I don't believe there is one actually.
In 1958, there was the Treaty of Rome that created EurAtom, and that same year Eisenhower unilaterally declared Atoms for Peace, which declassified magnetic fusion research. There has been cooperation and sharing since then, even bileteral agreements, but I can't find a Treaty. I don't think the cooperation reaches that level.
For a history of fusion research cooperation, see:
http://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk2/198 ... 872309.PDF
J
Fusion Research Treaty
Thanks for the link.
Interesting how it immediately kicks off with a political/false premise; that "fusion research is expensive".
Do they mean like a 1GW fossil fuel power station is expensive? Best we don't build one of those, then!
Given the trillion dollars thrown at a war in a country far far away of which is know very little, yet for intangible benefits to the spending countries, why don't governments just say, "hmmm... ITER is gonna end up 30billion, and DEMO is gonna end up 200billion. Here's half a trillion, get it fixed, or be done."?
But I have an answer to why this is not so; managers. Bloody modern management. That's what. I'll explain:
A non-engineer type manager confronted with a project will go to the financial controller and say "I've drawn up this plan and I show here how it costs out at 1M [or whatever]" so the financial controller thinks "Ah - if this were my plan I would've thrown in a 20% fudge factor - the 10% he expects me to knock off, and 10% for all the golf club membership [or whatever extra on-the-side sundries], so he says "I need to see a 20% reduction". The project manager goes away, takes off his articifical 10% margin and says "I've struggled really hard at this and I've knocked off 10%" to which the financial controller thinks "hmm, I better let him keep his golf-club membership funds because I've got my request for funds to my manager next week and if I want my golf-club membership extras then I'd better not make a fuss here" - and so he then signs it off.
Why is this relevant to fusion research? Because now we have engineers who go along to the finanical controller and say "I've got an idea but I can't really drawn up a plan because it is called research and if I knew how the plan is gonna go then it wouldn't be called research. But I want to punt for 1M to get the project under way." The finanical controller is non-plussed "..hmmm", he thinks, and his brain goes "DOES NOT COMPUTE" so it falls back to the null programme of expecting a 10% deduction. The outcome is that the programme is underfunded, false economies are made in the programme and end up failing to meet the full conclusions.
Summary; stop giving research scientists and engineers a hard time over their budgets, you financial controllers! THEY ARE NOT THE SAME SPECIES AS YOU AND WILL OPTIMISE THE BUDGET THEY ASK FOR. When an engineer comes to you for money and says "gimme 1M" then he'll need more than that 'cos he's an optimist and is over-anticipating the budget cuts he can make for you already. Sign a blank cheque and let 'em get on with it. Society cannot affort not to do so. "Expensive" is a meaningless term when we are discussing the 100,000 year business plan of humanity.
Interesting how it immediately kicks off with a political/false premise; that "fusion research is expensive".
Do they mean like a 1GW fossil fuel power station is expensive? Best we don't build one of those, then!
Given the trillion dollars thrown at a war in a country far far away of which is know very little, yet for intangible benefits to the spending countries, why don't governments just say, "hmmm... ITER is gonna end up 30billion, and DEMO is gonna end up 200billion. Here's half a trillion, get it fixed, or be done."?
But I have an answer to why this is not so; managers. Bloody modern management. That's what. I'll explain:
A non-engineer type manager confronted with a project will go to the financial controller and say "I've drawn up this plan and I show here how it costs out at 1M [or whatever]" so the financial controller thinks "Ah - if this were my plan I would've thrown in a 20% fudge factor - the 10% he expects me to knock off, and 10% for all the golf club membership [or whatever extra on-the-side sundries], so he says "I need to see a 20% reduction". The project manager goes away, takes off his articifical 10% margin and says "I've struggled really hard at this and I've knocked off 10%" to which the financial controller thinks "hmm, I better let him keep his golf-club membership funds because I've got my request for funds to my manager next week and if I want my golf-club membership extras then I'd better not make a fuss here" - and so he then signs it off.
Why is this relevant to fusion research? Because now we have engineers who go along to the finanical controller and say "I've got an idea but I can't really drawn up a plan because it is called research and if I knew how the plan is gonna go then it wouldn't be called research. But I want to punt for 1M to get the project under way." The finanical controller is non-plussed "..hmmm", he thinks, and his brain goes "DOES NOT COMPUTE" so it falls back to the null programme of expecting a 10% deduction. The outcome is that the programme is underfunded, false economies are made in the programme and end up failing to meet the full conclusions.
Summary; stop giving research scientists and engineers a hard time over their budgets, you financial controllers! THEY ARE NOT THE SAME SPECIES AS YOU AND WILL OPTIMISE THE BUDGET THEY ASK FOR. When an engineer comes to you for money and says "gimme 1M" then he'll need more than that 'cos he's an optimist and is over-anticipating the budget cuts he can make for you already. Sign a blank cheque and let 'em get on with it. Society cannot affort not to do so. "Expensive" is a meaningless term when we are discussing the 100,000 year business plan of humanity.
