Indeed. Research means nothing without development to verify the results. Development means building things.

Research into solar panels means nothing if none of this research makes it to market. This doesn't mean subsidizing solar, that doesn't lower the actual cost to the economy. What lowers the actual cost is research and development into economically viable products.

I use solar power only as an example. Take your pick on a solution. Pick them all in fact, just do so in a proportion that is also economically viable.

No more energy subsidies. That only distorts the market and puts truly viable solutions at an artificial disadvantage.

One example, corn ethanol subsidies puts electric cars at a disadvantage. It artificially drives down fossil fuel costs, because the ethanol is mixed with the fossil fuels. Part of that ethanol money is going to importing more petroleum. If you want to see fossil fuel subsidies go away then ethanol subsidies should go away as well.

Vlad? Is that you?

If you own an EV and have solar panels on your roof then you are not middle class.

I understand it just fine. Congress writes a check to the DOE for energy research. Anything fusion related is tossed into the ITER dumpster fire to burn. If the Navy wants more money for fusion research then they are told to go ask the DOE. The DOE says they burned that money already in the ITER dumpster fire. If the Navy goes directly to Congress for money on fusion power then a certain major political party will kill any bill to fund anything "nukular" or related to the military. If anyone brings up domestic programs for fusion energy then it always comes back that there's ITER already, and it's going to be great any day now, so this political party won't agree to fund anything domestic.

Why is the only fusion energy research in the USA locked up in a secret Navy lab? Or kept to non-energy physics work at NIST? Or directed to rocket propulsion at NASA? Because the career DOE people really like ITER, because a major political party hates "nukular", and federal law prohibits states from funding such research without the approval of either Congress or DOE.

The NRC might allow for a reactor to be built but the fuel has to come from the DOE. Even NASA has to "buy" the plutonium it uses for deep space missions from the DOE.

Centralizing nuclear fusion energy research under one department might make sense to you but in reality it's been a disaster. The DOE has no plan narrowly defined enough to get results. NASA produces results from it's fusion research because the people working on it know it has to fit withing a given mass, volume, power output, and budget. The same for the DOD. They know a reactor has to fit on a ship, produce enough power to make it move really fast in the water, take a beating like that seen in a tropical storm at sea, and be cheaper to keep running than an oil fired boiler. What are the parameters that the DOE needs to meet for a fusion reactor? They have no time table. No real budget for anything specific. So long as they keep writing papers, making press releases, and tossing money to key congressional districts, then they can keep their jobs.

That's my problem with the DOE, they have no mission. The only thing they've been good at is laundering political contributions.

You seem to have missed an important distinction. There's freedom FROM religion that is nonsense. Freedom OF religion needs to be protected.

That is FROM. from, From, as opposed to OF, of, Of. The government is not supposed to separate the people from their religion. But that's what is happening by people that think freedom of religion means freedom from religion.

What did James Madison have to say on this?
https://wallbuilders.com/james...

A Google search lead me to more quotes here:
https://www.learnreligions.com...
And here:
https://www.heritage.org/polit...

Nothing you quoted and nothing quoted on the pages I linked to shows that Madison opposed government officials calling for days of prayer, or other public expressions of faith.

People being punished by their government for the expression of religious belief is the same kind of religious persecution that lead to the establishment of this nation. I'm seeing people get shouted down for expressing any religious belief and this needs to stop. If someone wants to say something about how someone recently deceased will be greeted by Odin at the door to Valhalla should not be followed by shouts of an afterlife being a lie from the peanut gallery.

Why are atheists so bothered by expressions of anything religious? Are they somehow harmed by this? What is harmful is using the government as a cudgel to beat people with for such harmless comments like wishing someone have a merry Christmas.

So... Merry Christmas. God Bless. Have a great Saint Nicholas Day.

The folk who allocate the dollars are the people in the DOE. That is unless Congress makes the allocation so specific that the funds will not go to international fusion research as opposed to the far more productive domestic research.

It would, and it doesn't take the DOE to exist for Congress to fund fusion energy research.

