Exhibit A in this counterargument could be the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. With close to $10 billion spent and no tangible results in sight, the Ignition Facility, as Bill Sweet wrote in IEEE Spectrum magazine in 2012, is “the mother of all boondoggles.” Yet it trundles along, consuming hundreds of millions of dollars and countless scientist-hours each year, bringing delight to its congressional supporters but not much to anyone else.
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/541636/weighing-the-cost-of-big-science/
Perhaps "high-floor break even" was a mistake?
Comments
"Just shutting down the National Ignition Facility and redirecting those funds to some of the smaller-scale, innovative types of fusion being developed by private-sector companies would be a huge boost to the technology. And it would encourage more investors to back R&D that might, one day, actually produce electricity for customers."
Well NIF taught us that ICF is very challenging. Not likely that some startup with VC funding is going to do anything but eat investors money.
So the security guards get a tour of the place and very limited access. So who's gonna respond to an emergency? The Sheriff's Department..??? Ya....right. Plus, you gotta love the building(s)location right next to Greenville Road and the knee high fence surrounding the place.
The East Coast science mafia, with a revovling door between Boston professorship and DC appointments is very jealous of any government science money not under their influence. Just crooked Boston politics in tweed jackets.
West Coast has just as much wealth, paid taxes, solid scientists and technology.
Eat beans, Boston.
Self interest. Boston Irish Parable. "More for me, taken from you."
Self interest and jealosy ( tools of the academic trade)
September 24, 2015 at 5:10 PM
You have obviously misunderstood the role of the protective force from the beginning. Theirs is not a police function - they were there to protect nuclear material and classified material only. Employees were always to be protected if necessary by local police agencies. Nothing has changed there. Sorry if you thought the AR-15s were for your personal protection. Not so much.
September 24, 2015 at 3:26 PM
So we are paying LLNL to get interpolation data?
September 23, 2015 at 10:34 PM
That's exactly what many, maybe most startups are for: Taking investor money and redistributing it. First to VC fund managers and partners (who never lose money on anything), second to the founders and executives in the form of salaries and bonuses. Only if the company takes off, which a fusion energy company will never do, will the founders get rich and the investors make money.
https://www.llnl.gov/news/climbing-mountain-fusion-ignition-interview-omar-hurricane
September 25, 2015 at 4:59 AM
That is what they always have done. Interpolation, incompetence, or even outright fabrication. Think the search terms "EoS", "Phase Transition", "Dynamic Strength"
Sounds like a good waste of time and money.
Change is afoot at the offices of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization (GMTO), which is building one of the world’s largest telescopes. Today the group announced that its president, physicist Edward Moses, is stepping down after less than a year in the job. Moses is leaving to “deal with family matters that require his attention,” according to a statement on the GMTO website.
Prior to joining GMTO, Moses had been at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where he was director of the National Ignition Facility (NIF), a laser fusion lab, during the latter stages of its construction and its early operation. He was sometimes seen within the fusion community as a divisive figure, in part because of his relentless promotion of NIF and his overly optimistic forecasts of future progress. He instigated a project at Livermore, known as LIFE, that aimed to design a prototype power-generating fusion reactor using similar technology to NIF that could be built in just 10 years. “Under Ed’s leadership, the LIFE project damaged the reputation of the research field. It was premature and its timescale was unrealistic,” says Robert McCrory, director of the Laboratory for Laser Energetics at the University of Rochester in New York.
LANL and Sandia colleagues are jealous for sure - good job Ed in getting our salaries and pensions paid !!! Bravo !!!
Actually the beautiful absolutely defect free purple phosphate laser glass is very very cool !
September 29, 2015 at 8:59 PM
Are you guys at LLNL proud of producing nothing? I guess this is not surprising. LLNL has a history of working and producing failures and lying. The X-ray laser, National Ignition Facility, Magnetic Fusion Test Facility, Brilliant Pebbles, etc, and the four clowns they sent to LANL. Yeah, bravo Livermore!
September 30, 2015 at 3:12 AM
Yet another failure to recognize and appreciate sarcasm. Sad.