To the person who saved Fermilab: Thank You.
May 31st, 2008
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Thanks. Thanks a lot. That’s not a sarcastic “thanks a lot either.” Actually, the words don’t really express the extent of the generosity or what it will mean to science. Someone, for no apparent reason other than an appreciation for the scientific advancements in jeopardy, has taken it upon themselves to pay out of pocket for what the US government would not.
A private donor has stepped forward and anonymously made the gift of five million dollars to aid Fermilab, which has been in dire financial straights in the past few years. The gift will be sufficient to allow the facility to continue to operate, for the immediate future, without having to resort to more layoffs or major cuts in facilities. This is really great news for Fermilab and for particle physics research in general. The facility has recently seen financial difficulties which have resulted in the layoffs of research staff and dramatic cuts in experiments. The world class research facility has been left to scrape together funds to pay the bills and has even had to auction off equipment and ask staff members to take pay cuts just to keep the lights on in the laboratories.
A bit of background:
Fermilab is truly one of the greatest research facilities on earth and a true achievement of the US Department Of Energy’s national laboratory research program. The facility specializes in particle physics and has some of the most advanced particle accelerator systems in the world. Numerous discoveries, including the detection of the so-called “top quark.” The laboratory was founded in 1967 as the National Accelerator Laboratory to conduct particle physics research using advanced detectors and particle accelerators.
Fermilab is home to the Tevatron, the largest and highest energy accelerator in the word, with the exception of the Large Hadron Collider, operated by CERN in Europe, which is in the final stages of construction and testing and will begin initial operations later this year. Indeed, the LHC may not have been possible without the experience gained at Fermilab in the operation of systems of such a scale, and Fermilab was one of the largest contributers of technology and knowhow to the LHC project. The laboratory also houses some of the most advanced particle detector experiments in the world. Working with remote detectors as and onsite equipment, Fermilab has also pioneered research into neutrinos and their detection.
Beyond particle physics, Fermilab also has an illustrious history of achievements in the field of supercomputer development and parallel processing. Fermilab has been on the forefront of applying supercomputing to physics research and is one of the top supercomputing centers of the world. Fermilab has claimed the world’s most powerful supercomputer on multiple occasions – although the title is rarely held long by any system due to the continuous advancements in computing. In recent years, Fermilab has been a leader in the development of “lattice” supercomputing systems and has developed methods for efficiently utilizing the power of multiple supercomputers in different locations through more effecient distribution practices.
To some, the construction of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN may seem to reduce the importance of Fermilab’s capabilities, but this is not at all the case. Although the LHC may take the title for the overall size and energy levels of a particle accelerator, Fermilab remains a uniquely capable particle physics research institution. Though less powerful, the Tevatron is able to operate for longer periods of time than the LHC and will likely require less downtime for maintenance, allowing for greater access and numerous types of research activities. Fermilab also continues to be at the cutting edge of particle detection experiments. The Collider Detector at Fermilab, for example, is one of the most advanced projects to probe the fundamental of matter ever undertaken and the D0 Experiment is intended to probe the nature of subatomic particles in a manner not possible anywhere else in the world. Such research activities involve dozens of countries and hundreds of scientists, some of whom have committed years of their professional lives to these experiments.
When it comes to research in antimatter, particle accelerator experiments, neutrino interactions, particle detection, supercomputing and more Fermilab stands at or near the top of the world’s greatest research institutions.
So how the hell did it end up being so cash-strapped?
Five million dollars to save such a premiere research facility? How could this be? How could an American institution with such unique capabilities and experience be so badly underfunded? Honestly, it’s something this country should be ashamed of. Lets not forget that the national budged of the US Government has mushroomed to close to two trillion dollars in the past few years. The Department of Energy alone has an annual budget of over twenty billion dollars.
The facility currently operates under “the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC” and has since 2006. The group has struggled to maintain operations as funding has become increasingly scarce. The facility is administered through a partnership that includes the Universities Research Association and the University of Chicago, but has been funded through the Department of Energy as a federal facility. Over the past decade, funding has not been increased, even in the face of increased operating costs and inflation.
