Talk:Why big budgets for fusion but not for heat engines?

An untold amount of money has been funded in to 'renewable energy R & D projects' by the federal government to keep alive interest in these projects. Quite a few small, medium and large demonstration projects have been researched, partially or completely built with mostly ho-hum results. New projects proposed by the same old ladies of the shadows in new kimonas request funds for R & D and off we go.

Fusion research is ongoing, always making progress of a sort, but always needing a bit more funding and/or a new demonstration device with intense magnetic fields and injection systems for high energy particles. If and when it is achieved it will replace coal fired steam plants and all the renewable energy devices combined.

Fusion makes neutrons which make everything they hit radioactive
Neutrons are relatively easily absorbed by atomic nuclei because they are electrically neutral and hence aren't repelled. Add enough neutrons to any nucleus and it becomes unstable. But IIRC there aren't any feasible fusion reactions that don't release neutrons. Why build a fusion reactor when there is a perfectly good one delivering 174 billion megawatts to the earth? See Low ΔT heat Archimerged 11:43, 1 July 2006 (UTC)