USA has stopped FUNDING fusion project

[dan]

Technology Review: Federal Research Funding Cut


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Friday, January 18, 2008
Federal Research Funding Cut
Financial support for a major international fusion
project is one of many casualties.
By Kevin Bullis




Cooled fusion: The United States has stopped
funding research for an international
fusion-reactor project called ITER.
Credit: ITER and Technology Review
Related Articles:
• White House Budget to Cut Energy Research
02/09/2007
• International Fusion Research
07/08/2005
• A Spark of Hope for Fusion
05/01/2007

It was supposed to be a year bringing sharp increases in
federal funding for physical-sciences research. Instead,
as a result of the final appropriations bill signed a
few weeks ago by Congress, fiscal year 2008 (the federal
fiscal year runs October 1 to September 30) brought cuts
that will cause hundreds of researchers to lose their
jobs, and it's putting the future of two important
international projects in jeopardy, including one to
make a large-scale fusion demonstration facility.
For most of 2007, as Congress and the Bush
administration debated the federal budget, support was
strong from both parties for significantly increasing
funding for three federal agencies that support the
lion's share of basic research in the physical sciences:
the National Science Foundation, the National Institute
of Standards and Technology, and the Department of
Energy's (DOE) Office of Science. Indeed, the
president's proposed budget included increased funding
for these agencies, as part of a plan to double
investment in physical-sciences research over the next
10 years. And early appropriations bills met these
targets. But veto threats and one actual veto related to
a cap on domestic spending imposed by President Bush
kept these bills from becoming law.
Instead, a catch-all appropriations bill was passed in
late December, with last-minute cuts that eliminated not
only the proposed increases to these agencies, but also
funding for some programs within these agencies. The
cuts caught researchers by surprise just before the
holidays and sent directors of at least two national
labs scrambling to find ways to deal with the unexpected
shortfalls. As a result of the cuts, hundreds of
researchers at Fermilab, in Batavia, IL, and at the
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), in Menlo
Park, CA, will be laid off.
What's more, two international projects will receive no
funding at all for the remainder of the fiscal year. One
endeavor, the International Linear Collider project, is
being designed to answer some fundamental questions
about the universe, such as those concerning the nature
of dark matter. While funding could be restored in the
future, layoffs will mean that the labs involved could
lose key technical staff, says Persis Drell, the
director of SLAC. She says that a particle collider at
the lab will also have to shut down due to lack of
funds, which will mean that the lab must back out of
some international commitments.
"It pains me greatly that at a time when particle
physics needs to be ever more international, the
political process in the U.S. has resulted in real
damage to the relationships with our international
partners," Drell said in a speech to the researchers and
staff at her lab.

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[Corey]

Now you see the hold that current energy companies (especially exxon) have on the government. money talks.

[Karl]

Originally Posted by dan

Technology Review: Federal Research Funding Cut
...

It was supposed to be a year bringing sharp increases in
federal funding for physical-sciences research. Instead,
as a result of the final appropriations bill signed a
few weeks ago by Congress, fiscal year 2008 (the federal
fiscal year runs October 1 to September 30) brought cuts
that will cause hundreds of researchers to lose their
jobs, and it's putting the future of two important
international projects in jeopardy, including one to
make a large-scale fusion demonstration facility.
...

What's more, two international projects will receive no
funding at all for the remainder of the fiscal year. One
endeavor, the International Linear Collider project, is
being designed to answer some fundamental questions
about the universe, such as those concerning the nature
of dark matter.

While that may have been the case in the US.A, it appears that research in these areas went ahead in other countries, as shown in this article (claiming success in cold fusion):

Cold Fusion back in the news | Alternative Energy Info

That article reports that researchers have used a process that forces deuterium gas under pressure into an evacuated cell that contains a matrix of zirconium oxide containing palladium nanoparticles; the deuterium is then absorbed by the palladium to produce dense deuterium where their nuclei are close enough to fuse, thereby releasing heat and helium. When they injected the deuterium gas, the temperature in the cell increased to about 70C degrees, which was the result of both chemical and nuclear reactions; but when the gas was turned off, the center of the cell remained significantly warmer than the cell wall for 50 hours...

To borrow the words of a "user comment" from that article post:
QUOTE:
"While it would indeed be very good news if tangible and practical progress is made in this area, would it perhaps make more sense to focus on getting superconducting quantum devices to function at higher temperatures?"

In terms of linear collider projects also mentioned in dan's post, an article on recent progress made in that field has been already posted on this forum:
Colliding with nature's best-kept secrets