US to halt nuclear fusion project

NewScientist.com ^ | 17:04 30 July 04 | Maggie McKee

[ckilmer]

the US needs to be serious about fusion energy. the promise is too great to ignore. beats me how to go about doing it...beyond putting together great minds and money. certainly the risks of remaining with the current energy regime mount daily.

[USNBandit]

A site for a fusion project. May I suggest Iran, Syria, or North Korea. Oh, you want a controlled reaction. How about Cape Cod right next to the wind farm that won't get built.

[PersonalLiberties]

At least China was not one of the options.

[staytrue]

I think fusion energy is a joke.

[ckilmer]

chinese are not players here.

[ckilmer]

is that a professional opinion? for example do you do physics?

[CasearianDaoist]

We need to pull out of ITER and go our own way. No international partnerships. It just builds up their HR and physical infrastructure and diminishes our. When ITER was proposed the DOE told us that it would not interrupt domestic Fusion research.

We waste 100 of billions of dollars on highway pork alone. In two years CERN is going to give the EU a lock on High Energy Physics (with $600 million of our dollars, I might add.)

This is exceedingly bad news. This is the beginning of the end of our leadership in science, all because of ignorant and short sighted politicians on both sides of the aisle.

The French will stall until they get it. They will be come leader in the field based on our monies. I knew this would happen. We really need to get out if this and return to the historic pattern on US only energy research Armour nation interest. That is how we got our great scientific and technical leadership of the Cold War. The rot started with the cancellation of the Super Conducting Collider, really took off with the $50 billion boondangle (and technical transfer) of the ISS and now we arrive to the point that we are canceling our research plan to support Europes. It is all so stupid and needless. Or politician have given up on the nation. Years ago we would have not even considered such a thing. How decadent we have become.

If Kerry wins he will certainly give this over to the French.

They say it is "just politics" but it is really about the American taxpayer not getting fleeced. This new disgust me, I had thought better of the DOE under Bush.

[CasearianDaoist]

Oh yes they are, Big players. They are a part of ITER.

[ckilmer]

that wind farm was to be out in the ocean. that's likely not a good place to put a fusion reactor. I wouldn't recommend N. Korea Libya et al either.

[RightWhale]

It isn't the money so much as the lack of ideas. The US should build ITER, the Superconducting Supercollider, set up a moon base, set up a Mars base, establish private property rights in outer space, build nuclear plants all over the West, build desalinization plants all over the West, and connect all top 100 cities with magnetic levitation trains inside tubes.

This should have been done 20 years ago. Ask your elected representative why this hasn't been done. Watch a confused look flash across his face.

[wideminded]

Nearly three decades ago I went on a tour of PPPL. The scientist leading the tour said that they were telling congress that they expected to build a working power station by the year 2000. I also once visited a national lab where there was a mothballed fusion test facility where over 350 million dollars had been spent before the plug was pulled. The combination of immense costs and the lack of ability to say for sure when practical results will be achieved, even within multiple decades, makes fusion power a tough sell.

[NonValueAdded]

I like your thinking on that. To be series, placing anything in France would be a hugh mistake unless the beeber was stuned to go critical.

[RightWhale]

This is the beginning of the end of our leadership in science

We are on the same page.

[COEXERJ145]

Fusion power is a great idea. The problem is current technology has not caught up with the theory. We know it is possible, we just don't know how to do it in a controlled environment.

We would need a program on the order of the Manhattan Project in order to develop it any time soon. I have a feeling no one is willing to spend that much money on any project.

[ckilmer]

well if that's the case...umm. didn't know that. well china is not one of the options for citing the reactor.

hmm the more I think about this thing the more I wonder if there isn't a better/smarter/faster/cheaper way to do this work.

reminds me of string/super string theory. many many brainy guys working on it for decades yet nothing practical precipitates from the work.

[PersonalLiberties]

We need to pull out of ITER and go our own way. No international partnerships
CD

I agree with you. The Space Race was beneficial to the US in making us compete scientificially with other nations. We can go this alone too. Especially something of such significance.

[RightWhale]

Fusion has been tough because it has been a never-ending series of problems and clever solutions. None of the big designs have been breakthrough to the brass ring. By limiting the projects, we limit the number of people thinking about fusion. We are limiting ourselves; it is no wonder fusion power is still decades away.

[avg_freeper]

Oh! Now I get it. Ha ha ha.

[biblewonk]

Good, now we can use the money for windpower.

[The Duke]

One question I've not seen asked is, were the reactor built in France or Japan, exactly how would we collect our share of the energy it generates? This suggests we should build our own - probably somewhere in the midwest.

Another very good idea to become energy-independant that I'm surprised doesn't get any real press is for our culture to make better/smarter use of the Internet. If a person doesn't have to drive to work every day - if children didn't have to ride to school every day - I bet we could cut our fuel costs by 60%. It would also go a long way towards immunizing us not only from the threat of terrorism, but from the common cold as well!