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Senate Budgetmakers Move To End US Participation In ITER
Graculus (3653645) writes Budgetmakers in the U.S. Senate have moved to halt U.S. participation in ITER, the huge international fusion experiment now under construction in Cadarache, France, that aims to demonstrate that nuclear fusion could be a viable source of energy. Although the details are not available, Senate sources confirm a report by Physics Today that the Senate's version of the budget for the Department of Energy (DOE) for fiscal year 2015, which begins 1 October, would provide just $75 million for the United States' part of the project. That would be half of what the White House had requested and just enough to wind down U.S. involvement in ITER. According to this story from April, the U.S. share of the ITER budget has jumped to "$3.9 billion — roughly four times as much as originally estimated." (That's a pretty big chunk; compare it, say, to NASA's entire annual budget.)
Except everything we have now.
Still I guess there are brown people that need killing, so something had to give.
Who needs that fusion stuff anyway?
P.S. Frist Psot!
Disappointing to see such an important long term research project get shelved by politicians.
3.9 Billion is the total US contribution for a project that won't be turned on until 2020 at the earliest. The correct comparison is 0.15 billion this year for ITER to 18 billion this year for NASA.
How much did the politicians receive from the OPEC to abandon fusion research?
This is only a drop in the bucket compared to those!
The numbers get rather large here, but that shouldnt matter. if NASA is our shining example of the commitment to scientific progress, then its so low on our list of priorities as to be a pointless comparison.
the DoD has an annual budget of over 500 billion dollars.
the USDA has a budget of 109 billion dollars.
the department of homeland security has a 60 billion dollar budget.
the department of justice has a 26 billion dollar budget
NASA has a budget of 18 billion dollars
So if one were to read these budgets as an expression of the will of a nation elected by and for its people (i know its a laughable presumption but stick with me here) then our priorities are
shitty food thats killing us
the neverending war against everything
Airport anal probefest 2015
mass incarceration
NASA, the agency thats congressionally barred from collaborating with china or russia, and is expected by every reigning politician to turn a quarterly profit or die in a gutter.
At this point the fact that we gifted europe 75 million dollars for a project to assess the fundamental tenability of fusion should be considered a treasonously accidental oversight. thats a whopping six whole percent of the NASA budget that we wrecklessly applied to the concept of an energy source that would user in apocalyptic levels of productivity and peace.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I have a feeling if the story was about the current House of Representatives slashing ITER funding, we'd see a screed about "anti-science Republicans." However, since the Senate is led by Democrats...
That's more than a feeling, that's a fact.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Seems a little odd to have gone this far and then bow out. And spread over the decade or more this project goes on, the cost is very minor considering there might be some good takebacks from the project and most importantly the good will it will generate with our European friends who's public has just learned the U.S. is unrepentantly spying on all their citizens all the time (the good will might be worth it alone).
Little quibble: "According to this story from April, the U.S. share of the ITER budget has jumped to "$3.9 billion — roughly four times as much as originally estimated." (That's a pretty big chunk; compare it, say, to NASA's entire annual budget.) "
$3.9 billion is alot compared to NASA's annual budget (which is ~$17 billion) - but that $3.9 billion would be payed over more than a decade right? So for an apples to apples comparison its what the Administration was going to spend on ITER for this budget ($150 million) compared to NASA's budget (~$17 billion).
Funding is 45% by the hosting member, the European Union, and the rest split between the non-hosting members – China, India, Japan, South Korea, the Russian Federation and the USA.
Okay 55/6 = 9 1/6 percent per country. So $3.9 billion is equivalent to roughly 9.17% of the project. That means that the the other five that are split are spending $3.9 billion as well? And that the EU is spending $19.1 billion? And the total cost now is $42.5 billion?
Or is the US getting fucked again? Because that always seems to happen with international efforts.
s the subcommittee followed through on that threat, even a senator from a state directly involved in the U.S. ITER project spoke in favor of ending it. U.S. ITER has its headquarters at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Nevertheless, at a 17 June hearing on the budget bill covering DOE, Senator Lamar Alexander (R–TN), the ranking member on the Energy and Water Subcommittee, said that ITER hasn’t shown the progress it should. "We’ve withdrawn funding for the program," he said, and "that saves taxpayers $75 million this year, and at least $3.9 billion, and potentially $6.5 billion, over the life of the project.”