Just to provide some fill-in and extra discussion points for this topic, I will mention again (I think I have done so previous) that I have communicated with the IAEA on the subject of their relationship to private research.
I focussed on the part of the statue that states;
"ARTICLE III: Functions
"A. The Agency is authorized:
"1. To encourage and assist research on, and development and practical "application of, atomic energy for peaceful uses throughout the world"
..and have pointed out that "uses throughout the world" fundamentally implies that the 'encouragement and assistance' is therefore clearly not limited to the 'members' of the agency.
The member of the agency are "...those States Members of the United Nations or of any of the specialized agencies which shall have signed this Statute within ninety days after it is opened for signature and shall have deposited an instrument of ratification. Other members of the Agency shall be those States, whether or not Members of the United Nations or of any of the specialized agencies, which deposit an instrument of acceptance of this Statute after their membership has been approved"
What appears to have happened is that
a) the [prior] information of those initial members was made available for dissemination [this being the key piece of info to address the thread topic], and that;
b) the IAEA has presumed upon itself, irrespective of the Article 3.A.1 that it needs deal ONLY with its members [the "competent authorities", as the IAEA refers to them] and doesn't feel any obligation to the words "To encourage and assist...development and practical application... throughout the world".
I have pointed out that the IAEA's presumption [of only to deal with state authorities] was erroneous before but is now evidently out-moded as both private industry and private individuals are entering that activity.
The IAEA person who replied did not seem to have an interest in my observations and advised me to refer to the "compentent authorities" of my country. I have to say it's kinda tricky to identify who that is, seeing as no-one is competently capable of fusion power! Further, in UK that "competent authority" of the state, UKAEA, was sold to a private company recently so the presumption of the tie up with the state-IAEA membership-relationship now appears to have fully broken down. I don't see why the "CCFE" (as UKAEA Culham is now called) has any greater claim to wandering into the IAEA as a member as any other private company that approaches IAEA and declares itself to be a member.
(There is, no doubt, some sort of administrative arrangement of the government's choosing, unbeknown to me, that makes all of whatever they do legal. These days, there seems to be a gulf between the law and what public bodies do. Whatever they do is "not unlawful", even if they don't follow the law. Go figure.)
I focussed on the part of the statue that states;
"ARTICLE III: Functions
"A. The Agency is authorized:
"1. To encourage and assist research on, and development and practical "application of, atomic energy for peaceful uses throughout the world"
..and have pointed out that "uses throughout the world" fundamentally implies that the 'encouragement and assistance' is therefore clearly not limited to the 'members' of the agency.
The member of the agency are "...those States Members of the United Nations or of any of the specialized agencies which shall have signed this Statute within ninety days after it is opened for signature and shall have deposited an instrument of ratification. Other members of the Agency shall be those States, whether or not Members of the United Nations or of any of the specialized agencies, which deposit an instrument of acceptance of this Statute after their membership has been approved"
What appears to have happened is that
a) the [prior] information of those initial members was made available for dissemination [this being the key piece of info to address the thread topic], and that;
b) the IAEA has presumed upon itself, irrespective of the Article 3.A.1 that it needs deal ONLY with its members [the "competent authorities", as the IAEA refers to them] and doesn't feel any obligation to the words "To encourage and assist...development and practical application... throughout the world".
I have pointed out that the IAEA's presumption [of only to deal with state authorities] was erroneous before but is now evidently out-moded as both private industry and private individuals are entering that activity.
The IAEA person who replied did not seem to have an interest in my observations and advised me to refer to the "compentent authorities" of my country. I have to say it's kinda tricky to identify who that is, seeing as no-one is competently capable of fusion power! Further, in UK that "competent authority" of the state, UKAEA, was sold to a private company recently so the presumption of the tie up with the state-IAEA membership-relationship now appears to have fully broken down. I don't see why the "CCFE" (as UKAEA Culham is now called) has any greater claim to wandering into the IAEA as a member as any other private company that approaches IAEA and declares itself to be a member.
(There is, no doubt, some sort of administrative arrangement of the government's choosing, unbeknown to me, that makes all of whatever they do legal. These days, there seems to be a gulf between the law and what public bodies do. Whatever they do is "not unlawful", even if they don't follow the law. Go figure.)
That was the Euro attitude towards confronting the Austrian Corporal (Saddam was his political heir - look up the Baath Party) in 1936 and 1939.Given the trillion dollars thrown at a war in a country far far away of which is know very little, yet for intangible benefits
The full benefits of confronting the Corporal weren't known until 1945. The Euros - stupid as ever in their smug way - decided (mostly) that confronting Saddam was not worth the evils of war. The US made a different calculation.
So was it worth it? We will never know. And for that I'm glad.
And you are leaving off Saddam's funding of the AQ Kahn network through Libya.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
The point I was making was the small funding of fusion, not the large funding of war. In a few hundred years, let alone 100,000's, whatever effect Saddam or Hitler may or many not have had will be totally irrelevant, but the impact of fusion power will be highly relevant for the rest of human history. Today is a triviality, the rest of history is what is important. Let's stick to the thread topic [for a change] and keep the politics for the 'general' forum.