Fermilab has thus been limited in expansion of scientific activities and by 2005, layoffs were announced as funding was no longer adequate to maintain the existing level of researchers. However, it was in December 2006 that things went from sub-optimal to dire. That was when the US Congress passed a budged which funded Fermilab which slashed the budget of the laboratory from $372 million to $320 million. This is not only significantly less than expected, but adjusted for inflation, it is the lowest budget the laboratory has been forced to operate with in its recent history. The dramatic cut has forced the laboratory to reduce operations just to maintain its existing financial commitments and keep the main accelerator in operating condition. The director of Fermilab had hoped to bring the International Linear Collider project to the laboratory, but having been allotted less than 25% of the requested funds to the project, the prospects for bringing the ILC to the United States now seems dim.
As an American, I’m downright ashamed at my government for this. Personally, I’m not all about government spending, but when it comes to science, Fermilab is a bargain in terms of the funding required and the return on investment. Having built this world class facility, the United States has an obligation not to squander the physical and intellectual resources Fermilab represents. This established facility and those who operate it are a priceless asset to science and to the United States and the annual cost of keeping the laboratory operating is more than reasonable for the United States.
Fermilab represents the fruits of decades of scientific advancements by the United States. The United States has a rich and proud legacy of astounding scientific achievements ranging from spaceflight to nuclear physics, but such a heritage is easily relegated to history by complacency and indifference. It’s clear that our world has become one in which science and technology are central prosperity, security and economic power. The United States cannot afford to not maintain its support of cutting edge scientific research.
Finally, to the donor, another sincere thank you. The gift is generous for an individual, but for the US government, the fact that Fermilab is so cash-strapped is inexcusable. Hopefully this will be a wakeup call to provide laboratory with the funding it needs, because donors, no matter how generous cannot be expected to carry the responsibility of maintaining the great science institutions of the United States.
This entry was posted on Saturday, May 31st, 2008 at 12:11 am and is filed under Bad Science, Good Science, History, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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May 31st, 2008 at 12:58 am
Wow. Sounds like the condition the Russian Space Agency was in the mid to late 1990’s when they couldn’t even afford to have the roof kept up for the only full flight worthy Bauran and so it collapsed and destroyed it while the other big space hardware was out rusting and they were desperate to scrape together money to keep Mir from deorbiting.
That was understandable though. They were trying to get things together after their entire country had fallen and been reestablished with a lot of chaos. This is happening in the USA and I’m feeling shamed for my country on this one.
Still, the person who gave the money can’t be thanked enough.
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May 31st, 2008 at 1:02 am
Props to the donor, a few more should step up to the plate a do what is right. Five million is chicken feed, if that little will make a difference maybe they should start a trust that will accept donations from the rest of us that might want to kick in a few bucks of more modest amounts. I’m sure that there is a number of people that would give, especially if they did like public television and gave gifts. You know, the baseball cap at 20 dollars, the Tee-shirt at $50, the hoodie at $100 and so on all with a cool logo and snappy bon mots.
Get regular people engaged as supporters with annual reports and the rest of the song and dance that organizations like the WWF and other of it’s ilk do. Bring science to the people and make them feel like they are involved and the politicians will think twice before defunding a place like Fermilab.
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May 31st, 2008 at 2:56 am
I don’t think 5 mill is going to really allow them to be secure for more than a short while and it is definitely not going to be enough to do all the things they could with proper funding.
Taking donations for this is not really how it should be done. I think it’s great of anyone to donate but they should not have to. It’s not a reliable way to keep something going long term and it’s a government lab so it’s not the responsibility of people who feel a calling to charity to keep it going.
I agree that Fermilab is cheap for what it can provide.
Maybe if more people took it as an issue of national pride it would be better funded.
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May 31st, 2008 at 7:38 am
To the donor: Heartful thanks.
