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> What I am saying, is that relative to other potential investments, fusion does not seem to be a worthwhile investment, as the risk/payoff ratio is worse. I d

> What I am saying, is that relative to other potential investments, fusion does not seem to be a worthwhile investment, as the risk/payoff ratio is worse. I disagree. There exists MILLIONS of years worth of fuel on earth, compared to a few decades of oil and gas, and a few hundred years worth old coal or fissionable uranium. That's quite a huge payoff for relatively little risk (compare fusion research funding with other energy subsidies).

XorNot 13y ago
The ITER project's lifetime cost is currently less then the California rail system or a British rail extension. When people start talking about cost, let's put those numbers in perspective. The AIG bailout alone would've bought 6-7 ITERs.
- tezza 13y ago
  > AIG bailout alone would've bought 6-7 ITERs. I agree with your other points. But the AIG bailout not only saved filthy rich bankers, but saved the entire world economy. Private pensions would have been wiped out, who own 95% of the stockmarket. The pensions were chasing gains and were quite happy while the returns were fat. The government cannot afford its own pension promises anyway and would have been wiped out. Big science projects are paid in installments over many years. If the financial system collapses, for sure the big projects will be mothballed immediately.
  - XorNot 13y ago
    The point is that governments have this type of money. In spades. Pretending we're not properly prioritizing one type of research or another is a farce - if you can convince anyone to invest in nuclear fission reactors, whether they do that won't really be affected by how much fusion research is happening. That's not why we don't have nuclear fission right now, but shutting down nuclear fusion might just ensure we never get either.
    - tezza 13y ago
      The government guaranteed AIG's losses. They opened themselves up to earth shaking liabilities. But very little was actually required in the end ( their hope / educated guess at the time it was entered into ). If the losses had been spectacular, the situation would have been desparate and the US would've had to take further evasive action. This is a far cry from stumping up that amount of actual cash required for research.
    - dekhn 13y ago
      You think governments have this type of money in spades? The US does not. We're in a major debt crises and have issues funding our fundamental operations; beyond the immediate government funding, we have severe problems with spending (IE, we can't pay the interest on our spending with our tax revenues).
      - XorNot 13y ago
        You're not in a debt crisis, US interest payments on existing debt is about 4% - at most - of the national budget, and your government is shutdown because of a procedural issue. I strongly suggest you actually lookup the budget figures.
        dekhn 13y ago
        I'm familiar with our economy. We're in a debt crises. I didn't mention the government shutdown at all.
        XorNot 13y ago
        "immediate government funding issues". Seems pretty immediate to me.
        dekhn 13y ago
        Are you really this pedantic? I used an 'and' and a 'semicolon'. If you parse my sentence you will see I made no such implication directly that the current issue with the House of Immature Children is the cause of, or effect of, our debt crisis. Anyway, do you disagree with Wikipedia? """"Debt crisis is the general term for a proliferation of massive public debt relative to tax revenues, especially in reference to Latin American countries during the 1980s, and the United States and the European Union since the mid-2000s.[1][2][3][4]""" "We're in a major debt crises and have issues funding our fundamental operations; beyond the immediate government funding, we have severe problems with spending "
  - dekhn 13y ago
    actually, big projects often have to be maintained because otherwise, huge numbers of highly paid scientists are let go. It's easier to shut down short-term, small-employee projects (like annually funded grants).
- dekhn 13y ago
  yes. I think the california rail system is also an overpriced underperforming system. It will never be finished (it will never make it all the way to SF), so it will never be completely useful, and the history of all large projects like this show huge cost overruns. Do you really want to allocate capital like that for something that's unlikely to be finished, nor likely to achieve its actual goal? When we could spend money to make cars more efficient (electric batteries with central generation) and reduce our total energy consumption, fairly cheaply?
dekhn 13y ago
Well, I think you're underestimating oil and gas, but that's another argument. Nobody's denying fusion is a great energy source. But your claim that there is a payoff for low risk is unsupported by reality: we have only ever invested money in fusion (risk) and have never received any useful power for it (payoff). At this time, the risk/payoff ratio is infinite.
- drjesusphd 13y ago
  > we have only ever invested money in fusion (risk) and have never received any useful power for it (payoff) Now you're just being silly. You can say this about ANY research project. Better scrap the Manhattan Project before it finishes, we haven't seen any results. You're saying it's impossible to build a fusion power plant because we don't have one now? Nevermind the fact that magnetic fusion research has been grossly underfunded for over 30 years.
  - dekhn 13y ago
    By the time the Manhattan Project started, we had already made signficant progress. Such as Fermi's pile. We knew how to seperate uranium. The math was all there; it was mostly a matter of decision-making and execution. I never said anything was impossible. But fusion is still solidly an unknown unknown: we have no credible path at this time to even plan a workable test reactor. I'm saying, for the amount invested, the results achieved, and the potential payoff, our money is best spent elsewhere are more boring and conventional things.
    - drjesusphd 13y ago
      That's just not true, and skirts the line of the being a deliberate lie. Fusion has occured in tokamaks, at an efficiency of 65%. ITER, as currently designed and being built, is expected to make a 10-fold return on energy input. We are precisely at the position of "the math is all there" with regard to magnetic confinement. And so is the engineering and the funding (barely). It's going to happen, hopefully not before it's too late.

