[DubiousPusher]

This is one of those all too common misunderstandings of how engineering works. There's some idea that once designs and theory are done, that engineering is some kind of straight forward act of stamp collecting and that the best thing is always to wait until the problems are worked out on paper before we start to build.

But in fact the engineering itself is exploratory. And often times, to understand something, you just have to start building.

That's what ITER is about. When the project started, we had gone about as far as theory and design could take us. You can see the same thing with other unproven fusion designs getting underway as well including the one at Lawrence Livermore.

[bequanna]

Right... But given how quickly our understanding is evolving on how we can create fusion, did it make sense to take on a project this big and settle on a specific design type?

[DubiousPusher]

I don't think that was the case when ITER was conceived or started. The flood of fusion news we see is relatively recent.

And to be perfectly frank, a lot of it bursts onto the scene with sensational claims, never to be heard from again. At the end of ITER, there will be a thing. And probably, it will do most of what it was projected to do. We can't say the same for almost any of these other advances, compelling as they may sound.

Lastly, I'll point out this. "Breakthroughs" are rarely made in isolation. Are you so sure that without the billions that have gone into Lawrence Livermore, ITER and such that these other "breakthroughs" would even be happening? If there is no market for nuclear engineers, there will be fewer nuclear engineers. There's fewer people to bounce ideas off of and peer review your work. There's fewer people to come up with the small innovations that add up to a big result. There's fewer colleagues to get you that next gig where your team might beat a hard problem.