To the US government: You should be deeply ashamed.
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May 31st, 2008 at 8:27 am
This is ridiculous
Fermilab must exist.
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May 31st, 2008 at 8:59 am
Let me add my thanks to the person or persons who had the necessary foresight to make such a magnanimous donation.
I would also like to add that in line with a previous comment I too would be happy to donate to such research projects if there was a mechanism in place to support them. Perhaps it time they started looking to the those of us with an interest in their work after all how many times a week do we get stopped and asked to donate to less deserving causes.
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May 31st, 2008 at 9:04 am
Wow, what a cool looking place. Serious Props to the donor or donors that stepped up to the plate.
JJ
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
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May 31st, 2008 at 9:54 am
I think you mean “cash-strapped -. feel free to delete this comment after you fix, btw.
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May 31st, 2008 at 11:35 am
Welcome to the world of DOE particle physics. When it comes to budget priorities the don’t have the clout of HUD, Fresh Start or food stamps. social Security reciepients are going to get their increases no matter how broke the system is, but the labs get the axe and important work is delayed and forced to coast. Poor people have activists and Barak Obamas and the rich old people have lots of votes, but the future doesn’t vote. I worked at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility down in Virginia until I was the victim of a budget cut ten years ago and they still haven’t assembled the expansion planned then. These delays and cuts cost more than we know. Critical staff for one project or another leave and take their hard won knowledge with them.
The problem with this attitude is that we have been eating the seed corn for a long time now and it is going to come back and bite us. The work done at the big national labs and other research isn’t done for today, its done for future generations. These people aren’t working in fancy offices. My office was in a trailer for crying out loud, furnished with cheap office furniture and leftovers from half a dozen agencies. I had a table in my office that may have come from the War Department. My desk looked like it came from the Sears catalog. DOE people become expert scroungers and recyclers of high tech stuff. We were all packrats, because you never knew what you would need in the future. We improvised, because there is no particle accelerator big box store. Yet all too frequently you learn to accept the chance of failure because in the end the experiment that you have spent your life building may not work. yet you go on with a perpetual optimism that is a DOE lab’s greatest asset. I would go back in a New York Minute.
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May 31st, 2008 at 2:21 pm
There is an old saying from India that says,’those who beg in silence, starve in silence’, and to some extent this is what is happening here. It not hard to find worthy projects to spend public funds on, and it is just the nature of the process by which these funds are allocated, that the squeaky wheel gets oiled.
The major benefit to an organization like Fermilab (or any other cash strapped science project) of a public appeal for funds is not the amount of money collected directly from the public, but the message it sends to the political apparatus that there are a significant constituency that supports it, and that will loosen the purse-strings.
It’s not just particle physics that would gain from such an insinuative, there are other worthy research programs as well out there that are felling the pinch. Just in general we need to show our governments that there is broad public support for these endeavors. In short science needs activists.
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May 31st, 2008 at 2:58 pm
I agree on one the major point that Fermilab represents an investment and an asset. We’re not debating the cost of building Fermilab because it is already built and already operational. The budget represents the small cost of keeping this existing asset running and up to date. For what it is, it’s a bargain at twice the price.
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May 31st, 2008 at 5:21 pm
You seem to be somewhat negative about Ares. Not just from this post, but in one or two others as well. Is there any particular reason for this?
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May 31st, 2008 at 5:50 pm
So you have the largest most expensive scientific instrument in the world and our bomb-building government will not give it enough money to pay the scientist salaries or keep the lights on. Brilliant.
We deserved to be taken over by the Chinese… it’s time to storm the gates of Roman folks
Let’s sell it to the Swiss (or the Chinese).
-Money is the answer, what was the question?
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May 31st, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Finrod said:
there are a few reasons. Actually that’s another post in and of itself which I have worked on for a bit. One thing that really annoys me is they’ve all but destroyed the fact that it was “Shuttle Derived” and therefore supposed to be cheaper and use existing systems.
