Good News For US Fusion Research

Posted by Soulskill on Friday April 27, 2012 @05:40AM from the all-about-the-benjamins dept.

zrbyte writes "Fusion research would get a major boost in a Department of Energy (DOE) spending bill approved today by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations. The panel rejected an Obama Administration proposal to cut funding for domestic fusion research in the 2013 fiscal year, which begins 1 October. It would also give more money than requested to an international collaboration building the ITER fusion reactor in France. This will allow the Alcator C-Mod fusion facility at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge to be kept open, which the Administration had proposed closing."

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Re:It's just 50 years away now! by MozeeToby · 2012-04-27 06:01 · Score: 5, Informative

Maybe the fact that it always seems 50 years away has something to do with this?
They said in 1978 that then current funding levels would never produce a viable power platform. To get one going by today would have required on average $2.5 billion per year by the fusion researchers' own estimates. Actual funding since 1978? $500 million per year. Quite blaming the science for the politicians shortsightedness.