Congress can allocate the funds and any of a number of executive agencies besides DOE can manage them. It could be NIST, NASA, TVA, NRC, DOD (or more specifically the Navy), or a newly created entity specifically created to manage DOMESTIC fusion energy research. Congress has allocated funds to fusion energy research, and unless specifically set aside for this to happen in the USA it gets hoovered up by DOE and spent overseas where it disappears into one money pit or another.

You argue that the DOE must exist because it does so much important work, ignoring that I already pointed out how this work can be returned to the departments it was taken from when the DOE was created. This work would continue. What would stop is the wasted money from the DOE funding busywork to look important.

There has been very little domestic fusion energy research because the DOE keeps killing these programs. Again, Congress has been allocating funds for fusion energy research but the DOE diverts that to burn in the dumpster fire of international programs.

Your examples on enforcement of efficient lighting and appliances should be under Commerce since that's where so many other standards on what can and can't be sold is managed. If the DOE didn't exist then it would be more difficult to withhold funding for enforcement. The people that enforce safety standards would the same people that enforce efficiency standards. It's because the DOE existed that made it possible to defund this enforcement so easily.

Your example on the need to manage nuclear power safety doesn't fall under DOE, that falls under NRC, which is separate from DOE. We don't need the DOE to manage nuclear waste, put that under the NRC. It is the Department of State that is responsible for nuclear power plant security. Most any domestic enforcement involving a nuclear power plant, nuclear weapons, or radioactive material falls under the National Guard. It's the military that is best trained and equipped for handling big problems of a nuclear, biological, or chemical nature. There's laws against the Army, Navy, or Air Force (which I assume includes the Space Force) acting domestically. This means it's the National Guard, along with maybe the Coast Guard and Marines, that would be called on in this case. The Secretary of Energy will likely get a phone call as a courtesy to inform the office of what happened.

You argue that we need the DOE because the DOE does X. If X is important then put it under a different department. The problem with the DOE is that so much of what it does is not important, it's just a waste of money.

The more I learn about the Department of Energy the more I see it as redundant. Energy is largely responsible for the stockpile of nuclear weapons, and the research, development, and eventual disposal of them. Return that responsibility to the DOD. It's the NRC that licenses nuclear reactors, including those that perform fusion. Because the fuel for these will often have to come from Energy they can hold up research by holding up the fuel. If there's a national security matter requiring another department to provide oversight then have State do it, they do most of this already.

I'm sure his family is delighted to have any beliefs in an afterlife shit upon by an atheist while mourning the loss of a loved one.

We used to have freedom of religion and expression in the USA. Now we can see elected officials get dragged into court because they sent a note containing the words "God bless" to the family of the recently deceased. Separation of church and state doesn't mean people can't pray in public school, that politicians can't wear a crucifix on a necklace in public, or whatever nonsense comes from the "freedom from religion" assholes.

There's nothing "offensive" about this. It may be irrational but then humans are not always rational. The guy died and you want to use this as an opportunity to evangelize your faith, or lack of it. Go to hell.

Oh, right, you don't believe in hell so I guess asking you to go there means nothing. In that case, fuck off and die you heartless bastard.

This is not why we need to wear face masks everywhere, wash our hands, or stay home until we all get vaccinated. Any virus is why we should wash our hands, because viral diseases existed before COVID-19. I suspect that mask wearing will become almost a reflex in any viral outbreak now, and this has been a reflex in other nations for some time. Vaccinations were always a good idea and people not getting them should not be granted a visa to immigrate or visit the country, allowed to attend public schools, or be healthcare providers.

COVID-19 is real, I don't see anyone claim otherwise. People are dying from it, again I see no claims to the contrary. The people dying from it are those above 70 years of age and with a preexisting health condition, Mr. Bova fell into both categories.

I suspect that all reasonable care was taken to protect this man from disease, and he still died from it. If there is a lesson to learn here it's that no matter how hard we try sometimes failure will still come.

My condolences to the family.

While it is certainly sad to see people go we all know everyone's time will come. Mourn his death but also celebrate he was with us as long as he was. If there is a lesson here about COVID-19 then it's that we can't always win no matter how hard we fight. That doesn't mean do nothing but it does mean we need to live our lives, because when our own time comes we should all have the ability for our last thoughts to be more than being locked up in our homes for most of our lives, being too scared to go out and experience the world.