For example, the solid rocket booster system they are using: if they had stuck with the shuttle boosters for the Ares-5 and not bothered with an SRB for the Ares-1 they could use them with aproximately zero development cost. however, in order to get one SRB as the first stage they necessitated completely redesigning the gimbling and nozzle system for more active control. Basically they need a whole new vectoring system from the ground up. Then they added a fifth segment. This doesn’t just increase burn time but also thrust. The five segment booster exceeds the design tolerances of the original SRB with four segments. Basically they need to redo the whole SRB system.
Then on top of this the supper stage is a new design. It’s not that much different in capabilities to the third stage of the saturn-5, which is a proven design. They decided to go with a completely new tank design on the claim it would reduce weight, but it will cost a lot more to develop. However they found that there was not enough reenforcements between the oxygen and hydrogen tanks and now the plan is to add more: This negates the weight savings.
I’ve got more problems than that.
My big issue is that the Ares-1 is going to need a lot more development cost than building only the Ares-5. It turns out too many systems are not shared between the two or will need to be compromised to work on both. They can’t even use the same launch support towers. The Ares-5 I understand. It’s a big heavy launch system that we do not currently have. So it’s a new capability. But the Ares-1 is not any more capable than the existing Delta or Atlas rocket systems. The Atlas already meets most of the criteria for human certification too. And at this moment, it seems like the per-launch cost of the Ares-1 is not likely to be any less than the Atlas-5 Heavy, which has only slightly less capacity in the standard launch configuration. It actually has slightly more in the theoretical super heavy configuration.
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May 31st, 2008 at 7:17 pm
I see. Well, I guess that a certain amount of pork-barrelling will always accompany such endevours. Hopefully the effort to get back to proper human exploration missions won’t be derailed by your next president, whoever that shall be. I note with approval that the development of the methane/lox engine is going ahead. This will be essential for the Mars program. It should be OK as long as the actual hardware can be bought into existence. It will be much more difficult for a president hostile to the space program to justify cancelling the project if most of the development work has already been paid for and completed (although admittedly the experience of Apollo speaks against such optimism).
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May 31st, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Thank God the government isn’t spending money there anymore. This is not a constitutionally valid way to spend tax money. This should be done via private money, period.
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June 1st, 2008 at 1:27 am
Tom B said:
Fundamental scientific research is an essential component of an advanced nation’s long term defense strategy. Government funding for such research is not only valid, it’s existentially critical.
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June 1st, 2008 at 2:18 am
Tom B said:
I am stunned that people can think this way. The US has been a world leader in technology because of their big-project mentality when it came to primary research. How anyone could think that this was money ill spent is a mystery to me.
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June 1st, 2008 at 2:34 am
Tom B said:
I’m a libertarian in general and I tend to think the government loves to waste money on things it does not need to do, but science like this is not one of them. In the United States, we have a rich legacy and have established some of the most accomplished institutions such as the National Laboratory system. This kind of research is too large and does not have immediate financial returns to the individual funding it for it to be left to the private sector.
It’s vital to the advancement of a country while staying on the forefront of science and technology. It’s also a stratigic assets, which is why many of these institutions were established. Having a facility with experienced scientists and engineers and top notch capabilities is something which can be an issue of national security.
When 9/11 happened we were lucky we had the experienced people and the technologies in place at the Nevada Test Site to do the destructive testing and simulations of the event. We were lucky we had the accomplished materials scientists at the National Institutes of Standards and Technology to do the failure analysis and the materials testing. When North Korea attempted to test a nuclear weapon it was people from NTS, from the US Geological Survey, from the National Laboratories who were able to work out the yield from the limited seismic and atmospheric data.
If there is any kind of another unforeseen event which requires a rapid solution, you would be very surprised how effectively these institutions can step up to the plate and accomplish something very fast and sometimes with limited resources and time. Beyond that, pure science has a tendency to yield more practical applications than is often expected.
