ITER Delays

[MSimon]

ITER has not only been scaled back. It looks like the 2018 start date is in question too.

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091119/ ... .1099.html

*

[chrismb]

Thanks for spotting this (and the Dittmar link). Not sure if this is actually that new a piece of news, but it certainly appears to have formalised what seems to have been known for a while in the ITER scene.

As I may have said here before, these researchers must live in an odd world. Many must be pretty sure they're not going to actually live long enough to see it work, even if the current timetable goes to plan! In a very real philosophical sense, their work has already failed because it will never be a reality for them, and science works on hypothesising, method, testing and conclusions, and so they are not actually going to be 'scientists' by that definition!!

It seems really really odd to me that such researchers wouldn't say to themselves "OK, so *I'm* not going to see fusion in my lifetime by this approach, and I really lust after wanting to! [else - why are they doing it?]. So I'm gonna only spend half my time on that and the other on other approaches."

Well, I'd do that myself - unless my scientific career was simply a front to taking a slow gravy-train to Nowheresville Retirement Central.

[D Tibbets]

The ITER delays and foot dragging is not due to internal problems, but due to the creeping suspicion that they will soon be irrelavent as the Polywell will soon move to the forfront, with FRC and General Fusion in close persuit! Even Focus fusion will be ahead of tokamacs if their unobtainium anode material becomes more aviable than the several unobtanium materials that tokamacs need. At least that is my expert analysis

Dan Tibbets

[chrismb]

The ITER delays..due to the creeping suspicion that they will soon be irrelavent as the Polywell will soon move to the forfront, with FRC and General Fusion in close persuit!

That made me laugh!

The relevant runners in the race may or may not be as you say, but the idea that these guys whose heads are spinning with magnetic buckets and nothing else might actually be thinking about other options for fusion! Hah!!... It is in the interest of their big budgets to ensure they block out any coverage of other fusion schemes - generally by rubbishing them or hogging the press and lobbying time of government reps.

[Betruger]

I think that mindset is very strange. I will most likely never see the stars. That's no reason for me not to (if I were aiming to work in that field instead of neuro, anyway) do everything I can to bring that day closer, one small step at a time - the next best thing to seeing that day myself is to bring it as much closer as I can, not to "give up" for some token effort.
The same effect is at work in other fields. SENS is working to defeat aging, and it's starting to look doubtful that progress and eventual success won't happen sooner than they would have, only because people don't feel it coming to reality soon enough for them to profit.

So in effect, like De Grey says, by delaying the end of aging, we're robbing people of longer life and arguably killing them. Because of some pessimism. I think that's pretty revolting.

[chrismb]

I think that mindset is very strange.

D'you mean the mind-set I describe, or my mind-set for thinking that is there mindset?

[Betruger]

I dunno if they're the same thing described by two different people, or not. I think it could be the same thing, or at least related. I'm not in other people's (those people's) heads to know for sure. I do think there's no defense for that mindset. Not when what's at stake is so central to the meaning of life, if there is one.
But even for something like fusion, it seems wrong. Why would it be less rewarding to know you've pushed things along 90% of the way, than the last 90%? Eventual success would no less be thanks to you, and it would've happened sooner thanks to your work. Whether you were there to see it or not.

Look at Dr Bussard's work. Suppose Polywell pans out. He'd never have got to see it, but look at how significant his push towards the finish line would have been. I think that's the real reward. How much progress you've effected.

[chrismb]

I'm thinking that; let's say they were academic ornithologists and they'd been surveying a particular habitat for 50 years to get a glimse of the Lesser Spotted Winkywonk and anticipated it'd be another 50 years before they actually see one. An amateur up the road says he's spotted what might be some Winkywonk eggs in a different location. Would you think the academics would say "no, it can't be a Winkywonk egg because we've not seen any on our site for 50 years, we'd better stay here or we might miss it" or do you think they might, at least, take a few moments out of their day to go visit the amateur's site to take a look?

