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.
At least China was not one of the options.
I think fusion energy is a joke.
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.
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.
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.
Good, now we can use the money for windpower.
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!
I no a lot of physics and I remember that they split a hydrogen attom into one helium attom and one carbon attom.
But as with manned space exploration and stem cells, the lesson for conservatives should be clear by now: let's not sit on our butts waiting for the government to do it! Advanced research is tricky and dangerous, and for these reasons - not because it's expensive - the federosaurus is not going to go adventuring on our behalf. Enterprises like this belong in the private sector, responsible to nothing and no one, engaged in by people who are willing to risk their lives.
No, the U.S. needs to get serious about new-gen fission reactors. There should be an "X-Prize" for designing a low-CAPEX, failsafe fission powerplant.
hard science ping
please ping the other "usual suspects" - I am drawing a blank on their userIDs. thanks
Smokescreen. Noise.
Other options have been proven to some, for a long time.
When the puppet masters will allow them out is another issue.
We shouldn't be doing advanced physics reasearch with China in any event. How stupid are we?!!! And no way should be put it in France, because they will immediately surrender it.
This is something the US should probably do own it's own.
last tech/sci ping for the night.