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June 1st, 2008 at 10:55 am
I remember flying into O’Hare W to E, and having my seatmate exclaim, “What’s that thing?” as he looked down on the big circle (the maintenance road, actually) I just said, “Fermilab”. “Way cool!
Also thanks to the anymouse donor. I am of the belief that most everything, especially science, is best done with private funds in non-government institutions, where there aren’t any government fuddy-duddies misdirecting the work. Also where we get away from the mindset that “the Federal Government MUST…” and if they don’t, it doesn’t happen. I also know that the real world doesn’t work that way. (sigh)
And RE Aries: “I know engineers–they LOVE to change things…” Dr. McCoy.
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June 1st, 2008 at 3:57 pm
I have to agree that I am at least somewhat split on the issue of the government funding projects other than what is needed for national security and to maintain economic stablility, but still I see these kind of science projects as being something you can’t reasonably expect to be done with completely private funds. Lets not forget that the origin of this stuff is actually a national security thing. The current DOE research programs and the National Laboratory system began from nuclear weapon development. The natural outgrowth of this was to then move to reactors and energy, since they had to build reactors for weapons and military purposes and had the best people working on it. From there theoretical physics and then general science comes into play. These government sponsored “big science” programs are often general theoretical research but they also yeild a great deal of strategically significant discoveries.
I’d say that it’s a stratigic asset of enormous value. I’d go so far as to say that these facilities constitute a much greater resource than the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, The National Defense Reserve Fleet, the Treasury Note Reserve or almost any of the other resources the government spends money to keep active should they be needed. There is a much greater return on this than there is on the funds spent on maintaining other resources in a state of cold standby or readiness.
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June 1st, 2008 at 9:23 pm
This item scored big time on Reddit. Strangely with 574 up-votes but 344 down votes, the down votes directed more at DV82XL than the topic, I think.
I have rubbed a few people the wrong way over there it would seem. One of my ‘admirers’ wrote in an earlier comment on another post there that I couldn’t be trusted because I used the words ‘grid’ and an acronym and that is enough to prove to 90% of the readers that I am an electrical engineer or nuclear physicist expert.
suppose I should be flattered, except it would seem the commenter saw those fields as inherently evil.
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June 1st, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Actually I didn’t post anything new today in part because I was thinking maybe give this another day as the top post on the page. It got a lot of attention. More than eight thousand hits yesterday, most of them unique. That’s the second highest ratings for a single day I’ve had yet!
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June 2nd, 2008 at 3:41 am
The department of energy spends a lot of money on research like this and also on research and other expenses involving oil and gas and fossil fuels and even worse, they spend a large amount of money on nuclear power. They do not spend more than 10% on solar, wind, biofuel etc. Despite the fact that the population has already come to a realization that these are the future and that they’re how we can solve the problems we have the government won’t take them up on renewable.
I don’t know if this lab has to do with nuclear power or if it’s just about other things that are not waste producers, like maybe fusion power, but really what’s the point? Wind is where the government needs to spend money and solar too. Why don’t they get that? Maybe it has to do with Bush and his oil connections.
If it were up to me we’d be powered by wind and solar a long time ago. Maybe other things as well like tide power and biofuel renew ables but definitely not what the government energy department wants!
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June 2nd, 2008 at 6:11 am
Lisa and Mike said:
If you are at all sincere about getting to the bottom of these matters, you need to open your eyes and take a good hard look at the numbers and science behind various energy producing schemes. Those of us who have done this consistently and with access to the correct information have been drawn to the conclusion, sometimes enthusiastically, sometimes with loathing, that the usual oft-quoted renewable energy schemes are not a viable means of powering our civilisation, that neither in the long term (or the near-term for that matter) is fossil fuel, and that the inevitable future source of our civilisation’s power for survival will come from nuclear energy.
‘Renewable’ energy sources, so called, are so dilute that deriving enough power to sustain our enormous poulation would mean tapping into so much of the natural energy flow of the ecosystem that it would be a major environmental catastrophe in its own right, even if such sources could generate enough power to manufacture their own replacement units to keep the system running, which they more than likely can’t.
