5 ms·

To be fair, the timeline was predicated on spending levels that were never met. In fact, funding levels never made it above the "fusion never" threshold: https

To be fair, the timeline was predicated on spending levels that were never met. In fact, funding levels never made it above the "fusion never" threshold: https://i.imgur.com/3vYLQmm.png https://i.imgur.com/3vYLQmm.png Interestingly, the projected budget was $100B-$300B in 2020 dollars. Certainly puts $4T stimulus plan into perspective!

AtlasBarfed 6y ago
Thorium reactors would have taken much less than that level of funding with (IMO) less engineering hurdles, and they made a functioning prototype that almost fit in a closet at General Atomics. This is all boondoggle money now with solar/wind/battery though. Maybe once we actually move a majority of the grid we can move back to major nuclear or fusion research.
credit_guy 6y ago
I have seen this graph many times before on HN. I'm not sure how accurate it is. Maybe the investments in fusion have recently ramped up (the graph ends in 2012), but the end point of the "actual" fusion investment shows something a little less than half a billion dollars. Is this supposed to be worldwide investment, only US, only US Department of Energy, or what? Anyway, just in 2019 the US DoE got a budget allocation of more than half a billion dollars ($564 MM to be precise, see [1] page 162). ITER's financial statements for 2019 ([2], page 43) shows member contributions of € 400 MM, which is again about half a billion dollars. If we could manage to add up all the various research budgets for fusion, we would probably be quite a bit above the "never fusion" line, we could maybe reach the "moderate level" in the graph (the orange line). But the question is: is this needed? MIT alone has a fusion project (SPARC [3]) that appears to be ahead of ITER. A spin-off of that project is the Commonwealth Fusion Systems [4], which managed to raise about $200 MM of funding entirely from private organizations. Is it possible that we'll see a repeat of the Human Genome Project scenario, where the US Government invested $10 BN and more than a decade of reasearch, only to see a private company (Celera [5]) come in an steal the thunder at the finish line, with only a 20th of their budget? My point is that as society progresses, there is a time when a certain thing becomes achievable on a medium budget, which only 50 years before would be impossible on an infinite budget. Just think about sending a rocket to the Moon in 1920 or creating an mRNA-based vaccine for the coronavirus in 1970. It is very, very likely that if the US government had allocated $50-100 BN for fusion research in 1970, we would not be any closer to fusion today. However, today, 50 years later, we are at a point where fusion appears achievable only based on private investments. [1] https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/05/f62/fy-2020-doe-sc-fes-congressional-budget-request.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/05/f62/fy-2020-... [2] http://e.issuu.com/embed.html?d=2019_iter_annual_report&u=iterorganization http://e.issuu.com/embed.html?d=2019_iter_annual_report&u=it... [3] https://www.psfc.mit.edu/sparc https://www.psfc.mit.edu/sparc [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Fusion_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Fusion_Systems [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celera_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celera_Corporation
- keenmaster 6y ago
  Fusion seems like a rare opportunity to do remarkable impact for human society while also making a remarkable profit. Frankly, if I was a billionaire, I would treat fusion investments as half-charity. That's why I don't understand how so many billionaires have pledged to give a large % of their wealth away but the most promising privately funded fusion energy project only has $200 million in funding. That kind of discrepancy increases my respect for tech evangelists, Ray Kurzweil, etc...because marketing the future might bring it closer. We need more of that.
  - credit_guy 6y ago
    Bill Gates is doing just that, but with fission rather than fusion. If the aim is to fight climate change, then fission is a proven technology, while fusion is a very risky bet.
    - keenmaster 6y ago
      Great. We should build standardized SMRs everywhere ASAP. Nonetheless, we don't have to pick between SMRs and fusion reactors. We can do both. The riskiness of fusion can be counteracted by taking an investing-as-charity approach to the whole field. If a billionaire is fine moving humanity closer to a low scarcity, carbon-free future without necessarily getting a commensurate payout, they should invest in fusion. Additionally, if they continuously invest in fusion and spread their investments across multiple fusion "bets," they can maximize their chance of making an outsized return.
- parksy 6y ago
  As an aside, I think it kinda sucks that we're in the age of information, but I can't google "fusion energy research funding history" and get anything other than op-eds and old news about funding announcements. We should be able to see this information cleanly presented and filter by US, Worldwide, etc. Then we wouldn't have to guess or make assumptions. Is there a source of information I am lacking or do I have to do my own research project on fusion funding just so I can participate meaningfully in this conversation?

