I wish all the rhetoric could be less nationalistic. Energy is a global issue, grassroots & regional campaigns on specific issues have there place. However I think to really get the message across of the scale of the problem, any campaign needs to be global and inclusive in its nature. Individual nation states do not have the power or will to implement the kind of changes needed.
I know FFS and FEL are based in the USA, but why not frame any response to this kind of report from a national body to encourage collaboration with other nations, EU & UN bodies, multinational companies etc.
Also with regard to military spending, although the US military, via the DOE has spent a large amount of money on NIF and the associate computer modeling research into inertial fusion energy. A lot of the key data is classified, hampering civilian research as they do not have to required information.
There are lots of researchers around the world that would like to work on inertial fusion but can’t because of proliferation paranoia, limiting access to codes and data.
I’m sure there are classified codes out there which would be a great start in modeling a DPF plasmoid, but anything that can cope with high density plasmas that include radiation feedback terms (ie opacity) tend to be classified.
If you want people to sign a pledge it should include any research paid for by taxpayers money (from any country) should be freely available to the entire world.
The astronomy community is a good model – for most projects now, the group who put up the money for an experiment/satellite etc get first dibs on the data, then after a set period eg. 6months, or after first journal publication it is open to everyone.
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