5 ms·

Neat! I wonder what the next steps for commercial use would be, since the patent is filed through the UW's Center for Commercialization and funded by the US Dep

by pyrocat 12y ago

Neat! I wonder what the next steps for commercial use would be, since the patent is filed through the UW's Center for Commercialization and funded by the US Department of Energy. Could BP or whoever come in and say "we're interested" and throw money at them to build a full scale reactor (in a few years)?

johlindenbaum 12y ago
I think "a few years" is optimistic. I would assume a lot of the community is holding its breath to see how ITER fares once it's switched on in 8-12 years. Nobody knows for certain if it's possible to generate a plasma on earth that can heat itself, and then produce excess energy. And by that time the anti-fusion lobby will have poisoned the mind of the average power user to believe that fusion = fission.
- Filligree 12y ago
  There's an anti-fusion lobby?
  - johlindenbaum 12y ago
    Greenpeace and others. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/ITERprojectFrance/ http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/IT...
  - Semiapies 12y ago
    Just the people who've been hearing "fusion is right around the corner!" for the last 40 years.
  - rfrey 12y ago
    It was editorial license by johlindenbaum to call it an "anti-fusion" lobby, but we can all agree that there's a pro-fossil-fuel lobby.
    - johlindenbaum 12y ago
      Greenpeace is very outspoken against fusion, as they believe it carries the same dangers as fission. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/ITERprojectFrance/ http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/IT...
- jotm 12y ago
  Wait, there's an antifusion lobby? Who are they? But yeah, people will still think negative when hearing about "nuclear". Maybe we should change that to "Atomic" to make the distinction and give it a less negative connotation :-).
  - johlindenbaum 12y ago
    Greenpeace and others. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/ITERprojectFrance/ http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/IT...
  - pjlegato 12y ago
    Exxon, BP, Shell, Chevron...
    - chc 12y ago
      I can't find any examples of any of them lobbying against fusion (which is unsurprising, since lobbying against something that is currently impossible is not a good use of funds).
    - VLM 12y ago
      Those are mostly oil financiers providing capital to contractors who do the work, and project management. They won't care. Too much oil is used for transport and petrochemical (aka plastic) industry. Some of the peculiar niche uses for petrochems are much less price sensitive than bunker A boiler oil, so they would make more money overall in the long run if people used oil more wisely, which sounds weird but is an economic truth. You care a lot about the price of gas in your car, but you probably don't really care about the cost of plastic in your legos, so if it went up by 10x it would still be a rounding error at the checkout line although in the long run they'd make more money. The coal companies, on the other hand, are likely concerned.
    - jotm 12y ago
      If anything, they'd be the first to invest in working fusion technology. They already invest billions in alternative energy research - to secure their own domination in the future, but still...
- karmicthreat 12y ago
  From what I understand its mostly a materials problem because the plasma just erodes everything.
- jerf 12y ago
  I doubt it. There isn't much ITER can do that will surprise anybody. Even if it works perfectly, it still won't produce economical fusion. People already know that if you want practical fusion you've got a huge opportunity to bypass ITER.
mdturnerphys 12y ago
UW student and patentee here. That's what the UW C4C is for—to license UW-developed technology to interested parties. They front the money for filing the patent and then recover the cost when the patent is licensed to an outside party (or by the inventors, if they want to commercialize their work on their own).
- crusso 12y ago
  What's the rationale for patenting work funded by taxpayers? The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
  - mdturnerphys 12y ago
    This is definitely something I've wondered about before. Links to some decent references are below. Basically, the idea seems to be that giving patent rights to grant recipients gives them an incentive to develop and commercialize ideas that will benefit the public. Taking a concept from the lab to the marketplace is often a non-trivial affair, and patent rights are a way to drive that process. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act [2] http://www.mofo.com/resources/news/2002/10/the-governments-patent-policy-the-bayhdole-act-a__ http://www.mofo.com/resources/news/2002/10/the-governments-p...
    - serf 12y ago
      but doesn't this act also stymie concurrent tech developments from competitors in their respective fields? Is a monetary incentive for the grant recipient really a greater moving force for the market within a specific industry than capitalistic competition amongst the existing forces in that industry?
      - mdturnerphys 12y ago
        Some academics do work on specific problems with a known commercial application, and sometimes this research is funded by commercial entities. The primary goal of most academics isn't to produce commercial products, but in the course of research useful things can pop up. Giving patent rights to grant awardees gives them the ability and incentive to commercialize offshoots of their research. Here's an example (I'm not a biomedical guy, so please excuse the errors): Dr. Brown researches some disease. He's not particularly trying to come up with a treatment for it, just trying to understand it better. He's in academia, so he needs to publish papers to get tenure and receive grant funding. The NIH funds his research because it's somewhat promising and because he will do a good job educating students. Suppose his group happens to discover a chemical compound that seems to be effective in treating this disease. What happens next depends on whether the university can patent this discovery. Before the treatment can be prescribed by doctors it needs to receive FDA approval, which requires expensive clinical trials. Without patent protection, no one (neither the university or outside companies) is willing to fund the trials because they won't have exclusive rights to sell the treatment once it's approved. Dr. Brown could work on the trials himself, but that would mean neglecting his other responsibilities. No one has a sufficient financial incentive to make the next step, so the treatment never makes it to the market.

by pyrocat 12y ago

johlindenbaum 12y ago

I think "a few years" is optimistic. I would assume a lot of the community is holding its breath to see how ITER fares once it's switched on in 8-12 years. Nobody knows for certain if it's possible to generate a plasma on earth that can heat itself, and then produce excess energy. And by that time the anti-fusion lobby will have poisoned the mind of the average power user to believe that fusion = fission.