When you cant win, ad hominem.
So: an organisation that is doing fundamental research that is nice but not urgent (NASA), vs one that could save the entire planet (ITER). Seems like ITER is in fact the higher priority - though I would prefer to see both funded and a couple of jet fighters cut from the DOD budget instead..
Seems a little odd to have gone this far and then bow out.
Depends on what you believe the prospects of the project to be. If you think that ITER may result in some worthwhile advances at some point then you are right that it would be odd to bow out now. However if you are less sure then any money spent to this point is a sunk cost and further investment would just be throwing good money after bad. The fallacy most people tend to make is "well I've spent so much already I have to see it through" which is not rational. The money has already been spent so the only question worth asking is whether future expenditures will get the result you want for a price tag you can live with. How much has already been spent is irrelevant. The money is gone and cannot be recovered regardless of the future prospects of the project. Any future investment in the project needs to be done on a forward looking basis.
Personally I don't really know enough about ITER to really make an informed judgement about whether it is sensible research project or not. However I suspect more good will come out of it than from buying a few more bombers even if the project ultimately fails so I'd say get the money out of the defense department's budget. We spend too much on the military as it is.
ITER is a giant money pit and has been from the start. I do hope that the congress critters redirect at least some of the funds towards US based non-tokamak alternatives which have struggled to get funding in light of the giant sucking sound that is ITER.
And to those going OMG! Fossil fuels!
Assume that the remaining members of ITER are successful before they are bled dry. Do you honestly think that any commercial venture will exclude customers in non-ITER countries? That would be pretty stupid. Better that the US pay a premium on each reactor built (assuming that someday ever happens) than to continue to pour money down a hole today.
As the 21st century began... human evolution was at a turning point. Natural selection, the process by which the strongest, the smartest... the fastest reproduced in greater numbers than the rest... a process which had once favored the noblest traits of man... now began to favor different traits. Most science fiction of the day predicted a future that was more civilized... and more intelligent. But as time went on, things seemed to be heading in the opposite direction. A dumbing down. How did this happen? Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence. With no natural predators to thin the herd... it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most... and left the intelligent to become an endangered species.
Some had high hopes that genetic engineering... would correct this trend in evolution.
But sadly, the greatest minds and resources... were focused on conquering hair loss and prolonging erections. Meanwhile, the population exploded, and intelligence continued to decline...
Private Joe Bauers, the definition of "average American", is selected by the Pentagon to be the guinea pig for a top-secret hibernation program. Forgotten, (he awakes 500 years in the future) he awakes in 2014. He discovers a society so incredibly dumbed-down that he's easily the most intelligent person alive.
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
In fact, the US can likely now steal any and all data it likes and does not need to participate in any international research efforts.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
We should be pursuing the legacy of Robert Brusard https://www.youtube.com/watch?... like these folks http://www.talk-polywell.org/b.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... It works, 15 year old students have made it work in a lab http://www.popsci.com/diy/arti... and $100m would build a proof of concept energy positive plant. I have no idea why we have not done this other than we may have already under the NAVY but they aren't talking. NASA should build one for interplanetary ion engines.
I'm sure that for the cost of the Iraq wars, the US could have converted all their energy to renewable sources or developed practical fusion power, thus never having to go to war over oil again.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The US has just fined French bank BNP Paribas around $9 billion dollars for dealing with Sudan, Iran and Cuba.
The fine could pay for the US's ITER participation twice.
(It's not even too bad for the bank, $9 billion is about 16 months of profit).
I have a feeling if the story was about the current House of Representatives slashing ITER funding, we'd see a screed about "anti-science Republicans." However, since the Senate is led by Democrats...
That's more than a feeling, that's a fact.
So Lamar Alexander is a Democrat now? Really? Did you even bother to read the article before you opened your trap here? The fact is Republicans are anti-science unless that science is related to extraction of oil. You have failed misareabley to blame this on Democrats.