Coal and LNG can be burned at compact central power stations to produce large, useable quantities of power, but particularly in the case of coal, the ancestry of that power source in dilute environmental flows shows itself in the vast tracts of land which must be destroyed in order to dig enough of the black poison out of the ground to keep the furnaces stoked (although at least coal can produce enough power to keep the cycle flowing and still show a net energy gain, something which is doubtful in the case of most ‘renewables’).
Nuclear power is the only source of energy which, due to its concentrated and compact nature, can be deployed with minimal environmental damage. I know this is counter-intuitive to those who have been nurtured for decades on tales of the great evils of nuclear, but it’s true anyway.
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June 2nd, 2008 at 11:02 am
Renewable energy x time = coal. When we mine coal, we are mining Deep Time, and we reap the rewards and the penalties both, in greater proportion as a function of our consumption of the detritus of aeons on historical timescales. The rewards are more immediate than the penalties, and our civilization has prospered thereby, but we’re going to need a more potent and sustainable income to pay off this credit we’ve so boldly availed ourselves of.
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June 2nd, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Lisa and Mike said:
If it were up to me we’d be powered by happiness, pixie dust and magic.
Unfortunately the laws of science are not up to me. They’re pretty much set in stone and you have to work within their bounds. You can’t just pull stuff out of your ass and call it a good idea when it won’t work.
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June 2nd, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Tom B said:
I am going to have to disagree with that statement.
It is the Government’s responsibility (whether specifically spelled out in a governing document, or by inference) to use the public trust (taxpayer’s dollars) to fund those things that are for the public benefit, and cannot or will not be otherwise funded due to the prohibitively expensive nature of those projects. Roads, police, fire departments, defense, education, etc… all fall into that category. Sure, you might be able to afford police for your property, but are you going to provide security for your neighbors out of the kindness of your heart? Alternately, if your neighbor had a security detail watching their property, would you bother to pay for one on your own?
Had large scale research of this nature never been funded through through the public trust, most of the items that we currently consider necessities of life would not be available to us. Radio, cellphones, GPS, microwave ovens, numerous medical science technologies, etc… would probably not be available at this time, had the Government not funded their development.
Research for the purpose of science discovery is very expensive, and unless a company sees a potential for a significant return on investment sometime in the immediate future, they will NOT pay for the research. IBM builds super computers not because they want to have the title of fastest computer, but because they know that the National Weather Service, the Department of Energy, and DOD will be interested in paying them for use of their system.
Research into particle physics does not have the same immediate return on investment. Therefore, without Government sponsorship, it would cease to happen.
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June 2nd, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Chem Geek Gregor said:
Somehow you didn’t strike me as the type Gregor…..:)
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June 2nd, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Lisa and Mike said:
L and M, before spouting off random numbers about government funding, here’s an article detailing Energy Subsidies from 1950 to 2003. You might want to read through it. I’m sure you find some eye-opening facts.
http://www.issues.org/22.3/realnumbers.html
I think this quote sums it up best:
“Since 1950, renewable energy (solar, hydropower, and geothermal) has received the second largest subsidy—$111 billion (17%), compared to $63 billion for nuclear power, $81 billion for coal, and $87 billion for natural gas.”
In case you were wondering, Oil was the largest subsidy at $302 billion.
I find the last section where they compare R&D dollars to electricity production to be of particular interest:
“For example, renewable sources excluding hydro produce little energy or electricity but received $3.7 billion in R&D funds between 1994 and 2003, whereas coal, which provides about one-third of U.S. energy requirements and generates more than half of the nation’s electricity, received just slightly more in R&D money ($3.9 billion). Nuclear energy, which provided 10% of the nation’s energy and 20% of its electricity, was also underfunded, receiving $1.6 billion in R&D funds.”
