The DOE increased the FY2015 fusion request by 105 Million.

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mattman
Posts: 459
Joined: Tue May 27, 2008 11:14 pm

The DOE increased the FY2015 fusion request by 105 Million.

Post by mattman »

OK,

I know that in FY2013, US fusion budget was $398.3 million.

Then I am reading this article on ITER funding problems - and I see they requested 505 Million but congress has only approved 200 Million. Since this article is behind a paywall, here are the good parts:
Early plans called for DOE to spend $350 million a year on ITER from 2014 through 2016. But that would have eaten up most of DOE’s fusion budget, leaving little for domestic programs. So in formulating this year’s budget, department of?cials proposed capping ITER spending at $225 million; in the end, Congress gave ITER just $200 million of DOE’s $505 million fusion budget. The White House proposes spending even less on ITER, $150 million, in the 2015 ? scal year which begins 1 October. That low request may re?ect a division within the Obama administration, says the Democratic Senate staffer. Diplomats at the U.S. State Department argue that the U.S. commitment is akin to a treaty and can’t be broken, he says. (State Department of?cials declined comment.) But some DOE of?cials may be happy to walk away from the troubled project, he adds. Congress could break the deadlock when lawmakers revise, or mark up, the administration’s proposed budget for 2015. In the Senate, “our intention is to make a decision for ourselves in our markup,” the staffer says. “They won’t have a choice.” The Senate’s ?nal stance could depend on how well the ITER organization responds to a scathing management review it received this past February (Science, 28 February, p. 957), a Republican staffer in the Senate says. Among its 11 recommendations: replacing ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima, reducing the number of senior managers by half, developing a realistic schedule, and creating a culture of urgency in the project. “If they make those hanges, then there is viability in the [U.S.] program,” predicts the staffer. But if “they don’t, there isn’t.”

What did they want the other 105 million for?

The DOE FY2015 budget request explains that it is mostly for the National Spherical Torus Experiment, at Princeton. Here are the real numbers:


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ohiovr
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Re: The DOE increased the FY2015 fusion request by 105 Milli

Post by ohiovr »

The sad truth is that you can't always legislate technological progress. The cellulistic ethanol issue is a good recent example of a mandate they couldn't achieve by force. They found that cellulistic ethanol actually costs more than corn based ethanol which is, not exactly ideal to start with. This was exactly the opposite of what they wanted. Prominent researchers are saying it will never be economical. Algae has been the fuel feedstock of tomorrow for decades but in the 1990s the government closed a whole department on its development with the epilogue saying in effect, this will probably never work.

Its going to take some more productive accidents before we figure this stuff out.

asdfuogh
Posts: 77
Joined: Wed Jan 23, 2013 6:58 am
Location: California

Re: The DOE increased the FY2015 fusion request by 105 Milli

Post by asdfuogh »

Well, that's not good. I think my projects are under the ones that are less.

happyjack27
Posts: 1439
Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2010 5:27 pm

Re: The DOE increased the FY2015 fusion request by 105 Milli

Post by happyjack27 »

ohiovr wrote:The sad truth is that you can't always legislate technological progress.
...and the u.s. congress anti-science committee certainly isn't helping.

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