Yeah, but it was buy-one get-one-free, who could resist?
France (and Germany) is negotiating with Moscow to broker a peace deal in Ukraine and the US does not want that: This threat is just pressure to make France reconsider.. All power politics here, nothing to do with science and research or budget cuts. Expect more in the next few weeks (plus Sarkozy scandal is related but that is another story)
Then the rest of the world can charge them for the technology.
“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.” - Winston Churchill
In this case, let them try everything else...
I'm sure that for the cost of the Iraq wars, the US could have converted all their energy to renewable sources or developed practical fusion power, thus never having to go to war over oil again.
Pretty much though the benefits would probably have been even larger. Solar thermal is straightforward enough and close enough to normal construction that it would have beee feasible.
Sure, the amount and the required HVDC distribution grid would have been of an unprecedented scale but it is more or less well understood technology.
Not only would have spending it locally given energy independence, it would have kept the money circulating locally rather than going overseas. Even better a huge amount of construction and manufacturing infrastructure would have had to be created in order to pull it off. That would have left a vast amount of capacity allready written down ready to produce stuff at a profit alsmost certainliny making it very competetive both in the local market and for export.
Sadly it seemed that it was better to just dump the money into the sand and set fire to it. And if my country came along for the ride we could have had our high speed rail line or a replacement for Heathrow, or any number of other major infrastructure projects.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
We should be putting more into ITER than the NASA budget
I do hope that the congress critters redirect at least some of the funds towards US based non-tokamak alternatives which have struggled to get funding in light of the giant sucking sound that is ITER.
Which "alternatives" are worthy of greater funding? (credible alternatives mind you) I think fusion research is hugely important but its unclear to me what worthy research is being starved of funds by ITER. If an idea has real merit it typically doesn't have too much difficulty getting funded so I find it surprising that you think there is some worthwhile project that would obviously work if only it had more money. That's the sales pitch a scam usually makes.
Assume that the remaining members of ITER are successful before they are bled dry. Do you honestly think that any commercial venture will exclude customers in non-ITER countries?
Customers? No. But being a customer isn't where the biggest economic benefit lies. A successful project would have a lot of technology that would be controlled by those who contributed. Like any investment, the biggest rewards usually go the the folks who were involved at the earliest stages and stuck with it.
Better that the US pay a premium on each reactor built (assuming that someday ever happens) than to continue to pour money down a hole today.
I disagree. Iit is unclear if ITER is a money pit but let's assume for the moment that it is not. In those circumstances it is definitely NOT better that the US pay a premium for the technology. The premiums that would be paid would be enormous. On the other hand if ITER is simply a research project with the usual unclear future benefits, then it still makes sense to invest as long as the money is available to do so, which it is if we want it to be. The only cases where it clearly makes sense to get out is if it is obviously a dead end, if there is a clearly better alternative or if we simply cannot afford it. Neither of those are clearly true here. We might have other priorities for the money but the US certainly can afford it and it isn't at all clear if the research is a dead end. Might be but that case does not appear to be at all conclusive.
Besides, I'd rather pour money into a dead end fusion project and hope for some spinoff benefits than buy yet another aircraft carrier that we really don't need.
USA left ITER also in 1999 and 2006. There is still time to rejoin and re-quit before 2020.
Solar is fairly straight-forward as a supplemental energy source, but I don't think you can say solar is a developed technology in respect to a primary energy source for the grid. This is due to the energy storage and transmission requirements you already mentioned. its not clear that the costs associated with a HVDC grid would justify making the switch, especially since it would render other forms of generation unusable. Much more likely is that the DC voltage would be converted to AC. and obviously you need to store electricity for use during the night.
solar panels are also made out of materials that are cheapest coming from china, and I'm not convinced the panel manufacturing wouldn't simply take place there.
and obviously solar prices per watt were and still are several times higher than traditional (polluting) methods. Developments are bringing this ppw way down, so it might actually be better this wasn't done sooner than later.
not trying to completely deride your ideas but just want to provide some reasons as to why it's not the
This is the first hopeful news about fusion in a long while. When the lapping dogs of the coal and petroleum industry are told to get the US out of the operation, it can only be because there's now some possibility that fusion will actually work and compete with, well, coal and petroleum.
