Reply To: would nuclear energy really be accessible to all?

[zapkitty]

Ivy Matt wrote:
Then there’s this puzzling paraphrase of Mike Dunne of LLNL:

Washington is comfortable that this technology provides no opportunities “for nuclear proliferation or advancement of other country’s weapons capability,” said Dunne. The development of commercial fusion, he says, has no defense applications.

Apparently the US Navy disagrees; otherwise they wouldn’t be funding EMC2’s research.

Note what he said: “commercial” fusion.

What is “commercial” fusion from a Foggy Bottom point of view?

ITER.

How much of a military threat is ITER?

You can stop laughing any time now;…

But it does point out the very real threat, despite treaties to the contrary, of an “official” fusion process vs. “commercial” plants. in an inverse analogy to the telecoms and broadband in the U.S.

(The telecoms were allowed to suck in extra fees from customers for decades for the express purpose of building up nationwide broadband while simultaneously refusing to do that and gambling the money away on Wall Street… only to turn around and declare that only the wired net was actually the “public” internet and that the new wireless nets are now the “commercial” internet… all the while simultaneously dropping future wired net buildout and going full speed ahead on wireless.)

So, a possible future in which ITER gives the world nothing for decades and then very limited fusion access for the public while fusion-powered aircraft carriers float by overhead…

… the plutocracy at the top of the oligarchic heap would love that scenario.