The “Fusion is the energy of the future – and always will be” joke is another variation of this.
This joke is connected to the “fusion is too hard” frame.
This joke comes up everywhere and has the effect of dismissing fusion. For example, I was watching “Moon“, starring Sam Rockwell, directed by Duncan Jones. In the DVD extras, there is a Q&A with Duncan at NASA. They ask him why he chose this topic (Rockwell is mining He3 on the moon for fusion power plants on earth), and he said he was very interested in fusion as a viable energy source. The interviewer quickly jumped in with the “fusion is always in the future” joke, and that was the end of the discussion.
Another missed opportunity.
To reframe this current frame, we have to acknowledge that fusion has taken a lot longer than people expected. Then again, at the ICC conference, someone told me the original “we’ll have fusion in X years” was based on the expectation of funding at 10 billion dollars a year for those X years, said funding which never happened, as fusion rode the funding rollercoaster and took a plunge after the OPEC oil crisis died down.
We’ll need to verify this info, of course. To get to the bottom of the origins of the “always X years away” idea. Fusion in X0 years is such a vague statement.
And with LPP, it’s, “fusion is always 1 year away” – but those pesky switches and such could keep pushing that year into an ever receding future.
Still, “always 1 year away” is much better than “always 20” and can be leveraged to increase public awareness and support.
But in a sense, we can’t deny that we don’t have fusion yet. So the real issue under all of this is that people think it’s impossible. How do we reframe that? We don’t KNOW if it’s possible or not. But we must pursue likely avenues of inquiry and at the very least falsify them.
The frame here for Focus fusion is good – it’s cheaper to falsify/prove than the other methods. If you’re comfortable funding the big, expensive ideas that take 20-50 years, it’s logical to fund these inexpensive ideas.
Bottom line: Perhaps this frame/barrier to fusion needs a bit more analysis before we can figure out better ways to reframe it.