God knows we can't afford progress. It would be devastating to the economy.
Humanity is doomed.. Hopefully the next human like race on earth (if there is one) evolves to not have idiots.
So fuck it. I'm just going to start burning my trash, leave all my lights on, litter, etc.
I give up!
You misunderstand what a sunken cost is and why it matters. How much we have already spent has NO bearing on whether we should continue to spend more. That money is gone and it isn't coming back. It doesn't matter AT ALL that the project isn't finished. All financing decisions are made for projects that haven't completed yet. It's not different if it is research or if it is manufacturing a product or digging for ore. The payoff for all of these activities is uncertain. Research is more uncertain than many other activities but the basic process of deciding whether to continue to invest in research is identical.
Almost all (rational) financing decisions for any project are made on a forward looking probabilistic basis. We estimate the cost and benefits of the project and we guess at the probability of success given what we know. If the project is a failure or probable failure based on *currently known* information, then you do not continue to spend on it. If the prospects are such that there remains a reasonable chance of success in the future then you continue to invest. In either case what happened in the past is irrelevant to the decision to continue to invest more.
Think of it a bit like playing a hand of poker. You do not have perfect information about what will happen so you bet based on what you know and the probabilities of a positive outcome. Your decision to stay in a hand should in no way be influenced by what you have already bet. If the odds are against you then it makes sense to get out and cut your loses. If the odds are in your favor then it makes sense to stay in the hand. Either way the information that determines how you play the hand isn't dependent on what you've already bet.
I'm an accountant with a degree in finance. Doing this sort of analysis is part of what I do for a living.
I keep hearing that the US went to war over oil when on the misguided adventure into Iraq, but if that was true, why did the dissenting countries to the misadventure get all the oil contracts after Saddam was tossed out?
France, Russia, and Germany got all the oil contracts; but yeah, the US went to war for oil.
Stop being a fucking retard.
Or, more likely, wait for ITER to be successful without US funding, and then have private corporations license the design and build the fusion power plants in the US anyway.
Are you telling me that Areva wouldn't want to build 50 of those fuckers over here?
would succeed in anything less then 40 years?
That after their "success" nuclear fusion would be cheap, clean and easily reproducible?
This is the easy brute force approach to fusion. Cut funding and scientists will be forced to use other less brute force ways which could result in cleaner ways of fusion.
The fact is Republicans are anti-science unless that science is related to extraction of oil. You have failed misareabley to blame this on Democrats.
Neil deGrasse Tyson disagrees with you. But hey, he's just using facts and numbers and science and stuff...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Actually, the military took a huge budget cut before the sequestration stunt, and again with the sequestration stunt. That's what's fucked up the defense budget.
Nope. It started when Reagan was Prez.
God preserve all native-born first-world inhabitants.
So while it's obvious to any properly-educated American that not only do we have the Greatest Country Ever, but other countries may not exist anyway and are probably a liberal conspiracy, there was a point in my foolish youth where I decided I wanted to try the world outside those borders on for size.
I bought a one-way ticket to Costa Rica, found a small, isolated town somewhere between the jungle and the ocean, and figured I'd stay for a while. This was shall we say naive, but we can't always help our motivations.
So, from personal experience, let me point out a few things to you. First, you're completely ignoring these people's value as residents. Even as illegal immigrants, they are contributing to the economy. Second, it is not just a matter of hopping over a fence to get here. Even if you're entering illegally, it's probably going to cost a fair amount of money to do so. That means that these people were probably gainfully employed before they decided to repatriate. Thirdly, being an illegal immigrant limits your available work options rather severely; manual labor is easy to find in a great many places, but you're probably going to be prevented from pursuing a skilled trade. Finally, there are very few people who want to come to the US because they want a free ride. If you've never been on public assistance or welfare, it's not exactly a fun option. People move to another country to be a normal part of society, to work, pay taxes, and to achieve their dreams. I can't tell you how much I wanted that in Costa Rica. Those few people that want to be bums have plenty of opportunities in their own country, and no one is going to take all the time, effort, and money involved to change their entire life just to be unemployed somewhere else.
