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Well yes, but... if they crack the nut of how to make an economical fusion reactor work, I'd be happy to pay them to be the monopoly supplier of REBCO tape unti
by jabl 6y ago
Well yes, but... if they crack the nut of how to make an economical fusion reactor work, I'd be happy to pay them to be the monopoly supplier of REBCO tape until the patent runs out.
And to be honest, if they demonstrate the reactor to work, I'm sure others will figure out ways to produce REBCO without violating the patent, or would outright give the patent the finger.
- willis936 6y agoI hate to bring up a spoiler effect because it has been a toxic sour point between competing MCF designs in the past, but MIT is actively pulling funds away from attractive coil winding techniques that are public and subject to peer review. I’m rather close to this issue because I’m aware of grants being given to MIT to make prototypes. MIT is in the US and have a big reputation. The current grants are modest, but they are opening a path for MIT to be paid to develop a technology they will sell. This is all fine. Where it stops being fine is when the developed coil winding technology is proprietary. I’m not exactly sure how this doesn’t violate DoE grant contract rules. Here is the competition, btw. Paz-Soldan’s technique seems sound and should be funded for prototype coils. I’m not saying MIT shouldn’t be given grants to do this work. I just wish that they wouldn’t use public funds to develop proprietary technology. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.02154.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.02154.pdf