James, how important do you consider the continued investment in hot fusion research? Do you consider LENR as more likely to bear fruit at this point?
I tend to believe that research tends to pay off in ways that are unexpected and that much is to learned by studying plasma behavior within the large reactors, but I believe that at least a small portion of that money should be directed toward research in other areas such as LENR. Placing too many eggs within one basket is risky and the same applies to research when it can not be known ahead of time what will be discovered. Dave -----Original Message----- From: James Bowery <[email protected]> To: vortex-l <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, Jan 3, 2013 11:19 am Subject: Re: [Vo]:Slate attacks cold fusion I simply referred him to: The DoE committment to very large fusion concepts (the giant magnetic tokamak) ensures only the need for very large budgets; and that is what the program has been about for the past 15 years - a defense-of-budget program - not a fusion-achievement program. As one of three people who created this program in the early 1970's (when I was an Asst. Dir. of the AEC's Controlled Thermonuclear Reaction Division) I know this to be true... http://www.oocities.org/jim_bowery/BussardsLetter.html and pointed out that Bussard's termination of all government fusion programs, substituting prize awards for significant milestones, was a fair compromise with reality which is ultimately beyond the grasp of both believers and disbelievers alike. On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 9:09 AM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: This is depressing. See: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/nuclear_power/2013/01/fusion_energy_from_edward_teller_to_today_why_fusion_won_t_be_a_source_of.html "For one thing, the history of fusion energy is filled with crazies, hucksters, and starry-eyed naifs chasing after dreams of solving the world's energy problems. One of the most famous of all, Martin Fleischmann, died earlier this year. Along with a colleague, Stanley Pons, Fleischmann thought that he had converted hydrogen into helium in a beaker in his laboratory, never mind that if he had been correct he would have released so much energy that he and his labmates would have been fricasseed by the radiation coming out of the device." - Jed