The whole reason that migration is difficult is solely because of racist xenophobes like you. After a lot of time and trouble, I am back in Central America, but working online, and other than sales taxes I'm not contributing to any government; the US has the temerity to tax overseas income, but has an exemption to the tune of ~$100k. I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that, as a skilled tech worker, any country that is going to put roadblocks in the way of my working legally is fucking stupid. From that perspective, restrictions on who can come to the US are also pretty dumb. If nothing else, if people are paying to come to the US illegally, the government could spend less money on the border guards and turn a profit by allowing those people in officially.
P.S. It's cute how you think the US is protecting anything but US interests.
Just how much licensing is there for a technology that takes 2x the patent duration to construct a prototype?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I was mostly referring to solar thermal, not photovoltaic. Photovoltaics are more efficient but the construction is rather higher tech which makes it more expensive to scale up production. It also solves the nighttime problem since apparently there's enough heat energy stored in the day to run it through the night as well.
As for HVDC, it's much less convenient on short to medium scales since you can't just work it as an infinite bus bar with synchronus machines, transformers and whatnot. You can't have multi-drop in and out and you require serious kit to step it up or down. However it does work well for very very long high power links. This is because:
1. No skin effect for DC, so thick concuctors work.
2. No capacitive loss (this completely kills AC links underwater in even short runs)
3. Full voltage 100% of the time, not just for instantaneous peaks, so you get a higher power for a given insulator spacing (sqrt(3)/2 gain)
4. No problem synchronising very distant grids. 60Hz has a full wavelength of 5000Km or so which means you have to start worring about transmission line problems and phase shifts for very long links.
This is proven technology: it's been in use for over 100 years, originally using mercury arc valves to rectify and a motor, generator pair to go back to AC. It's generally used to connect different grids (e.g. between nations in Europe) and for connecting large, physcially remote generating plants such as hydro to a main grid.
One wouldn't convert the entire system into HVDC, but the links from the geographically isolated solar (thermal) plant would almost certainly be that because it's the best way of connecting such a thing to a grid.
As for cost, yes cost is an issue, but we're talking about the hypothetical where oil wasn't subsidised to the tune of $3E+12 by the various recent wars. If you put that into the solar thermal plants instead, the overall cost would be much less. Also at that kind of scale economies of scale would really kick in and the price would come down.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Except that none of that would have happened with the money. The Iraq war was pretty much paid for by credit card, at least most of it was off the books.
Think back to the climate before 9-11, Congress and the Administration were waxing political about "surpluses as far as the eye can see". So they instituted the Bush tax cuts. You do recall those. They were brought up recently when Obama railed against them as tax cuts for the rich. Congress did too. Except when they had the chance to let them fade into past, they renewed them and made them permanent.
Meanwhile, government expenses spiraled out of control due to 2/3's of the budget that is non-discretionary. So what did Congress do? Whack discretionary spending including the IRS. The IRS would have been able to collect another $250 billion a year but for lax enforcement because of its budget cuts.
There is no way in hell that Congress or the President was going to stump for spending money on things like energy independence...except they made a half-hearted effort because "you shouldn't waste a crisis". So instead of having a real policy of steady investment, they threw about 800 billion at the economy. Except that didn't all go into "investment". Little known but true, a fair whack of that, about $350 billion, went to that Congressional favorite, tax cuts. So the economy got some transitory "investment" in infrastructure.
So, no, we couldn't have spent that money on infrastructure. Congress and the President do not believe in it. Want to take a guess how far the proposal by Bob Corker (R-TN) and Chris Murphy (D-CN) will go to raise the gas tax and pay for infrastructure? A bi-partisan effort. Obama seems to not care, the conservative Republicans claim this is a matter best left to the states, etc.
Then the rest of the world can charge them for the technology.
“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.” - Winston Churchill
In this case, let them try everything else...
We should just dump the americans. Spoiled brats they are.
Kick them out of ITER, kick them out of CERN.