Per my logic the DOE can't look completely incompetent because then they'd set themselves up to have everyone fired and the department eliminated, which is precisely what they want to avoid. By being far too competent in solving the nation's energy problems then they become redundant, and that gets everyone fired and the department eliminated. They have to appear to so something and things like convincing people to buy energy efficient light bulbs would be one of those things. Because LED lighting is just plain awesome we don't need a government office to tell us to buy them. They practically sell themselves and the people that make these lights are certainly motivated to advertise them to consumers.

Energy efficiency programs don't need the DOE to "coordinate" them. Energy efficiency is something people seek naturally because it's a money saver. If this is a matter of reducing use of coal and oil then this can fall under departments like Interior, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce, Transportation, Agriculture, and ultimately under the Office of the President. That's coal and oil use affects many things in our lives besides energy independence, and energy independence will likely be a priority of all the US Cabinet level departments I listed. Any coordination among them would necessarily have to fall under the Office of the President because the Secretary of Energy can't tell the Secretary of Defense what to do.

If US Congress wants to fund pork barrel energy programs that do nothing but funnel money into buying votes with "greenwashing" then they can still do that without the help of the DOE.

Why do you need the windmill people to talk to the nuclear power people? Or the hydro people to talk to the solar people? Assuming that they do need to talk then this can happen in private industry, where this balance in implementation must be struck. Any coordination among federal agencies can happen in the Office of the President, the Office of the Vice President, or by some "energy czar" that is an adviser to the different departments on energy policy. The lack of a DOE to coordinate this research doesn't mean it will not be coordinated. The DOE appears to be so large now that there is no coordination on national energy policy.

That's my whole point, the DOE is not getting you the fusion energy research that you want.

At this rate we will never get viable nuclear fusion power because the DOE keeps killing fusion energy research projects. I've seen multiple people complain of this, people that have had direct interactions with the DOE. This includes people in the US military that want to research fusion power for naval propulsion or power to military facilities. A lack of a DOE to coordinate these international efforts doesn't mean all ability to coordinate these efforts would be lost. The federal government has a Department of State for matters of international coordination. The Department of Commerce operates a neutron research laboratory under NIST, they are equipped to "coordinate" any fusion energy programs.

What I'm seeing happen is that Commerce is running a fusion energy research lab, and Energy is running another fusion energy research lab, and Defense is running their own fusion energy research lab. It sounds like NASA might be doing fusion energy research too. They don't talk to each other because Energy has been hostile to fusion energy research. If Energy sticks their noses into what other departments are doing then they tend to claim "ownership", have the program moved to their department where it will die. So Defense frames their research as a naval propulsion program to keep Energy from killing it. Commerce frames their research as a non-energy program. NASA frames any fusion programs as space propulsion or astrophysics programs.

Eliminating the DOE isn't required to get more money for fusion energy research, but it would certainly help. We can clear out of the department all the people that have been killing these programs for the last few decades this has been happening. That won't reverse the damage that's been done but it will keep it from happening in the future.

Having read through the comments so far I'm seeing a number of people claiming that this level of internet speed to the home is largely pointless, and I can agree on many levels. There's just a point at which it's only worth having for bragging rights. Such as perhaps owning a car capable of nearly 200 mph that will never get above 90 mph because it's always driven on public roads, and only then by violating speed limits.

Cellular networks and smart phones have been tested in some places to show 1.7 Gbps internet data speeds. That's likely quite rare but it shows the technology exists. This is "bragging rights" speeds and I expect most people would be pleased with far lower speeds than this as their primary connection to the internet.

Some things keeping people from cutting the cord would be a monthly data cap, service costs higher then a wire or optical cable to the home, and the willingness of a cellular provider to put up with people that would put cable internet kinds of usage on a cellular network built for far lighter levels of usage.

Cellular networks are giving more and faster data all the time. It may not be long before people cut the cord on wired internet to the home in the kind of numbers people have cut the cord on wired phone service to the home. Costs on both internet service and cellular service have been going up. This will make people find ways to restore their monthly costs to prior levels. Dropping landline phone service is the most obvious option for most.

