I still rue the day that Congress axed the funding for the Texas Large Diameter Collider...

Wasn't it called the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC)?

 

Wasn't it called the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC)?

Yes. It's water under the bridge as LHC has done the job it would have done, with more modern engineering and is better is most aspects (higher beam Luminosity than SSC).
https://www.lhc-closer.es/taking_a_closer_look_at_lhc/0.luminosity

 

They had already spent a pile of money on it before they yanked the funding... Can't remember just exactly what the reason was. It was one of those massive engineering projects that I looked forward to seeing completed. Think it had more to do with Bush Politics than Engineering as the reason for canceling.

 

They had already spent a pile of money on it before they yanked the funding... Can't remember just exactly what the reason was. It was one of those massive engineering projects that I looked forward to seeing completed. Think it had more to do with Bush Politics than Engineering as the reason for canceling.

It was the ants that killed it.
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/15/us/fire-ants-to-make-building-of-atom-smasher-no-picnic.html

Residents of Ellis County, south of Dallas, where the super collider is to be built, say the ant not only inflicts painful bites but has also damaged home and farm equipment and caused power failures by chewing through underground cables, the department reports.
The atom smasher, to be built in a 53-mile tunnel under what is now farmland, would be used to accelerate subatomic particles to extremely high speeds and crash them into each other so scientists can learn more about the fundamental nature of matter and energy.

But s the Energy Department says the project will have to include special designs for wiring and other underground components, construction practices to protect workers from the ant's painful sting, and an environmentally sound pesticide policy.

"It'll get built. It'll get built sooner or later. It's the next logical step. It may not get to happen here." - Alfred D. McInturff

 

They had already spent a pile of money on it before they yanked the funding... Can't remember just exactly what the reason was. It was one of those massive engineering projects that I looked forward to seeing completed. Think it had more to do with Bush Politics than Engineering as the reason for canceling.

I can imagine that if it ever does become a real thing it will replace just about every energy source even oil. That's going to make some people with certain stock investments very sad and uncompliant.

 

You're right, the neutrons are a huge problem many teams seem to be ignoring, or hoping there will be a solution. LPP Fusion has chosen to solve the problem at the get go and is working on neutron-free fusion.

It's amazing how huge a technological problem this is and it's all based on: "If you make the temperature high enough they will fuse".
Reminds me of the old adage: "If you build it they will come".

Maybe the two are not that much different.

 

I can imagine that if it ever does become a real thing it will replace just about every energy source even oil. That's going to make some people with certain stock investments very sad and uncompliant.

If what every becomes a real thing? The SSC? Sure, it would have opened up regions that we still can't explore, but I don't know how that would replace every energy source, even oil.

And even if fusion were to become a reality, you can't put a fusion reactor on everything and not everything can handle the weight of enough batteries to operate for the amount of time needed. Plus, despite the utopian dreamists, fusion energy is not free, in fact, it might well end up being quite a bit more expensive if the capital investments and much higher maintenance costs are considered -- and they HAVE to be considered. AFAIK, it's very much an open question whether a fusion plant could deliver energy to its customers less expensively the current fossil-based systems. We won't be able to answer that question until we actually know what kind of reactor and infrastructure is actually needed to make it work at all, much less be commercially viable.