Talk-Polywell.org

Early plans called for DOE to spend $350 million a year on ITER from 2014 through 2016. But that would have eaten up most of DOE’s fusion budget, leaving little for domestic programs. So in formulating this year’s budget, department of?cials proposed capping ITER spending at $225 million; in the end, Congress gave ITER just $200 million of DOE’s $505 million fusion budget. The White House proposes spending even less on ITER, $150 million, in the 2015 ? scal year which begins 1 October. That low request may re?ect a division within the Obama administration, says the Democratic Senate staffer. Diplomats at the U.S. State Department argue that the U.S. commitment is akin to a treaty and can’t be broken, he says. (State Department of?cials declined comment.) But some DOE of?cials may be happy to walk away from the troubled project, he adds. Congress could break the deadlock when lawmakers revise, or mark up, the administration’s proposed budget for 2015. In the Senate, “our intention is to make a decision for ourselves in our markup,” the staffer says. “They won’t have a choice.” The Senate’s ?nal stance could depend on how well the ITER organization responds to a scathing management review it received this past February (Science, 28 February, p. 957), a Republican staffer in the Senate says. Among its 11 recommendations: replacing ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima, reducing the number of senior managers by half, developing a realistic schedule, and creating a culture of urgency in the project. “If they make those hanges, then there is viability in the [U.S.] program,” predicts the staffer. But if “they don’t, there isn’t.”

ohiovr wrote:The sad truth is that you can't always legislate technological progress.