It's great that we are seeing faster data to the home but I'm looking for lower cost of data to the home. I find it frustrating to see my costs go up when I'not getting any more value from it. I was quite pleased with what I had years ago for about $35/month, and now I'm paying roughly double that. I'm sure that should I complain to Mediacom about it they will point out I'm getting 100x the speed and data cap for only twice the price. That's great, I guess, but irrelevant. I'm not using 100X the speed or data that I did years ago when my internet service cost me half what it does now. I'm using perhaps double by my estimate.

If things keep going like I expect then I might find it to my advantage to drop my home internet service and rely on cellular internet only instead. I doubt I'm alone in this.

This constant ratcheting up of internet costs is not near the same rate as the ratcheting up of internet speeds, which certainly gives a perception of increased value, but any real value to me for that increased cost was lost a long time ago. Again, I doubt I'm alone in this.

Faster is better, but then so is cheaper. I'm seriously considering cutting the cord... again.

Then what is this? Some kind of hallucination?
https://www.defensenews.com/la...

That shows the DOD spent money on electric vehicles.

Here's money coming from the DOE.
https://www.energy.gov/article...

Those are recent articles but this goes back decades. While attending university I worked on the university's solar car competition team. At least one such annual competition the team entered was funded in part by the Department of Energy. It has been for many years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

While this was a "solar" car it's more accurately a solar electric car, since theoretically someone could make a steam car that uses solar heat to boil water or something. The intent of these DOE funded competitions was to encourage development in electric vehicles, and certainly other engineering efforts in bringing energy efficient transportation to market.

I don't know how you can claim that the DOE has spent nothing on electric vehicles. I recall these DOE programs to fund electric car companies, in the hope to bring them to market sooner, getting in the news for being such massive failures.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/o...

The Obama administration was just throwing money at electric cars, solar panels, and other energy efforts. There were many failures in this which cost taxpayers a lot of money, and made the DOE and Obama administration look like suckers for giving money to many of these failed businesses. I recall these failed programs getting mention on Slashdot. I find it difficult for anyone to claim ignorance on US federal government funds going to electric vehicles. Maybe you can argue that this wasn't funds from the DOE by some twisted logic. What is quite clear is that the DOE managed how these funds were spent even if they didn't specifically come from some DOE budget line item. The DOD certainly put money into electric vehicles even if some evidence can be found that they bought no electric vehicles. They sent people on their payroll to evaluate electric vehicles. Not all of them used a battery to provide electricity to the motor. At least one used a diesel powered generator and capacitor bank. https://oshkoshdefense.com/adv... At least one used fuel cells. https://www.army.mil/article/2...

Again I admit the examples I gave are fairly recent but it should not take much digging to find more examples from years and decades ago if one wanted to find them.

As pointed out in a sibling post the highly asymmetric upload and download speeds might mean needing this level of a data plan to get enough upload bandwidth for everyone.

I agree that there's a point of diminishing returns. I was forced to upgrade from a 5 Gbps plan (as I recall) to a 60 Gbps plan after Mediacom upgraded their DOCSIS equipment around here and dropped their slower plan options.. I didn't notice any difference in how the internet performs.

With my old plan I don't recall ever having speed issues, that is unless I hit my data cap. I'd rarely hit the cap unless I had a lot of time at home and decided to entertain myself with YouTube videos.

Here's a complaint I have with data plans from cable and cell phone companies, their continual inflation of the prices on their plans. I don't recall the exact rates and speeds so I'll just make something up. Perhaps 10 years ago I'd pay $40/month for 400 Mbps service. Then 5 years ago or so I was forced into a 5 Gbps plan for $60/month. And now I pay something like $80/month for 60 Gbps. It's quite obvious that the data is getting cheaper but my bill keeps getting bigger. If it weren't for the monthly data cap from 10 years ago I'd likely still be happy with 400 Mbps for $40/month.

Why can't I find a $40/month internet service plan any more?

I know one reason, people will want internet and so they have a take it or leave it choice. It's pay $50, $70, or whatever per month or get nothing. The market found a price at which the competition has driven up their prices and not drive people to consider going to a coffee shop to read the news and check e-mail.