I'm just saying that tokamak researchers are JUST like these academics. They claim to be really interested in fusion energy, yet turn their backs and prick their noses up at anything else because they've got 'no resources' to look at anything else. Like, their timetable is soooo booked up for the next 50 years!!!

[Nik]

As I see it, none of the main-stream tokamac (*) researchers dare give public credence to other approaches for fear of funding cuts...

(*) And laser pulse, as that may be considered a potential 'fire-lighter' for tokamacs when they're not running supernova, quasar or {classified} sims...

Must wonder if any of the tokamac folk have a home-brewed whiffle-ball in their cellar...

[D Tibbets]

An individual scientist might (and I repeat might) make major changes to his efforts, or even jump rails, based on new information. But, my cycnical view is that large labs are primarily beurocratic and paranoid organizations primarily concerned with their next meal. With good leadership of the lab (like general whats' his name in the Manhatten project) and/ or subsets of the organization there may be exceptions, but overall the organization tends to be near sighted and extreamly slow. With political will (or desperation such as in war) things can change quickly, otherwise they seem to plod along, cringing each year in fear that their efforts will be cut bact or abandoned for bugetary reasons.

Is it parionoid if they are really out to get you? Or, to put it another way- The system drives the attidudes of the subserviant organizations.

Dan Tibbets

[djolds1]

An individual scientist might (and I repeat might) make major changes to his efforts, or even jump rails, based on new information. But, my cycnical view is that large labs are primarily bureaucratic and paranoid organizations primarily concerned with their next meal. With good leadership of the lab (like general whats' his name in the Manhatten project) and/ or subsets of the organization there may be exceptions, but overall the organization tends to be near sighted and extremely slow. With political will (or desperation such as in war) things can change quickly, otherwise they seem to plod along, cringing each year in fear that their efforts will be cut bact or abandoned for bugetary reasons.

The military is (somewhat) different from other bureaucracies. If it doesn't achieve its mission goals, bad things (tm) happen. NASA seems to have managed to remain mission-centric for a little over 10 years before Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy & Michels' Iron Law of Oligarchy kicked in. That is probably the best that can be expected of any bureaucracy, private, public or military.

[MSimon]

(like general whats' his name in the Manhatten project)

Groves.

The equivalent of what you ask for is the equivalent of the Lockheed Skunk Works.

A company I worked for would from time to time assign me to such projects. I got to look at testing for bolt tightness inside a box without opening the box by ultrasonically exciting the box. I actually got it to work in a crude enough way to prove it could be done. I was also able to give a cost estimate. Too high. Cheaper to have some one crack the lid and use a torque wrench. Win some. Lose some.

[Nik]

Being 'in' our labs, but not 'of' our labs, I had rather more discretion for innovation than most of my colleagues. Also, as a deep-pocketed geek, I'd often buy my own components for minimalist 'proof of concept' studies...

As they said, "There's the right way, the wrong way, the {BigPharma} way and the way Nik found-- Which worked."

Later, we had an ex-RoyalEngineer join us. He thought my notions hilarious until he began trying to better them....

As he said, "There's the right way, the wrong way, the {BigPharma} way, the Army way and the way Nik found-- Which worked."

[alexjrgreen]

and the way Nik found-- Which worked."

You and chrismb should team up!

[MSimon]

Being 'in' our labs, but not 'of' our labs, I had rather more discretion for innovation than most of my colleagues. Also, as a deep-pocketed geek, I'd often buy my own components for minimalist 'proof of concept' studies...

As they said, "There's the right way, the wrong way, the {BigPharma} way and the way Nik found-- Which worked."

Later, we had an ex-RoyalEngineer join us. He thought my notions hilarious until he began trying to better them....

As he said, "There's the right way, the wrong way, the {BigPharma} way, the Army way and the way Nik found-- Which worked."

:roll:

Yeah. The bolt job was for a large aerospace company. They used to like to dump on me projects where there was absolutely not enough time. My favorite trick was figuring out how to meet the goal in 1/2 of "not enough time". At 1/2 the estimated absolute minimum materials budget. Although money was never much of a constraint.

I think you and I would get along well.