effort, fusion research can be tackled from different angles with just half of that money.
- andrepd 6y agoThe difference is that particle research doesn't stand to displace a multi trillion dollar industry with the world's biggest militaries to back it...
- leephillips 6y agoI don’t think the energy companies are exactly quaking in terror: http://progressive.org/op-eds/let-cut-our-losses-on-fusion-energy-180313/ http://progressive.org/op-eds/let-cut-our-losses-on-fusion-e...
- delfinom 6y agoYou kidding me? Energy companies would fucking love fusion energy as it'll still require power plants they get to control and power lines and all the infrastructure to transmit. They absolutely fear solar energy though.
- mckirk 6y agoFusion technology is very dangerous though. Just think what would happen to my Bitcoin portfolio if energy was suddenly almost-free :/
- karlicoss 6y agoNot sure how ironic are you, but don't you think you'd massively win overall if the energy suddenly became free? Think how many problems it would solve :)
- mckirk 6y agoI'd hoped it was clear from the ridiculous comparison that I was being entirely sarcastic, but you are correct in assuming that people have some strange opinions nowadays :p It could indeed be a problem if large parts of the economy were using proof-of-work crypto currencies by the time we figured out fusion energy, though.
- mbroncano 6y agoWhy not both? It’s not unreasonable that some of the technologies (incl. data analysis) could be shared.
- lgl 6y agoRight? People always love to pitch for their ideal alternative as if these were either-or situations. Funds for a collider - why not fusion? Funds for space exploration - why not end world hunger? Funds for astronomy - why not medicine? etc.. It happens every time a relatively big budget is discussed as if it was some kind of lottery where only one gets the jackpot.
- ardit33 6y agoRight... that logic makes sense assuming there is near limitless funds available... Funding for all practical purposes is limited, and there is so much any nation, (or group of nations), can provide. Sure, you 1. can cut other areas of the budged (health, defense, roads/infra, admin, pick what), or 2) raise taxes.... but even that has a practical bound.
- pfdietz 6y agoTo me, fusion research is another example of very poor return on R&D investment.
- nickik 6y agoBecause the way it is done really. Putting it all in some gigantic money pit with 50 governments each helping finance one part or another, each part bought from some company from each of the governments. The project is so slow that its out of date before its close to being finished. However, 21$ billion allocated more like it was for Commercial Crew/Cargo by NASA would make more sense. Have many competitors who get a little money and get more to those who can actually prove out the system. Building advanced commercial fission reactors and helping them with getting threw the currently idiotic license scheme would probably be an even better return on investment then fusion. But somehow the world has decide that fission is evil and only fusion can save humanity, even if that makes little sense from a physics perspective.
- pfdietz 6y agoNo, because fusion is inherently flawed. The idea that it's some great thing to be striving for has little or no basis in fact.
- d_tr 6y agoAre you suggesting that we should just forget about it? What do you mean by "inherently flawed"?
- pfdietz 6y agoFusion, especially the mainstream approaches, does not appear capable of getting to a competitive energy source, even if it somehow (physically) "works". It's very bad from an engineering point of view, with showstoppers of materials, power density, complexity, maintainability, and reliability. Daniel J. Boorstin described a celebrity as a person who is "well known for their well known-ness". Fusion is a technology that is similarly recursive: it's being investigated because it was being investigated, not because it's worth doing when examined freshly. Whatever rationale for pushing DT fusion that once existed has largely evaporated. If fusion survives at all, it has to be as a lower key modest pure research effort into long shot ideas that might evade the showstoppers. And new blood should be kept out of the field until it's shrunk enough. Anyone going into fusion these days is being poorly advised.