In this space, visitors are invited to post any comments, questions, or skeptical observations about Philo T. Farnsworth's contributions to the field of Nuclear Fusion research.Subject: Re: Crunch time for Big Fusion?
Date: Oct 16, 11:06 am
Poster: Jim LuxOn Oct 16, 11:06 am, Jim Lux wrote:
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>1. Is part of the part of the problem with Big Fusion projects that they seem to be run by people from a physics rather than enginering (preferably power generation) background?.
Yes indeedy.. (my engineering bias showing here).. The physicists tend to want to produce as much information as possible and understand it fully. The engineers only tend to want just enough info to make it work.
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>After all their stated aim is to produce power,
But is it really? I suspect that if you look at their project justification documents, it probably says something about "characterizing techniques for eventual power production"... At work we call this "doing science projects"
>2. If projects like this we shot dead, and their researchers "cast into the wilderness", would innovative directions in fusion come forth, or would main stream fusion research use the lack of funding as an excuse for failure?.
Depends on the folks involved... some will come up with ways to do things "on the cheap", some will sit and fuss and cry. Physicists, engineers, project managers are real people and a wide variety of personalities exist.