Take a look at the article, the only person it actually mentions specifically as trying to do this is a republican.
Except for the actual specific mention of the Subcommittee chair, who is a Democrat.
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D–CA), the chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, warned at a 9 April subcommittee hearing that the U.S. program could be in jeopardy. "This may be an opportunity to experience the power of the purse," she said.
Alexander's quote is just a statement of fact, it sounds pretty neutral to me - especially compared to Feinstein's.
I'm not debating that it wouldn't have happened: clearly it did not.
It's just that had the 3Tn (borrowed or otherwise) gone into local spending on energy rather than the war the benefits would have been immense.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
https://i.imgur.com/sjH5r.jpg
Why? Read newyorker's excellent article and no i wont TLDR because its worth reading in its entirety. http://www.newyorker.com/repor...
Wanted : A Signature.
Has anyone ever explained to you that the Democrats in the Senate have the MAJORITY?
And has anyone bothered to mention that the Democrats in the Senate REMOVED the filibuster, so that the Republican MINORITY has ZERO power to control legislation?
Blaming a Republican for ANYTHING that gets out of the Senate is the height of idiocy, when the Democrats have set things up so that NOTHING can be done in the Senate without their approval. It doesn't take a single Republican vote to get something passed in the Senate, but EVERY Republican voting AGAINST something can't stop it from being passed...
So, if we're talking about the US Senate, we're talking about things the Democrats want to do....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Interestingly, Slashdot forgot to mention that the US Senate is currently controlled by Democrats. They also didn't mention that the House controlled by Republicans wants to fund Iter.
Has anyone ever explained to you that the Democrats in the Senate have the MAJORITY?
And has anyone bothered to mention that the Democrats in the Senate REMOVED the filibuster, so that the Republican MINORITY has ZERO power to control legislation?
Blaming a Republican for ANYTHING that gets out of the Senate is the height of idiocy, when the Democrats have set things up so that NOTHING can be done in the Senate without their approval. It doesn't take a single Republican vote to get something passed in the Senate, but EVERY Republican voting AGAINST something can't stop it from being passed...
So, if we're talking about the US Senate, we're talking about things the Democrats want to do....
They removed the filibuster of appointed judges. That is all. You are so blinded by Fox News that you think that removal of that filibuster for a specific purpose applies to everything in the Senate. Please do your low information self a favor and turn of Fox News. Geez.
And last month, the Government Accountability Office found that, thanks to the lack of a credible schedule for the project as a whole, even those estimates are not reliable. Given the situation, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D–CA), the chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, warned at a 9 April subcommittee hearing that the U.S. program could be in jeopardy. "This may be an opportunity to experience the power of the purse," she said.
The bold gives the statement needed context and shows that she does not necessarily want to shut it down, and it does not even show that she is on board at this momement. And even still you will note that I mentioned her in my statement.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
This is a good thing. ITER is a complete waste of money. Look at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics. Their Focus Fusion Indiegogo campaign (http://goo.gl/Cmjhw3) can't even get 200k in funding so that they can prove within the next year on whether their technology is scalable enough to commercialize. ITER, on the other hand, says they will commercialize in another 30-50 years. Their numbers are useless and this is after throwing billions at them per year. There are more promising fusion research projects out there that don't need billions per year to waste.
Maybe if we try to convince the geniuses in Congress that ITER is a weapons system, not only would they fund it, but quadruple the original request. After all, they basically throw money at the Pentagon without so much as asking questions.
Actually he is using half facts. The budgets went up during the bush era due to the dems having congress, and the reverse during the clinton administration. The president does not have much control over the budget itself, his entire argument makes it out to be the case that they do.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Crowd-fund it.
-
We have already spent more than $4 Trillion dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with one of the many key reasons being "stability in the region" which is code for protecting the oil supply our country depends on.
What if someone in the White House or Congress thought beyond their or their party's next election, and thought long term, instead of fighting these useless expensive wars, we instead had allocated that $4 Trillion dollars to a new Manhattan type project for something like fusion energy. That's a lot of money, I'm guessing it would have led to an incredible number of transformative breakthroughs our country and the world would have benefited from for generations.
