Mike Carrell wrote:
I see an attack of good sense. Japan can get work on the project without incurring the larger cost. The project is likely to be a bust, along with the rest of the hot fusion projects of the last decades.
Cost is probably an issue. The Japanese government is broke. Very broke. Much more broke than the US government relative to the GNP.
In Japan are Mizuno and Iwamura [at Mitsubishi] and Arata, who are significant people inthe CF/LENR world. Someone in the Japanese government may be realizing that the future does not belong to hot fusion.
I doubt that. There may be a few people in the government aware of the situation, but Mizuno sees no sign of high-level recognition. Also, the people who make this kind of decision in the Japanese government know little about science and care less. The decisions are political. The hot fusion program is seen as another giant make-work project. The Japanese government loves make-work projects and it has poured trillions of dollars into them. They have cockeyed priorities. A third of the houses do not have flush toilets, but instead of building sewer systems the government has built hundreds of thousands of kilometers of roads where you do not see a single car, all day long. (I am not exaggerating. I go hiking and jogging on these roads. You could take nap in the middle of one at midday.)
See: A. Kerr, "Dogs and Demons."
- Jed