XorNot 13y ago

The ITER project's lifetime cost is currently less then the California rail system or a British rail extension. When people start talking about cost, let's put those numbers in perspective. The AIG bailout alone would've bought 6-7 ITERs.

tezza 13y ago
> AIG bailout alone would've bought 6-7 ITERs. I agree with your other points. But the AIG bailout not only saved filthy rich bankers, but saved the entire world economy. Private pensions would have been wiped out, who own 95% of the stockmarket. The pensions were chasing gains and were quite happy while the returns were fat. The government cannot afford its own pension promises anyway and would have been wiped out. Big science projects are paid in installments over many years. If the financial system collapses, for sure the big projects will be mothballed immediately.
- XorNot 13y ago
  The point is that governments have this type of money. In spades. Pretending we're not properly prioritizing one type of research or another is a farce - if you can convince anyone to invest in nuclear fission reactors, whether they do that won't really be affected by how much fusion research is happening. That's not why we don't have nuclear fission right now, but shutting down nuclear fusion might just ensure we never get either.
  - tezza 13y ago
    The government guaranteed AIG's losses. They opened themselves up to earth shaking liabilities. But very little was actually required in the end ( their hope / educated guess at the time it was entered into ). If the losses had been spectacular, the situation would have been desparate and the US would've had to take further evasive action. This is a far cry from stumping up that amount of actual cash required for research.
  - dekhn 13y ago
    You think governments have this type of money in spades? The US does not. We're in a major debt crises and have issues funding our fundamental operations; beyond the immediate government funding, we have severe problems with spending (IE, we can't pay the interest on our spending with our tax revenues).
    - XorNot 13y ago
      You're not in a debt crisis, US interest payments on existing debt is about 4% - at most - of the national budget, and your government is shutdown because of a procedural issue. I strongly suggest you actually lookup the budget figures.
      - dekhn 13y ago
        I'm familiar with our economy. We're in a debt crises. I didn't mention the government shutdown at all.
        XorNot 13y ago
        "immediate government funding issues". Seems pretty immediate to me.
        dekhn 13y ago
        Are you really this pedantic? I used an 'and' and a 'semicolon'. If you parse my sentence you will see I made no such implication directly that the current issue with the House of Immature Children is the cause of, or effect of, our debt crisis. Anyway, do you disagree with Wikipedia? """"Debt crisis is the general term for a proliferation of massive public debt relative to tax revenues, especially in reference to Latin American countries during the 1980s, and the United States and the European Union since the mid-2000s.[1][2][3][4]""" "We're in a major debt crises and have issues funding our fundamental operations; beyond the immediate government funding, we have severe problems with spending "
- dekhn 13y ago
  actually, big projects often have to be maintained because otherwise, huge numbers of highly paid scientists are let go. It's easier to shut down short-term, small-employee projects (like annually funded grants).
dekhn 13y ago
yes. I think the california rail system is also an overpriced underperforming system. It will never be finished (it will never make it all the way to SF), so it will never be completely useful, and the history of all large projects like this show huge cost overruns. Do you really want to allocate capital like that for something that's unlikely to be finished, nor likely to achieve its actual goal? When we could spend money to make cars more efficient (electric batteries with central generation) and reduce our total energy consumption, fairly cheaply?

dekhn 13y ago

Well, I think you're underestimating oil and gas, but that's another argument. Nobody's denying fusion is a great energy source. But your claim that there is a payoff for low risk is unsupported by reality: we have only ever invested money in fusion (risk) and have never received any useful power for it (payoff). At this time, the risk/payoff ratio is infinite.

drjesusphd 13y ago
> we have only ever invested money in fusion (risk) and have never received any useful power for it (payoff) Now you're just being silly. You can say this about ANY research project. Better scrap the Manhattan Project before it finishes, we haven't seen any results. You're saying it's impossible to build a fusion power plant because we don't have one now? Nevermind the fact that magnetic fusion research has been grossly underfunded for over 30 years.
- dekhn 13y ago
  By the time the Manhattan Project started, we had already made signficant progress. Such as Fermi's pile. We knew how to seperate uranium. The math was all there; it was mostly a matter of decision-making and execution. I never said anything was impossible. But fusion is still solidly an unknown unknown: we have no credible path at this time to even plan a workable test reactor. I'm saying, for the amount invested, the results achieved, and the potential payoff, our money is best spent elsewhere are more boring and conventional things.
  - drjesusphd 13y ago
    That's just not true, and skirts the line of the being a deliberate lie. Fusion has occured in tokamaks, at an efficiency of 65%. ITER, as currently designed and being built, is expected to make a 10-fold return on energy input. We are precisely at the position of "the math is all there" with regard to magnetic confinement. And so is the engineering and the funding (barely). It's going to happen, hopefully not before it's too late.