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Good News For US Fusion Research
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."
The disheartening thing about our budget is that we were unable to find a reasonable solution to contain health care costs in our country. We have plenty of examples of country who are able to offer good health care for a fraction of the cost and yet we have chosen to kick the can and not solve this problem. Anything else in the budget (other than defence) is peanuts compared to health care. Yet, we have no solution in sight. Harder than facing the problem, we chose to digress the discussion and talk about 'death panels' and other nonsensical distractions. .... sigh....
A day without fusion is like a day without sunshine!
I gatta get me this shirt (on thinkgeek)...
if (it != oneThing) it = another;
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.
Says the expert.
I've SEEN a working fusion reactor. Tokamaks work right now.
ITER merely take scientificially-demonstrated technology, and makes it industrial-scale.