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Page added on May 20, 2013
Fusion program at MIT is ending; Layoffs predicted; federal funds cut
A long-running Massachusetts Institute of Technology research experiment that explores nuclear fusion as a possible energy source will shut down within a year, as its already diminished federal funding has been cut.
Miklos Porkolab, director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center where the project is housed, said that unless Congress decides to step in, 70 employees will be laid off, including physicists, technicians, engineers, and support staff. The shutdown will leave only two fusion experiments in the United States, one at Princeton University and the other at General Atomics, a company in San Diego.
Half of the workers have already received notice, Porkolab said. Most of the 20 doctoral students working on the Alcator C-Mod project will be able to complete their thesis work based on data they’ve already taken, but about five may need to switch projects. The effect of the shutdown will reverberate beyond MIT, which produces the most PhD scientists in the field of fusion and plasma research in the United States.
“It’s already had a very negative impact,” Porkolab said. “Students are really not coming into the field. . . . They come to visit and see C-Mod is being shut down and they go away; they say there’s no future in this.”
Fusion produces energy when atoms combine. It has the potential to create massive amounts of energy, with ordinary helium as its waste product. In contrast, fission used in today’s nuclear reactors, in which atoms are split, generates both energy and radioactive byproducts. The Alcator C-Mod uses a magnetic field to contain plasma — a charged, heated gas made up of deuterium atoms. Those atoms occasionally combine, producing energy.
‘I think as a country, we need to be worried about the risk of losing our preeminence in this area and our technical expertise.’
The US Department of Energy is increasing its overall funding of fusion research, but is shifting money from its domestic program to a large, collaborative international project being built in France called ITER. MIT is continuing to push for funding for its program to be reinstated.
In mid-April, the Massachusetts House delegation wrote to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, requesting that the investment in the domestic fusion research program be restored to funding levels in fiscal year 2013.
Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research, said the loss of the program will hurt the country’s position in a critical field — one that won’t be producing energy in the short term, but could be critical in helping to diversify energy production over the next two decades.
The European project is “terribly behind schedule and egregiously over budget, and they’re being rewarded,” Zuber said.
“I think as a country, we need to be worried about the risk of losing our preeminence in this area and our technical expertise.”
Already, one faculty member is planning to leave for a job in Europe.
The pending shutdown will be the final chapter in a budgetary saga that also reflects the level of confusion and the strain on researchers caused by the gridlocked budget process in Washington. The fusion program’s funding was first cut in fiscal year 2013, from $25 million to $14 million. MIT stopped accepting graduate students into the program in March 2012.
But the center is also dealing with the uncertainty of the sequester, the across-the-board budget cuts that began earlier this year.
“We don’t know what we’re going to get and we’ve been hit already so hard,” Porkolab said.
Of the employees who will lose their jobs, 19 are members of the Research Development and Technical Employees Union. David Gay, the union’s president, said he is working with management to see whether other jobs might be available within the university or at other laboratories, such as Lincoln Laboratory.
Porkolab, who came to MIT to work on fusion in 1977, said researchers are putting the machine in a “cold” shutdown phase, meaning they aren’t dismantling it. If funding were restored, the research could be revived.
“We don’t know what Congress is going to do with it, so we’re trying to hold on to as many people as we can,” Porkolab said. “We hope and pray that there be an energy bill by this fall, that the two sides in Congress can come to an agreement” — and that they choose to save the Alcator C-Mod.
22 Comments on "Fusion program at MIT is ending; Layoffs predicted; federal funds cut"
rollin on Mon, 20th May 2013 7:30 pm
So, what research is the government supporting?
mike on Mon, 20th May 2013 8:04 pm
Hurray, sometimes there are small victories and you have to cherish them. They need to stop wasting money on all this fusion crap and just start explaining to people that we are going to be living in a lower energy future (no bad thing) and how you can adapt your life to actually make it better in this future..
J-Gav on Mon, 20th May 2013 8:04 pm
Wonder why, don’t you? After all these billions spent …
LT on Mon, 20th May 2013 8:41 pm
As I said before, don’t try the impossible! Instead, try those that are possible, one of which options is to use the fund to buy beef jerky: It tastes great and it will help our economy! 🙂
Long lives Beef Jerky! 🙂
Plantagenet on Mon, 20th May 2013 9:24 pm
The anti-science morons in the Obama administration are wrecking the American scientific establishment. First they cut NASA, then they went after NSF, and now they are targeting individual scientific research projects.
Beery on Mon, 20th May 2013 9:51 pm
But why? Nuclear fusion was only a few more years away. With another mere 250 squintillion dollars, we could have cracked it.
Arthur on Mon, 20th May 2013 10:05 pm
“The anti-science morons in the Obama administration are wrecking the American scientific establishment. First they cut NASA, then they went after NSF, and now they are targeting individual scientific research projects.”
