jawfish

Fusion Power Turned Off? Maybe Not.
john posted in politics & culture, technologies on July 2nd, 2005

A brief look into the the byzantine world of US science funding.

Earlier this week Jawfish commented on the announcement of the site of the international fusion center in France. Today the papers reported that funding for a long-term American experiment in laser-contained fusion had been eliminated by the Senate.

But wait, the tale is not simply Neocon aversion to science. Bush supported the National Ignition Facility at Livermore Labs, which also has Pentagon support, so funding may be restored once the political power play is over. The local paper in Los Alamos NM, a company town for nuclear weapons and many other forms of Big Science, reports in depth on the funding.

The senior Senator from New Mexico, Domenici, is chair of Senate Energy and Water Appropriations subcommittee, and projects in New Mexico were funded, many higher than requested. California is over the funding horizon in Washington. One California Democratic Senator, Boxer, has just awakened from a long sleep, and the other Feinstein, has been compromiser with little clout. No doubt it’s easier to have a coordinated national policy in the UK or France. In Washington individual Senators can specialize and achieve great power. This particularly rewards small states like New Mexico, where the economy has few poles, research, tourism, agriculture. California has often been described as a country in its own right, with a mix of issues that resembles the entire US.