Everyone, please note a critical distinction: the sums outlined in Dave's excellent post HAVE NOT been appropriated yet. They have only been "authorized." The actual appropriations in the bill are much, much smaller. For example, ARPA-E is authorized at close to $3 billion in the bill, but the actual appropriation is in the ballpark of $800 million, I believe. That's a pretty big jump from the pathetic $400 million that ARPA-E has been getting, but it's still a long way from being the billion-dollar program that it needs to be. This distinction between authorization and appropriation is arcane, but it's not minor: it's the difference between someone saying "I'm going to send you a million dollars at some point, maybe, if I can get my act together" vs. saying "I have wired $1 million into your account at Citibank, the money will be there tomorrow." Congress authorizes lots and lots of money for lots and lots of programs, but they almost never send as much real dough as spelled out in the authorization, and for many programs, they never even come close. This bill is certainly a massive step in the right direction, but the multi-year fight now will be to get these programs actually funded in the appropriations bills. Best thing about this bill, assuming Trump doesn't manage to kill it, is that Biden will take office with some juicy targets already on the books.
And Democrats still run the House, so they are the authorizers, ultimately. I mean, McConnell can still block everything but at least they can authorize the full amount each year and put pressure on the Senate, barring a Georgia sweep for Democrats.
I am happy all of this passed. It's not nearly enough, prioritizes areas I don't necessarily like(advanced fossil energy, yikes! Is there to swing that to geothermal? There's fossils in the earth!) but overall a solid bill. But like you said, it depends on authorization levels.
I think the Land and Water Conservation Fund is like the poster child of what your saying. It has been authorized for $900 million/year in spending but rarely receives even half of that through they years. I think they've now corrected that, one of many weird conservation victories amidst the mayhem of the Trump years. And now we have this!
$4.7 billion is the authorization over 5 years: FY2021 $996M; FY22 $921M; FY23 $961M; FY24 $921M; FY24 901M. The actual appropriation for FY2021 is $672M, which is 1M more than FY2020. Of that amount for FY21, $242M goes to the international experiment that is being built now in France called ITER. The budget is more like business as usual than anything else.
Yes, breakeven hasn't been achieved yet. But the JET experiment achieved Q = ouput/input power of 0.67 back in 1997. ITER will achieve at least a Q = 10 in the late 2030s/2040s when it starts using tritium. The compact, high temperature superconductor tokamak SPARC, being built by Commonwealth Fusion, has a goal of Q > 2, perhaps by 2030 or so.
The real question is whether fusion will help avoid 3C warming by the end of the century. Personally, I doubt it.
I was loosely associated with the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in 1978 when they thought they were starting to get closer to breakeven. Obviously, didn't happen.
Glad it was useful to you. My question is how many other items in this budget are authorizations over 5 years, not actual appropriation items for FY2021?
This is probably getting into the weeds for this post, but I would say PPPL wasn't even close to breakeven in 1978. For one thing, the operating experiment at that time PLT, achieved outstanding results but never used tritium. That happened in the follow-up experiment, TFTR whose mission was to achieve breakeven. Beginning operation in 1982, it achieved a record, for the time, 10.7 MW fusion output in 1994. It never did achieve breakeven however.
I have little doubt that breakeven will be achieved in the next decade or so. The challenges facing fusion now are more of the materials, neutronics and technology kind than the science. Whether a fusion power plant will ever be economical is another question.
I have yet to see a detailed breakdown, but based on spot-checking, most of the appropriations for FY21 are nowhere close to the authorized amount for FY21. Unless the Dems sweep Georgia, I fear that's what we're going to see for years to come: the real sums in these budget accounts will look like business as usual, despite the promises embodied in the quasi-mythical authorization numbers.
Thanks for clearing that up, Justin. I was familiar with the fusion numbers, but not everything else. Yes, more money for ARPA-E!! Looking forward to your book!
Some useful stuff, too much dumb stuff. But "a huge energy bill"? A "miracle"? The fact that it's the biggest energy bill in a decade is mostly about the decade (of nose-picking), not the bill. Yes it's a lot of pages but no huge policy achievement. Not naive about the state of the institution, but concerned about forgiving/prolonging the dysfunction, grading on a curve of failure...especially now as things shift and Georgia pends.
KC, perhaps our expectations of Congress are set at different levels. HFCs + tax credits? Huge. Passed both houses? A miracle. These are low bars we're clearing.