Something got to give, plant.
DC on Mon, 20th May 2013 10:42 pm
Q/The European project is “terribly behind schedule and egregiously over budget, and they’re being rewarded,” Zuber said.
“I think as a country, we need to be worried about the risk of losing our preeminence in this area and our technical expertise.”
ROFL!! The US ‘effort’ could also be characterized thusly. And just what pre-eminence does the US risk losing here? It cant even properly manage or oversee its vast, secretive, for-profit(but publicly subsidized) fission energy plants. They are in terrible shape, and nothing is or will be done about that problem. So what exactly is the US losing here? Last time I checked the uS had exactly ummmm….zero fusion plants operational. As for the timetable the US was working on, I think it was somewhere between now, and the year 3000 (maybe).
While Fusion research may be very interesting for researchers, it hasn’t exactly produced much in the way of usable spinoffs. The US perfected fusion weapons(aka hydrogen bombs) within the 1st decade or so of the nuclear age. This explains the Us’s lack of enthusiasm for actually trying to generate civilian power from it. They already had the bomb they wanted, and an oily\coal energy system to deliver all the other power they needed, so controlled fusion was hardly a national priority for the US.
Plant can rail about the ‘anti-science’ Obama, but the reality is, the US as a whole, is mainly interested in science only when it can deliver more powerful weapons of mass destruction. Plant can thank the entrenched corporate X-tian alliance that has existed in the US almost since day one for that mindset.Fact is, the US has money for only two things, its war-machine, and bailouts and corporate welfare. Esoteric science takes a seat way in the back to those two.
No one will notice the US has no fusion program, just like hardly anyone notices the lack of progress deploying solar, wind, or mass transit or reversing car-sprawl. All of which would offer immediate and lasting payoffs when it come to energy consumption. Those ideas, would actually work and would address the root of the problem, thus the US will never seriously consider any of them.
Right?
Plantagenet on Mon, 20th May 2013 11:38 pm
The claim that the US is only interested in science when it involves weapons is silly. The US has been a leader in science of all kinds for decades. Sadly, that appears to be ending—the morons in the Obama administration are more interested in funding foodstamps and Obamaphones then they are in funding nuclear fusion research.
BillT on Tue, 21st May 2013 4:29 am
Plant, the US has led in warfare for the last century. Almost ALL funding went to plants and labs developing something that could be used for warfare. The internet for instance. Satellites. The rocket programs. On and on, ALL originated from military research.
Perhaps, the money is getting tighter and they realize that this is nothing more than a black hole for money. Either way, it is a good thing. Those 70 people can get a job at McDonalds … maybe.
dashster on Tue, 21st May 2013 4:55 am
” we are going to be living in a lower energy future (no bad thing)”
7 (heading towards 9) billion people living in a lower energy future will not be a bad thing?
But I wish the United States people would get the message that we are going to have a “lower energy future”. Then they might stop looking at a higher population as part of the solution.
mike on Tue, 21st May 2013 7:52 am
dash, a majority of those 7 billion are already living in a low energy world. If we adapted to permaculture/agro forestry then many of the 1st world nations could actually lesson the blow of the coming storm. There is plenty of food to feed everyone if we change growing methods, but there is no money in agro forestry, no machines, no tools, no pesticide, no fertiliser, but lots of cheap, abundant non environment harming, local food.
Arthur on Tue, 21st May 2013 8:20 am
“The US has been a leader in science of all kinds for decades. Sadly, that appears to be ending—the morons in the Obama administration are more interested in funding foodstamps and Obamaphones then they are in funding nuclear fusion research.”
Plant, that is true, and it was not just all about weapons. The moonlanding was unforgettable, but that was achieved in a time when the US was still 90% European (and you could make use of Werner von Braun Nazi ingenuity, just like the Russians.lol). Oh, and do you have any idea what will happen to your society if you stop funding foodstamps? Are you ready to fight an enormous uprising of the hordes? According to Paul Craig Roberts the US will be a third world country by 2024, so forget about moonlandings, fusion research projects, being a super power or even having a middle class; in the future the US will be about foodstamps and little else. The US is the third great civilization wrecked by the youknowwhos, after they wrecked the Roman empire (read Menckens translation of Nietzsche’s Antichrist) and Czarist Russia first. The future of the European civilization will be in continental Europe, from the Atlantic to Wladiwostok. Go East, young man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjm-kCOMaPY
BillT on Tue, 21st May 2013 9:04 am
Arthur, I agree, but you are leaving out the disasters ahead for Europe. It is a group of failed empires that are afraid to admit it and quit the game. When the Germans pull out, it is all over. And if they don’t it is still all over, just in a different way. Perhaps you read this long article and see what is ahead.
http://theautomaticearth.com/Energy/widely-visible-symbols-of-human-folly.html
Sounds like the beginning of the end of civilization doesn’t it? And there are over 500 of these killer dumps around the world called containment pools.
