NYTs On ITER - Again

[MSimon]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/busin ... usion.html

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I sent the reporter this e-mail. Perhaps some one else would like to have a word with him:


Why doesn't Bussard's Polywell Fusion get much press?

Is it that the experiments are too cheap and that results can be had in five years or so makes the ITER folks look bad?

The US Navy sees merit in it. If it can be made to work Navy ships could be powered for a few hundred dollars a day in fuel costs. And the fuel could be extracted from sea water. Talk about sailing on an ocean of fuel.

Polywell got $2 million in the DoD recovery act.

http://iecfusiontech.blogspot.com/2009/ ... n-act.html

Enough to keep things limping along. A little more speed wouldn't hurt. An average of $40 million a year for 5 years would answer the question. i.e. about the USA portion of one year's ITER budget which is about $160 to $200 million a year depending on what you include (supporting experiments).

Also consider this: if it works (big "if" there) it would produce electricity at 1/10th to 1/100th the cost of an ITER like plant. Which makes ITER a good fall back position if IEC fusion is a dead end.

[KitemanSA]

Polywell got $2 million in the DoD recovery act.

http://iecfusiontech.blogspot.com/2009/ ... n-act.html

Chickens, hatch, counting... ring a bell? The document I referenced earlier was a PLAN, a thought process on how the money might be spent. I will count it (put it in the FAQwiki) when it gets to them. But with the info embargo, will we ever know?

[MSimon]

Polywell got $2 million in the DoD recovery act.

http://iecfusiontech.blogspot.com/2009/ ... n-act.html

Chickens, hatch, counting... ring a bell? The document I referenced earlier was a PLAN, a thought process on how the money might be spent. I will count it (put it in the FAQwiki) when it gets to them. But with the info embargo, will we ever know?

I thought the DoD plan was submitted to Congress. You know - bases. LED lighting for the Pentagon etc.

[chrismb]

Why doesn't Bussard's Polywell Fusion get much press?

In this case, perhaps because it wasn't a story on all the myriad fusion wannabe hopefuls, of which Polywell is merely a minor, floundering example, it was about ITER?

Wrong question asked, I think. The right question would've been "Could you expand [in your next article?] on the point you made about putting the funding into other research programmes, as there are many other potential fusion projects that you could discuss. For example, Polywell, etc....?"

[KitemanSA]

Polywell got $2 million in the DoD recovery act.
http://iecfusiontech.blogspot.com/2009/ ... n-act.html

Chickens, hatch, counting... ring a bell? The document I referenced earlier was a PLAN, a thought process on how the money might be spent. I will count it (put it in the FAQwiki) when it gets to them. But with the info embargo, will we ever know?

I thought the DoD plan was submitted to Congress. You know - bases. LED lighting for the Pentagon etc.

Yup, a statement that says this is how we PLAN to spend the money. Who knows what could happen tween then and when they ACTUALLY get around to contracting. We can but hope the plan is followed!