Filligree 12y ago
There's an anti-fusion lobby?
- johlindenbaum 12y ago
  Greenpeace and others. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/ITERprojectFrance/ http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/IT...
- Semiapies 12y ago
  Just the people who've been hearing "fusion is right around the corner!" for the last 40 years.
- rfrey 12y ago
  It was editorial license by johlindenbaum to call it an "anti-fusion" lobby, but we can all agree that there's a pro-fossil-fuel lobby.
  - johlindenbaum 12y ago
    Greenpeace is very outspoken against fusion, as they believe it carries the same dangers as fission. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/ITERprojectFrance/ http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/IT...
jotm 12y ago
Wait, there's an antifusion lobby? Who are they? But yeah, people will still think negative when hearing about "nuclear". Maybe we should change that to "Atomic" to make the distinction and give it a less negative connotation :-).
- johlindenbaum 12y ago
  Greenpeace and others. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/ITERprojectFrance/ http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/IT...
- pjlegato 12y ago
  Exxon, BP, Shell, Chevron...
  - chc 12y ago
    I can't find any examples of any of them lobbying against fusion (which is unsurprising, since lobbying against something that is currently impossible is not a good use of funds).
  - VLM 12y ago
    Those are mostly oil financiers providing capital to contractors who do the work, and project management. They won't care. Too much oil is used for transport and petrochemical (aka plastic) industry. Some of the peculiar niche uses for petrochems are much less price sensitive than bunker A boiler oil, so they would make more money overall in the long run if people used oil more wisely, which sounds weird but is an economic truth. You care a lot about the price of gas in your car, but you probably don't really care about the cost of plastic in your legos, so if it went up by 10x it would still be a rounding error at the checkout line although in the long run they'd make more money. The coal companies, on the other hand, are likely concerned.
  - jotm 12y ago
    If anything, they'd be the first to invest in working fusion technology. They already invest billions in alternative energy research - to secure their own domination in the future, but still...
karmicthreat 12y ago
From what I understand its mostly a materials problem because the plasma just erodes everything.
jerf 12y ago
I doubt it. There isn't much ITER can do that will surprise anybody. Even if it works perfectly, it still won't produce economical fusion. People already know that if you want practical fusion you've got a huge opportunity to bypass ITER.

mdturnerphys 12y ago

UW student and patentee here. That's what the UW C4C is for—to license UW-developed technology to interested parties. They front the money for filing the patent and then recover the cost when the patent is licensed to an outside party (or by the inventors, if they want to commercialize their work on their own).

crusso 12y ago
What's the rationale for patenting work funded by taxpayers? The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
- mdturnerphys 12y ago
  This is definitely something I've wondered about before. Links to some decent references are below. Basically, the idea seems to be that giving patent rights to grant recipients gives them an incentive to develop and commercialize ideas that will benefit the public. Taking a concept from the lab to the marketplace is often a non-trivial affair, and patent rights are a way to drive that process. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act [2] http://www.mofo.com/resources/news/2002/10/the-governments-patent-policy-the-bayhdole-act-a__ http://www.mofo.com/resources/news/2002/10/the-governments-p...
  - serf 12y ago
    but doesn't this act also stymie concurrent tech developments from competitors in their respective fields? Is a monetary incentive for the grant recipient really a greater moving force for the market within a specific industry than capitalistic competition amongst the existing forces in that industry?
    - mdturnerphys 12y ago
      Some academics do work on specific problems with a known commercial application, and sometimes this research is funded by commercial entities. The primary goal of most academics isn't to produce commercial products, but in the course of research useful things can pop up. Giving patent rights to grant awardees gives them the ability and incentive to commercialize offshoots of their research. Here's an example (I'm not a biomedical guy, so please excuse the errors): Dr. Brown researches some disease. He's not particularly trying to come up with a treatment for it, just trying to understand it better. He's in academia, so he needs to publish papers to get tenure and receive grant funding. The NIH funds his research because it's somewhat promising and because he will do a good job educating students. Suppose his group happens to discover a chemical compound that seems to be effective in treating this disease. What happens next depends on whether the university can patent this discovery. Before the treatment can be prescribed by doctors it needs to receive FDA approval, which requires expensive clinical trials. Without patent protection, no one (neither the university or outside companies) is willing to fund the trials because they won't have exclusive rights to sell the treatment once it's approved. Dr. Brown could work on the trials himself, but that would mean neglecting his other responsibilities. No one has a sufficient financial incentive to make the next step, so the treatment never makes it to the market.