Arthur on Tue, 21st May 2013 9:50 am
Yeah, I am familiar with your black outlook on the future. No, I am not leaving out all sorts of disasters for Europe, let alone the rest of the world, they are even likely to happen. But I am not convinced civilization is over until I see that happening. And Germany will not pull out, it cannot, it has 12 or so neighbours and zero raw materials, although in future it will not foot every bill it gets presented. Instead I expect Germany to finally become the core of European civilization, with one century delay (thanks to the British). Russia is ready to be integrated in the European world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VwzdeRNjtA
BillT on Tue, 21st May 2013 2:47 pm
Dream on Arthur. Russia plans to own Europe, not be part of it. They would love to have Germany under their boot. Old habits are not easily broken. Germany is going to have too many internal problems to worry about the rest of Europe. They thought they could conquer Europe with finances but I think Mother Nature has different ideas.
Arthur on Tue, 21st May 2013 3:07 pm
“Russia plans to own Europe”
Dream on Bill:
GDP
EU: $17T
Russia: $2T
Russia does not produce anything other than raw materials and they have 1300 million Chinese at their doorstep, eyeing on Siberia.
Russia has known a movement towards Europe for centuries ever since Peter the Great. Not in the least because the entire upperlayer of Russia’s power structure was German (Rus=Viking), until jewish Bolsheviks murdered most of that German upper layer (should be a warning to you Americans, since this newly imported third world proletariat could be used for exactly the same purpose against the euro’s)
But why not listen to Vlad himself:
http://deepresource.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/russia-plays-the-european-card/
“Russia is an inalienable and organic part of Greater Europe and European civilization. Our citizens think of themselves as Europeans.”
Putin will be glad if he can hold his own country together, he is no position to put a jackboot on Europe and he does not want that. He is not a jew.
BillT on Wed, 22nd May 2013 1:45 am
Arthur. That is today’s numbers used to asses
‘wealth’ and then you turn around. Look at the natural resources and size of Russia vs Europe. Russia can survive most anything, and has.
Europe is dying now and will not survive without massive aid of ALL kinds. GDP is only the Capitalist sign of wealth, not the real one.
Sorry, but Russia will rule Europe, or what is left of it.
BillT on Wed, 22nd May 2013 1:46 am
assess …
Arthur on Wed, 22nd May 2013 8:44 am
Bill, according to you, everything is ‘dying’. But unless all the nukes on the planet are launched at the same time, civilization will continue in some form. That applies to north-America, Europa and Russia. I admit that all sorts of disasters could happen: crashing currencies, civil war, famines, war, end of industrial civilization as we know it, you name it. But life somehow will continue. You claim that Europe needs help.lol From who? Somehow you want to use the debt situation as proof that Europe is ‘collapsing’. Nothing is collapsing. Belt tightning, yes, but that is it. And the idea that 150m Russians want to jackboot 500m Europeans is insane. They have trouble enough keeping a few million Chechians within their. You are still in the cold war frame of mind. Russia no longer has the zionist revolutionaries within its borders to organise such a stunt; they are all in Israel and the US, being your problem now. Putin is not a jewish neocon, but an Armenian Christian, who exactly knows who the maffia is. His own people were genocided by the so-called ‘Young Turks’ one century ago, that is jewish revolutionaries, that exploited the loss of the Turkish Ottomans of WW1 and turned this islamic society into a secular one, which is now gradually reversed by Erdogan. Look, your Samuel Huntington was exactly right: modernity is over. And good old Samuel even missed the main argument as to WHY modernity is over: industrial society is running out of fuel. The future will all be about race, ethnicity, religion, tradition, hierarchies. The coming merger of Russia and Europe will be the completion of a century old process and will go hand in hand with the necessity to contain the Chinese giant. The 20th century was the Anglo-Soviet century, or jewish century for short. That century is over.
Arthur on Wed, 22nd May 2013 8:52 am
http://deepresource.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/goldman-sachs-euro-here-to-stay/
Fascinating admission: Blankfein from Goldman-Sachs, one of the real rulers of the US, has to admit that the euro is here to stay. And boy, did they try to sabotage it. But it failed, as everything failed what these people tried to do since 2003. The euro, the ‘currency of the white race’, has withstood attacks from the dollar, the ‘currency of the globalist jews’.
See Bill, Europe is not collapsing at all.
Bob Rohner on Thu, 30th May 2013 11:44 pm
A major point being skipped by many here is that the funds are not being cut, they are just being sent overseas to France. The USA after all has no need of new technology as long as we can just keep bouncing checks to float our welfare state. With no incentive but to swill our rot-gut and listen to rap-crap why bother. We need to explain, not how we will have to live on less energy, but how we will live on no energy as each source spirals in to obscurity from lack of development.