3 ms·

Intel has a capex budget of $27 billion just for 2022, so you don't really understand scale or have a point.

• toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Intel has working products, customers, shareholders, and fundamentally, accountability for that research spend. Results driven research funding is not unreasonable, unless you want to classify this research in the same vein as particle accelerators and a curiosity with no expectation of success (which is fine; just don’t sell as an energy silver bullet where there’s no evidence it can be delivered on). Hope is not a strategy nor a cost justification.
  • meowkit 4y ago
    Just because the semiconductor's productivity gains have been massive on a short term time horizon, does not mean that fusion research has been a waste, or that is not on track to "deliver". Fusion as a technology is a long term bet and requires much more capital expenditure, for little short term return, then even semi fabs (which are notorious capital sinks). Your mention of cost justification is ignoring the bigger picture that our economic system is setup to benefit public companies like Intel, and not grand research endeavors. As an exercise to the reader, imagine what organizations/companies would exist if the contemporary economic incentive structures were different.
    • ncmncm 4y ago
      There is in fact no "track" with commercially competitive fusion-generated power at the end of it, tritium or no tritium. It's great that plasma physicists are being employed and enabled to do research, but that could be done much more cheaply and effectively by not spending on ITER.