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I'm not saying DARPA/NSF are bad. They deserve the respect they get. But their job is to tackle problems that only might have solutions, way out at the edge o

I'm not saying DARPA/NSF are bad. They deserve the respect they get. But their job is to tackle problems that only might have solutions, way out at the edge of what's possible at a given level of technology. But it takes a long time for the benefits of that kind of work trickle down to the average person, and there's no feedback to indicate what the private sector will want and what it won't. So for every Internet, there are a lot of ITERs: http://www.iter.org http://www.iter.org Total cost of ITER has been in the tens of billions, and the project is projected to start producing energy about 40 years from now. In contrast, General Fusion, a startup with under $25M in funding, could be ready a lot sooner: http://www.technologyreview.com/business/23102/ http://www.technologyreview.com/business/23102/

rjurney 17y ago
While its true that they only accept proposals that have technical risk, its also true that in SBIR at least, they don't do pie in the sky stuff either. Iterative improvements only. Federal research investment stimulates private research investment. Its a symbiotic relationship.
- eru 17y ago
  Though one wonders what the dollars would have done in the private hand, if they had not been taxed away in the first place.
Retric 17y ago
General Fusion: "It's a long shot, they say, but well worth a try." Read that as It's got less than a 1% chance it might work, but compared to the potential gain it's still worth looking at. ITER on the other hand has an 85+% chance of working (net energy gain) and only costs the US ~1billion. So while ITER might cost 50x as much it's more than 50x more likely to actually work. Also should ITER work as well as expected a working fusion reactor that could produce 1GW of base load power could be built in 10 years. ITER's initial design was for a 500MW power plant, but ITER was scaled back to a demonstration device to lower cost and reduce risks. PS: All fusion devices produce a lot a radiation and need extensive containment and decommissioning costs. The only way you can build a 20 million$ fusion reactor is by avoiding actually producing significant amounts of fusion. So all projects that say we can demonstrate fusion for < 50 million are not going to produce significant amounts of electricity.
- apsec112 17y ago
  "ITER on the other hand has an 85+% chance of working (net energy gain)" That is "working" only under an irrelevant definition of the word. The test of a commercial power system is not whether it can produce a net energy gain, but whether it can produce large amounts of energy at prices which compare favorably to coal and nuclear. Having a zillion hamsters run on wheels all day might well qualify as "working" in the sense of producing net energy, but we don't use it for a reason. "and only costs the US ~1billion." Although technically true, this is a gross misrepresentation of the actual cost, which is enormous. "ITER was originally expected to cost approximately €5bn, but the rising price of raw materials and changes to the initial design may see that amount double." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER "All fusion devices ... need extensive containment and decommissioning costs." Evidence? Lead is very cheap. "The only way you can build a 20 million$ fusion reactor is by avoiding actually producing significant amounts of fusion." Evidence?
  - Retric 17y ago
    ITER's cost is inflated because it includes a lot of research that would not take place in working power plant. Based on the physical cost of ITER and the scaling factor in fusion reactors a multi GW design similar to ITER should be close to the cost of fission. However, it has significant political advantages both for non-proliferation reasons and Not In My Back Yard reasons. Lead under heavy neutron bombardment becomes radioactive as does all other materials with long term heavy neutron bombardment. PS: If you are interested in fusion I would suggest you look at fusor.net. It's a message board for amateurs but there are some solid posts relating to the amount of neutrons produced per watt of net fusion energy for the better fusion materials. As well as a look into the cost of shielding etc. Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JT-60 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JT-60 JT-60 does not have the facilities to handle Tritium; currently only the JET tokamak has such facilities. In fusion terminology JT60 achieved conditions which in D-T would have provided Q=1.25 where Q is the ratio of fusion power to input power. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO DEMO must have linear dimensions about 15% larger than ITER... Subsequent commercial fusion reactors could be built for nearly a quarter of the cost of DEMO if things go according to plan.[2][3]

rjurney 17y ago

While its true that they only accept proposals that have technical risk, its also true that in SBIR at least, they don't do pie in the sky stuff either. Iterative improvements only. Federal research investment stimulates private research investment. Its a symbiotic relationship.

eru 17y ago
Though one wonders what the dollars would have done in the private hand, if they had not been taxed away in the first place.

Retric 17y ago

General Fusion: "It's a long shot, they say, but well worth a try." Read that as It's got less than a 1% chance it might work, but compared to the potential gain it's still worth looking at. ITER on the other hand has an 85+% chance of working (net energy gain) and only costs the US ~1billion. So while ITER might cost 50x as much it's more than 50x more likely to actually work. Also should ITER work as well as expected a working fusion reactor that could produce 1GW of base load power could be built in 10 years. ITER's initial design was for a 500MW power plant, but ITER was scaled back to a demonstration device to lower cost and reduce risks. PS: All fusion devices produce a lot a radiation and need extensive containment and decommissioning costs. The only way you can build a 20 million$ fusion reactor is by avoiding actually producing significant amounts of fusion. So all projects that say we can demonstrate fusion for < 50 million are not going to produce significant amounts of electricity.

apsec112 17y ago
"ITER on the other hand has an 85+% chance of working (net energy gain)" That is "working" only under an irrelevant definition of the word. The test of a commercial power system is not whether it can produce a net energy gain, but whether it can produce large amounts of energy at prices which compare favorably to coal and nuclear. Having a zillion hamsters run on wheels all day might well qualify as "working" in the sense of producing net energy, but we don't use it for a reason. "and only costs the US ~1billion." Although technically true, this is a gross misrepresentation of the actual cost, which is enormous. "ITER was originally expected to cost approximately €5bn, but the rising price of raw materials and changes to the initial design may see that amount double." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER "All fusion devices ... need extensive containment and decommissioning costs." Evidence? Lead is very cheap. "The only way you can build a 20 million$ fusion reactor is by avoiding actually producing significant amounts of fusion." Evidence?
- Retric 17y ago
  ITER's cost is inflated because it includes a lot of research that would not take place in working power plant. Based on the physical cost of ITER and the scaling factor in fusion reactors a multi GW design similar to ITER should be close to the cost of fission. However, it has significant political advantages both for non-proliferation reasons and Not In My Back Yard reasons. Lead under heavy neutron bombardment becomes radioactive as does all other materials with long term heavy neutron bombardment. PS: If you are interested in fusion I would suggest you look at fusor.net. It's a message board for amateurs but there are some solid posts relating to the amount of neutrons produced per watt of net fusion energy for the better fusion materials. As well as a look into the cost of shielding etc. Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JT-60 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JT-60 JT-60 does not have the facilities to handle Tritium; currently only the JET tokamak has such facilities. In fusion terminology JT60 achieved conditions which in D-T would have provided Q=1.25 where Q is the ratio of fusion power to input power. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO DEMO must have linear dimensions about 15% larger than ITER... Subsequent commercial fusion reactors could be built for nearly a quarter of the cost of DEMO if things go according to plan.[2][3]