Everyone, please note a critical distinction: the sums outlined in Dave's excellent post HAVE NOT been appropriated yet. They have only been "authorized." The actual appropriations in the bill are much, much smaller. For example, ARPA-E is authorized at close to $3 billion in the bill, but the actual appropriation is in the ballpark of $800 million, I believe. That's a pretty big jump from the pathetic $400 million that ARPA-E has been getting, but it's still a long way from being the billion-dollar program that it needs to be. This distinction between authorization and appropriation is arcane, but it's not minor: it's the difference between someone saying "I'm going to send you a million dollars at some point, maybe, if I can get my act together" vs. saying "I have wired $1 million into your account at Citibank, the money will be there tomorrow." Congress authorizes lots and lots of money for lots and lots of programs, but they almost never send as much real dough as spelled out in the authorization, and for many programs, they never even come close. This bill is certainly a massive step in the right direction, but the multi-year fight now will be to get these programs actually funded in the appropriations bills. Best thing about this bill, assuming Trump doesn't manage to kill it, is that Biden will take office with some juicy targets already on the books.
And Democrats still run the House, so they are the authorizers, ultimately. I mean, McConnell can still block everything but at least they can authorize the full amount each year and put pressure on the Senate, barring a Georgia sweep for Democrats.
I am happy all of this passed. It's not nearly enough, prioritizes areas I don't necessarily like(advanced fossil energy, yikes! Is there to swing that to geothermal? There's fossils in the earth!) but overall a solid bill. But like you said, it depends on authorization levels.
I think the Land and Water Conservation Fund is like the poster child of what your saying. It has been authorized for $900 million/year in spending but rarely receives even half of that through they years. I think they've now corrected that, one of many weird conservation victories amidst the mayhem of the Trump years. And now we have this!
Lots of good stuff here and I shouldn't carp, but sheesh $4.7 billion for fusion energy research.
Of course, I'll be proven wrong when 78 years from now the fusion energy researchers achieve breakeven.
Yes, dumb, agreed, though I too hope to be proven wrong.
$4.7 billion is the authorization over 5 years: FY2021 $996M; FY22 $921M; FY23 $961M; FY24 $921M; FY24 901M. The actual appropriation for FY2021 is $672M, which is 1M more than FY2020. Of that amount for FY21, $242M goes to the international experiment that is being built now in France called ITER. The budget is more like business as usual than anything else.
Yes, breakeven hasn't been achieved yet. But the JET experiment achieved Q = ouput/input power of 0.67 back in 1997. ITER will achieve at least a Q = 10 in the late 2030s/2040s when it starts using tritium. The compact, high temperature superconductor tokamak SPARC, being built by Commonwealth Fusion, has a goal of Q > 2, perhaps by 2030 or so.
The real question is whether fusion will help avoid 3C warming by the end of the century. Personally, I doubt it.
That's really helpful. Thanks!
I was loosely associated with the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in 1978 when they thought they were starting to get closer to breakeven. Obviously, didn't happen.
So we'll see how it plays out.
Glad it was useful to you. My question is how many other items in this budget are authorizations over 5 years, not actual appropriation items for FY2021?
This is probably getting into the weeds for this post, but I would say PPPL wasn't even close to breakeven in 1978. For one thing, the operating experiment at that time PLT, achieved outstanding results but never used tritium. That happened in the follow-up experiment, TFTR whose mission was to achieve breakeven. Beginning operation in 1982, it achieved a record, for the time, 10.7 MW fusion output in 1994. It never did achieve breakeven however.
I have little doubt that breakeven will be achieved in the next decade or so. The challenges facing fusion now are more of the materials, neutronics and technology kind than the science. Whether a fusion power plant will ever be economical is another question.
I have yet to see a detailed breakdown, but based on spot-checking, most of the appropriations for FY21 are nowhere close to the authorized amount for FY21. Unless the Dems sweep Georgia, I fear that's what we're going to see for years to come: the real sums in these budget accounts will look like business as usual, despite the promises embodied in the quasi-mythical authorization numbers.
Thanks for clearing that up, Justin. I was familiar with the fusion numbers, but not everything else. Yes, more money for ARPA-E!! Looking forward to your book!
Some useful stuff, too much dumb stuff. But "a huge energy bill"? A "miracle"? The fact that it's the biggest energy bill in a decade is mostly about the decade (of nose-picking), not the bill. Yes it's a lot of pages but no huge policy achievement. Not naive about the state of the institution, but concerned about forgiving/prolonging the dysfunction, grading on a curve of failure...especially now as things shift and Georgia pends.
KC, perhaps our expectations of Congress are set at different levels. HFCs + tax credits? Huge. Passed both houses? A miracle. These are low bars we're clearing.
Our expectations are probably similar. I just worry that if we're too easily elated, we help keep the bars low.