AtlasBarfed 6y ago

Thorium reactors would have taken much less than that level of funding with (IMO) less engineering hurdles, and they made a functioning prototype that almost fit in a closet at General Atomics. This is all boondoggle money now with solar/wind/battery though. Maybe once we actually move a majority of the grid we can move back to major nuclear or fusion research.

credit_guy 6y ago

I have seen this graph many times before on HN. I'm not sure how accurate it is. Maybe the investments in fusion have recently ramped up (the graph ends in 2012), but the end point of the "actual" fusion investment shows something a little less than half a billion dollars. Is this supposed to be worldwide investment, only US, only US Department of Energy, or what? Anyway, just in 2019 the US DoE got a budget allocation of more than half a billion dollars ($564 MM to be precise, see [1] page 162). ITER's financial statements for 2019 ([2], page 43) shows member contributions of € 400 MM, which is again about half a billion dollars. If we could manage to add up all the various research budgets for fusion, we would probably be quite a bit above the "never fusion" line, we could maybe reach the "moderate level" in the graph (the orange line). But the question is: is this needed? MIT alone has a fusion project (SPARC [3]) that appears to be ahead of ITER. A spin-off of that project is the Commonwealth Fusion Systems [4], which managed to raise about $200 MM of funding entirely from private organizations. Is it possible that we'll see a repeat of the Human Genome Project scenario, where the US Government invested $10 BN and more than a decade of reasearch, only to see a private company (Celera [5]) come in an steal the thunder at the finish line, with only a 20th of their budget? My point is that as society progresses, there is a time when a certain thing becomes achievable on a medium budget, which only 50 years before would be impossible on an infinite budget. Just think about sending a rocket to the Moon in 1920 or creating an mRNA-based vaccine for the coronavirus in 1970. It is very, very likely that if the US government had allocated $50-100 BN for fusion research in 1970, we would not be any closer to fusion today. However, today, 50 years later, we are at a point where fusion appears achievable only based on private investments. [1] https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/05/f62/fy-2020-doe-sc-fes-congressional-budget-request.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/05/f62/fy-2020-... [2] http://e.issuu.com/embed.html?d=2019_iter_annual_report&u=iterorganization http://e.issuu.com/embed.html?d=2019_iter_annual_report&u=it... [3] https://www.psfc.mit.edu/sparc https://www.psfc.mit.edu/sparc [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Fusion_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_Fusion_Systems [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celera_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celera_Corporation

keenmaster 6y ago
Fusion seems like a rare opportunity to do remarkable impact for human society while also making a remarkable profit. Frankly, if I was a billionaire, I would treat fusion investments as half-charity. That's why I don't understand how so many billionaires have pledged to give a large % of their wealth away but the most promising privately funded fusion energy project only has $200 million in funding. That kind of discrepancy increases my respect for tech evangelists, Ray Kurzweil, etc...because marketing the future might bring it closer. We need more of that.
- credit_guy 6y ago
  Bill Gates is doing just that, but with fission rather than fusion. If the aim is to fight climate change, then fission is a proven technology, while fusion is a very risky bet.
  - keenmaster 6y ago
    Great. We should build standardized SMRs everywhere ASAP. Nonetheless, we don't have to pick between SMRs and fusion reactors. We can do both. The riskiness of fusion can be counteracted by taking an investing-as-charity approach to the whole field. If a billionaire is fine moving humanity closer to a low scarcity, carbon-free future without necessarily getting a commensurate payout, they should invest in fusion. Additionally, if they continuously invest in fusion and spread their investments across multiple fusion "bets," they can maximize their chance of making an outsized return.
parksy 6y ago
As an aside, I think it kinda sucks that we're in the age of information, but I can't google "fusion energy research funding history" and get anything other than op-eds and old news about funding announcements. We should be able to see this information cleanly presented and filter by US, Worldwide, etc. Then we wouldn't have to guess or make assumptions. Is there a source of information I am lacking or do I have to do my own research project on fusion funding just so I can participate meaningfully in this conversation?