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Senate Budgetmakers Move To End US Participation In ITER

Posted by timothy on from the costs-and-benefits dept.

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.)

3 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Scientific research never got anyone anything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Except everything we have now.

    Still I guess there are brown people that need killing, so something had to give.

    1. Re:Scientific research never got anyone anything by Immerman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >and in the process, suck up to barely-literate savages who hate us

      I think you've got cause and effect a bit confused there - most of those people are barely literate and hate us *because* we've been mucking up their country for so long in our efforts to secure energy and access to ancient religious sites.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  2. Bad Comparison by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.