Was at Doc's office reading a Time mag from Nov 2, 2015 on nuclear fusion. It said that this "It might actually work" So I am thinking, "Yeah, I've heard about many 'breakthroughs' in fusion just like solar." What followed was just down right dumbfounding.
The article was not just about fusion but how research is conducted. It slammed the government/academic approach as wasteful, political, corrupt, and full of huge delays. It wasn't just a paragraph or two but was discussed several times throughout the five page article. In fact, while it mentioned several new approaches, the main gist of the article was how great strides are being made mainly because it is being done by private money funding the research. It even praised capitalism!
I would link the article and take out a couple quotes but it is a pay site and is behind a firewall. If anyone has access to it, check it out and post a couple quotes.
Suffice to say that the article quotes people saying how gov/academics takes too long, is too restrictive(only funding accepted ideas), the grant process, regs, political interference all add to cost and delays. Academic researchers are more about getting papers published and going to conferences arguing about every little detail.. The private sector is more inventive and nimble. As an example the ITER tokamak was to be completed by 2016 for $5 billion and is now scheduled for 2027 and over $20 billion! And of course will cost more and be delayed again. And it will not produce one watt of electricity as it designed just to get to the break even point.
But private industry, using new ideas and moving faster with inventive methods, have built several test reactors for much less with radical approaches to the problems of dealing with plasma. Tri Alpha has raised only $94 mil but has made great progress. Helion Energy is another, it claims it will have a commercial reactor online in six years. It had some very interesting discussion about the science too. Worth the read for either point of view.
The article was not just about fusion but how research is conducted. It slammed the government/academic approach as wasteful, political, corrupt, and full of huge delays. It wasn't just a paragraph or two but was discussed several times throughout the five page article. In fact, while it mentioned several new approaches, the main gist of the article was how great strides are being made mainly because it is being done by private money funding the research. It even praised capitalism!
I would link the article and take out a couple quotes but it is a pay site and is behind a firewall. If anyone has access to it, check it out and post a couple quotes.
Suffice to say that the article quotes people saying how gov/academics takes too long, is too restrictive(only funding accepted ideas), the grant process, regs, political interference all add to cost and delays. Academic researchers are more about getting papers published and going to conferences arguing about every little detail.. The private sector is more inventive and nimble. As an example the ITER tokamak was to be completed by 2016 for $5 billion and is now scheduled for 2027 and over $20 billion! And of course will cost more and be delayed again. And it will not produce one watt of electricity as it designed just to get to the break even point.
But private industry, using new ideas and moving faster with inventive methods, have built several test reactors for much less with radical approaches to the problems of dealing with plasma. Tri Alpha has raised only $94 mil but has made great progress. Helion Energy is another, it claims it will have a commercial reactor online in six years. It had some very interesting discussion about the science too. Worth the read for either point of view.