I used to have satellite TV but dropped it because I found myself not watching it much after some of my favorite TV shows went off the air. I considered getting it again after having people suggest shows I might like and seeing that they could get SiriusXM radio over the dish. I thought with bundling this all with a deal for satellite internet and a cellular plan I could find a deal and kick Mediacom to the curb. Nope. Satellite TV subscriptions are twice the price now what I remember paying then. Getting some big bundle of other services didn't help because the bundle deals only apply to the high dollar plans I was not interested in.

If this inflation of service plans keep going like they have, as well as the growing bandwidth from cellular, then I'm guessing that "cutting the cord" will be an option for myself and others like me for internet. I'll have no landline phone at home. No cable TV or internet. Not satellite anything. I'll just have a "family plan" of a phone, tablet, and some kind of cellular internet device in my truck. As it is now it's looking attractive. Depending on who bumps up their prices more in the next couple years I might make that leap.

Maybe here's a question to ask, why have wired internet at all?

Where? In the mirror? Yep, you saw the racist in the mirror. Good job. Now use that mirror to comb your hair and wash your face, you slob.

Just think of all that porn all at once! Because as we all know...
  the internet is for porn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I've seen a lot of complaints about the difficulty in getting funding for fusion research in the USA because so many people are invested, emotionally, politically, or monetarily, into the international fusion research programs. They see most any American fusion research as unnecessary, redundant, and a distraction. This is precisely the same complaints used by people opposing international fusion energy research. Sometimes it is not even a matter of funding, it's getting a license from the government to build the reactor.

There's reasons why American companies, universities, and so on want research in the USA. Sending people to work overseas is inconvenient and costly. It's also slow, because anything done has to please all the countries that are funding this program. People in the Department of Energy are certainly invested in keeping money flowing to ITER instead of domestic programs.

It's true that there is fusion research happening in the USA. What is also true is that the USA has been hobbling itself on doing more research because of international politics and lack of support by a certain political party, though this stance may have changed. The USA is falling behind on nuclear energy, fission and fusion, because the federal government has been hostile to it. Again mostly because of one major political party, and this may have changed or will change soon.

If any American university wants to do research on fusion then it may not get permission to go through with it unless it is framed as a pure physics program, not an energy program. The US Navy has funded nuclear energy research, again in fission and fusion, but they have to keep this small and quiet or the US Department of Energy will claim jurisdiction, take over the program, and then kill it. The DOE would do this by arguing that such research is redundant to international research programs they already fund.

I'm seeing the Department of Defense producing far more results in energy research than the Department of Energy. My guess is because the DOD has well defined goals in this research while the DOE does not. The DOD is funding research in nuclear power plants to propel warships as well as potentially power military bases. The DOD sees a need for alternative sources of fuel for everything from portable coffee pots and tent heaters to tanks and bombers. They fund programs in biomass fuels, hydrocarbon synthesis, and electric vehicles to this end. Because remote operating posts might not have access to any electrical grid, and even domestic bases could lose power from the grid in a natural disaster or war, they've been looking into solar and wind power.

What does the Department of Energy do? They spend a lot of money on ITER, which isn't likely to produce anything of value for decades. They spent money on a lot of electric car companies, solar panel companies, and so on that could not get private funding, because private investors could see them as frauds, highly risky, poorly managed, and almost always a failure.

The Department of Energy has no real incentive in solving our energy problems. That's because if they solve the problem then they have no reason to exist. The Department of Energy should disappear and all the facilities and people absorbed into other departments. Any nuclear power research could be split among the DOD (military power plants), TVA (federal power plants), and NRC (oversight on state and private power plants). Power from wind, water and sun would fall under Interior. Biomass fuels goes to Agriculture. Management of the electrical grid and other interstate trade of energy goes to Commerce. In other words, back to how things were before the Department of Energy existed, at least for the most part.

That's not likely to happen because any such proposal would be political suicide. The DOE has every incentive to NOT solve our energy problems but proposing to remove this disincentive by distributing the research they do to departments with a real incentive would be painted as a plan to put the nation at a disadvantage in energy research. The reality is different. The Department of Energy was created to remove the nation from dependence on foreign nations for energy, and we got there in spite of it, not because of it. If we, as a nation, lose this ability to produce all the energy we consume then my guess is it will be because of interference from the DOE.