Reply To: New Focus Fusion myspace.

[emmetb]

Lerner wrote: NIF is actually funded as a nuclear weapons simulation device, not as a step towards electric power generation. In theory, however, the knowledge gained, if it reached ignition, would help in desiging a inertial fusion power device using some other source of energy than foot-ball-field-sized lasers.

In the same way the US got reinvolved in ITER, after having withdrawn initially. For a large part this was because the entire contraption is one big neutron-source that is useful for breeding fissile material. This is something that the US cannot but stay involved in. Perhaps not so much for the prospect of clean power, but more from a nuclear weapons proliferation perspective.

Having said all this. Of course these facilities represent great science. Of course we’re all curious about what will be the results. Yet we should be curious for the right reasons.