Instead, we wasted a fortune on blowing stuff up.
it's because the US government is currently about $17,000,000,000,000 in debt
Oh, and this is NOT because some "anti-science" Republican opposes "big science"... Reagan and many other GOP types supported the Superconducting Supercollider and various fusion research projects. The problem with "big science" projects like these is that they need bi-partisan support (the SSC lacked support of Democrat President Clinton and then-Texas-gov Democrat Ann Richards) AND they need to stay within their budget projections, AND they need to show actual tangible progress. If President Obama had loved ITER he could have given it billions at any point (he borrowed and spent an extra $800 Billion ON TOP OF the budget in 2009).
If a project like ITER shows no real progress while consuming ever-expanding piles of cash, it becomes a prime candidate for the budget axe. In this case, the vocal support of Obama (who has a reputation for supporting international "joint" things) is more vital because ITER is particularly prone to weak GOP support (because it was an international substitute for a domestic US program would have had more-solid GOP support). Sadly, the fusion energy advocates have been claiming "limitless, nearly free, clean energy is RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER!" for decades. Politicians of all stripes have been feeding them money for all this time hoping to see SOME positive result, but have nothing to show the voters for proof the money was well-spent. Pure research is a fine thing, but all such projects should be run by very-experienced and proven-successful business executives who are able to stand-up-to their PhD-holding science teams to periodically remind them that somebody is paying for all their neat-o shiny "toys" and that the people who are paying need to see progress or they will stop paying
These projects CANNOT survive as careers for people who have too many advanced degrees in obscure fields to be otherwise employable, and their teams of grad students who hope to follow in their footsteps.
Look at the cash in your wallet... there are no "Social Security Dollars" or "Medicare Dollars".... they are ALL just Dollars. When Americans pay their taxes (ALL Taxes including Social Security taxes) those taxes go into one big pile. The Socail Security "Lock Box" Al Gore used to talk about was a political fiction designed to fool people... ALL tax money goes into the treasury and current government spending consumes it ALL (plus the hundreds of billions per year MORE that we keep borrowing). All that is "in" the Social Security "Trust Fund" (typical Orwellian government naming) is a huge pile of (electronic) IOU slips that the taxpayers will eventually have to be taxed extra to raise the money to make-up.
Who else is on the subcommittee? Turns out it's 7 republicans and 4 democrats. While I can believe that the Rs may have dominated the vote, it's about as valid as assuming both sides agreed on the cut, since the quote from Senator Lamar Alexander specifies "We've withdrawn..." meaning it wasn't just his decision.
Really, though, you expect one single person is the only one ever asked to decide anything? Well, you might, but I don't think you should admit to it, if you do. But in case you do, perhaps you should examine this:
"Instead, appropriators will zero out ITER spending until DOE comes up with reliable numbers, said Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chair of the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, at a hearing today. "We provide no funding for ITER until the department provides this committee with a baseline cost, schedule, and scope," she said.
Source
Don't ask me why I decided to go to google for this stuff, but I didn't really need to. Even the first link in the submission specifies that it was a Democrat who chairs the subcommittee and who warned almost 3 months ago that the funding was in jeapordy.
That does not mean she wants to do it.. You are comparing someone who will cut funding if there is no timeline to someone who just wants to cut funding....
When you cant win, ad hominem.
When a government fights to keep its own people in and works to keep them from seeing how people "outside" live, you can be sure the place is a "hell hole" (see: Soviet Union, North Korea, etc)
When a government fights to keep other people out, AND those foreigners keep trying every way possible to overcome the obstacles and get IN, you know that the place is pretty great (relative to where they are coming from). When the place they are all trying to get into is the USA and they are coming from literally every other nation on Earth, well let's just say that's solid measurable evidence that all the whiners who are always complaining about America are missing something
As in all things: the details matter. and in this, the DIRECTION in which the people are trying to cross a border is EVERYTHING
Oh, wait. 2020 is when they turn it on. It might not work right away. Could take as much as a year to get one up and running near me.
Let's call it 7 years away, then.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.