As for ‘what’s the point?’ in terms of nuclear… its a viable energy source that produces significant amounts of electricity. That’s the point that many ‘renewables’ supporters seem to be missing.
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June 2nd, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Maybe I shouldn’t ask this question here but…
Other than the benefit of knowing something new ( an immaterial good )
has engineering been able to take advantage of any of these discoveries in particle physics since nuclear power/weapons? Or are we working on things that decades or centuries will pass before we need to ask. If particle physics is not leading to engineering what is the difference between government funding of Fermi Lab and government funding of theological universities?
Does anyone think we will have antimatter power plants any time soon or that any material good can come from the current research? We had some evidence about nuclear power 50 years before they were able to light those bulbs in Washington. Is there similar evidence of possible technology coming from the labs now? Or is it all Big Bang navel gazing?
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June 2nd, 2008 at 9:26 pm
JParker said:
Although applied research and invention play important roles in innovation, they do not generally produce the major conceptual breakthroughs necessary for creating radically new technologies. The limitation of focused or problem-oriented research becomes apparent in the following observation: If you know what you are looking for, you are limited by what you know. As inventive as Thomas Edison was, he could not have created the transistor—perhaps the most important invention of the 20th century. The transistor was a product of research that started with studies of the atomic spectra of elements with little more motivation than the discovery of new elements. From this seed Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger developed quantum mechanics, which at the time had the caché of ESP studies among the traditional science community. Then Felix Bloch applied of quantum mechanics to the problem of conduction in solids, and from there others developed semiconductors.
It is clear that under the right conditions, future technologies will be created that we cannot even imagine. Think of someone in the year 1900 trying to imagine what would exist in the year 2000. The developments so familiar to us today would be inconceivable to this individual then. Even developments of current technology are difficult to foresee. Who, in 1987, would have been able to predict the World Wide Web, which started in 1990? Yet it was a product of a particle physics research organization that built it for it’s own benefit.
Your type of myopia would have had a profoundly negative effect on progress, if it had been invoked at the beginning of the last century.
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June 3rd, 2008 at 12:39 am
Finrod said:
Generally true. However, Jerry Pournelle seemed to favor something called the Ocean Thermal System – a turbine system which taps the temperature difference between surface ocean water in the tropics and that at the bottom of the sea. Quoth Pournelle:
and as to total power available:
(_A Step Farther Out_, 1979.)
I suspect, myself, that Pournelle may have neglected to pay Carnot his due. But even so, it’s still a lot of power, and it seems to me that it would take some of the juice out of hurricanes, leaving us with kinder and gentler weather for the most part.
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June 3rd, 2008 at 1:10 am
JParker said:
Do microcircuits count. A lot of what we are doing on the nano scale involves knowledge of such things as quantum tunneling that came directly from particle physics and accelerators. Accelerators also tell us thing about the internals of atoms and thus about things like superconductivity and other nano effects where knowledge of subatomic particles is important. It is true that much of the discoveries from particle physics have not translated into something practical yet. On the other hand the skills that go into building large particle accelerators have proved useful in the development of vacuum technologies and high energy systems. The technologies for particle accelerators have helped us develop new methods of welding, new lasers, vacuum deposition and the byproducts therefrom. Even if the knowledge from particle accelerators was completely valueless they would still have an impact by the spinoffs and technologies developed because of their requirements.
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June 3rd, 2008 at 1:14 am
Burya Rubenstein said:
Ocean Thermal Systems are very much like geothermal systems in that they would be the answer to all our energy needs if it weren’t for some unsolved technical issues. At the moment, the technology simply doesn’t exist that will make these work on a large scale, although they do work in a few special cases where conditions are perfect.
The big question with both of these is if can we develop the means to exploit them fast enough to make a difference.
