Fusion Wins Big in House Spending Bill

[jamesr]

ScienceInsider site is reporting a boost to US fusion funding in the House appropriations committee
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/04/fusion-wins-big-in-house-spendin.html

Fusion Energy Sciences to get an extra $72.6 million over its current budget, to $474.6 million. Enough to keep Alcator C-Mod operating at MIT

[Rezwan]

Not out of the woods yet. http://www.fusionenergyleague.org/index.php/forums/viewthread/36/

[ikanreed]

Too bad republicans hate science and will never vote for that.

[willit]

Hey………. I am a republican. unfortunately scientifically uneducated people cannot see the benifit. if you made them realize that the cell phone in their pocket came from research(mostly unfunded by govt) they might see things differently. if they are tied to big oil/coal they will most likely not vote for anything that would jeopardise that position.
all research answers questions but sometimes the wrong questions were asked.
teasing tidbits of information from mother nature is inherently difficult at times.

[Rezwan]

The whole process is flawed: http://www.fusionenergyleague.org/index.php/blog/article/us_budget_process

Which is why I’m most interested in private sector. http://www.fusionenergyleague.org/index.php/blog/article/fusion_finance_conversation_invitation

[ikanreed]

willit wrote: Hey………. I am a republican. unfortunately scientifically uneducated people cannot see the benifit. if you made them realize that the cell phone in their pocket came from research(mostly unfunded by govt) they might see things differently. if they are tied to big oil/coal they will most likely not vote for anything that would jeopardise that position.
all research answers questions but sometimes the wrong questions were asked.
teasing tidbits of information from mother nature is inherently difficult at times.

Ok, I’ll try to keep the political jabs at a minimum, because this is a fusion board, not a politics one, and no one would win from a protracted political debate. I do think this budget would have a much stronger chance without a republican controlled house, as a matter of practicality.

[Ivy Matt]

For what it’s worth, taken in context I thought your comment was hilarious, whether intentionally so or not. Thanks. :cheese:

[Ivy Matt]

The House passed the FY 2013 Energy & Water appropriations bill. New Jersey representatives Holt (D) and Frelinghuysen (R) made an appearance at PPPL to announce the bill’s passage. Frelinghuysen is the current chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies, which was responsible for drafting the bill. The Senate, which has yet to pass an energy appropriations bill for FY 2013, will review the legislation.

[Zara]

So are we still going with it’s an error in your mathematics or mine? Mind you I’m the General that lobbied your New Jersey senators when making rude responses…

[Andrew Palfreyman]

It seems that LPPFusion is very poorly represented in the halls of power. Certainly monies have recently been allocated to fusion, but I don’t think LPPFusion has seen a red cent of it. There appears to be an advocacy hole.

[Breakable]

I believe the controversial cold fusion is used yet again to derail the funding towards viable hot fusion approaches:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a20874/us-house-cold-fusion/

I think we need to start an initiative towards writing to the house members and Alan Grayson to not to focus on the controversy in cold fusion and to help fund the investigation into innovative confinement concepts including LPP Fusion.

[benf]

Folks on this forum may have seen the news on the Alcator C-mod project at MIT and their record breaking pressure achievement for a tokamak.

Alcator C-Mod news MIT

This achievement matters to us because a few years ago we rallied and became involved in letter writing and petition signing to support the funding which was going to be cut to this program.

It points up the value of continuing these support campaigns—they can produce results. In the spirit of promoting alternative fusion energy research, we got politicians to take a second look at ITER funding. We got them to extend MIT’s funding for a year, which enabled the research to advance….ARPA-E has funded Helion Energy.

I think we can leverage this achievement to enable more funding for small scale alternative projects like Focus Fusion in the future….I plan to do more writing…petition signing, etc. We all should! 🙂

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