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June 3rd, 2008 at 1:48 am
I am surprised no one brought up MRI. One of the more practical and commonplace uses of superconductivity so far. I am not against pure research in general just that it seems to have played out for the time being. It is exciting talking about the new element that was discovered recently. But that was the first stable element in how many years? And it was discovered in a collider but from naturally occurring ore. After decades of trying to creating one artificially. No doubt many talented people push the envelopes of engineering to build the accelerators. If building atom smashers is the only way to advance the material sciences besides building faster and more accurate missiles and new and better bombs I can accept it as morally neutral compromise.
At least until they make a black hole in CERN and the earth is ripped apart in seconds.
Does anyone know if the math has been dis proven or even ever existed to use “artificial black holes” like in David Brin’s novel Earth?
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June 3rd, 2008 at 1:55 am
J Carlton said:
By microcircuits do you mean ICs in general? Or the newer 65 and 45 nm processor and memory cards. I know at one time the chip manufacturing grew from the xray lithography used in chemistry. I would think by now that the chip companies would pay for their own research to improve those technologies. If for no other reason then they know the Chinese(or the next rising nation) will steal what exists now and do it cheaper.
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June 3rd, 2008 at 4:03 pm
The USA is literally 1/2 the worlds military spending… 1 of every 2 dollars world wide is the US… every other country combined, spends slightly less then we do.
… and this…
Damn this country.
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June 3rd, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Digital said:
I am not a U.S. citizen, but I get a little annoyed when Americans and others act as if they ardently believe there is no enormity of which the United States is incapable and regards its entire history as an unbroken legacy of avarice, deceit and injustice, while living under the safety of America’s military might.
I am embarrassed, when Canadians bitch about American military presence in our country, when we spend so little on our armed forces. Meanwhile we sleep in safety because some poor American kid is keeping watch for us. Pax Romana, Pax Britannica and now Pax Americana were not perhaps ideal regimes, executed without error – but they were and are a damned sight better than the alternatives.
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June 3rd, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Digital said:
I’ll be the first one to say that the US military is not really used in the manner which I’d tend to agree with much of the time, but lets not forget that it is not always easy being a superpower. There are plenty of nations which mooch most of their national defense off of the US. The other thing is that big military spending is one of the things that bankrupted the Soviet Union by trying to keep up with the US. And had there not been a massive US military to balance the Soviet Union they may very well have been far more aggressive than they were.
That having been said, many saw an end to the need for a big military with the end of the Cold War. Unfortunately it seems that the world is not getting safer in general. The asymmetric threats faced now are going to be a big challenge for the military, there is no doubt about that.
The US military is also the largest national emergency response force. It’s something many forget that the military is the only force with the logistics and manpower to really stabilize and provide relief for a massive natural disaster.
My personal preference would be to see more spending on military items with the midset of them being dual-purpose. For example, military communications satellites that can also be used by civil government agencies for emergency services or purchasing a large contract of transport aircraft as a unit with some going to other agencies for general purpose transportation. This approach to projects with military and civilian use is what lead to the interstate highway system which was both a stratigic assett for the military and an important tool for civilian commerce.
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June 3rd, 2008 at 8:45 pm
A good point. Certainly there are some examples of military technology that trickle down to civilian, but I don’t know of much which is proposed anymore with dual use in mind. It’s a great idea though and it’s how the internet (former Arpanet) eventually came into being, but that was mostly military at the start. The other programs which were dual use from the start are the telecom system because during the cold war the government funded longhaul communications with the stipulation they could be comendered in a war. Then there are other examples in infrastructure.
I think this concept could still be valuable. For example, we have so many companies investing billions in the wireless network it would be a good benefit if the military got involved like they did in the past with communications.
Also, this is generally not how the government works, but it would make sense if, for example, the military needed 15 transport aircraft but ordered 20 of the same type because the forestry service needed three transport aircraft and the coastguard needed two. Unfortunately the way the government works now those would be seperate orders and seperate contracts and likely be different aircraft so you could not interchange parts either.
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June 5th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
I thought this article was about particle physics. As of right now the most powerful particle accelerator is in the US. Take a look at the spallation neutron source.
http://neutrons.ornl.gov/aboutsns/aboutsns.shtml
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