Longshots

     Some longshots entice the bettor with misty visions of grandeur and glory. Others attempt to seduce with an emotional pitch. Still others are frank about the odds against them, but they appeal to the common desire to see oneself as a visionary or an adventurer. Their sole commonality is that a payoff is, in the idiom of our British cousins, not bloody likely.

     A typical level of risk-aversion will steer most of us away from a longshot that would require a large commitment of funds. After all, money bet on a longshot must be regarded as lost. As most of us have to work for our money, we’d rather not squander it on something that appears unlikely to provide a return. Two dollars at the racetrack or a quarter into a slot machine is all very well, but as the numbers go up the bet must be more soberly assessed.

     But governments don’t experience risk-aversion the way we do:

     NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Stuart C. McWhorter and Type One Energy Group, Inc. officials announced today the company will invest $223.5 million to establish its headquarters and expand operations in Tennessee.
     Type One Energy will create a total of 330 new jobs by establishing its headquarters in the Greater Knoxville region and expanding fusion research and development (R&D) operations in Clinton.
     In addition, Type One Energy intends to locate at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Bull Run Fossil Plant in Clinton, Tennessee, for the company’s stellarator fusion prototype machine, Infinity One. Construction will begin following completion of required environmental reviews, partnership agreements, permits and operating licenses.

     Fusion power is a marvelous concept. It would be perfectly clean and risk-free. Its fuel is the most abundant of all elements. Once mastered, it would open the door to the transmutation of the elements, which would break the back of natural-resource scarcity.

     Fusion’s sole drawback is that no one has yet managed to make it work.

     It’s not that it can’t work. We know it can. The Sun operates a perfectly good fusion reactor, after all. Clean burning, exothermic, and highly reliable. However, the conditions that cause fusion in a stellar environment are rather difficult to reproduce on Earth, other than by setting off an H-Bomb.

     Say! Guess what sort of organization builds H-Bombs! More than coincidence? But I digress.

     I would love to be able to say, honestly, that research into exoenergetic fusion under Terrestrial conditions is looking promising. It would solve so many problems. But like the pollution-free engine, it remains a bright prospect whose fulfillment is at an unknown distance from us.

     The sort of gambler who bets other people’s money is the sort most inclined to fund a project like fusion research. Apparently the state government of Tennessee has decided to do so. What’s the probability of a return on the taxpayers’ money? Will anyone in the Tennessee government speak to that?

     Probably not. When you challenge a public official on something of this sort, he tends to get angry or change the subject. He might call you a Luddite or a pollutocrat. He won’t commit himself or his government to providing positive results by a firm date.

     He also won’t agree to a hard limit on how much of your money he’s willing to bet.

     Tennessee is a conservative, low-tax state. But public officials’ willingness to squander tax funds on wholly speculative undertakings is a constant from one end of the political spectrum to the other. Nor do they differ much on their aversion to accountability.

     Projects such as fusion research should be left to the private sector. Consider: the solar-energy developers who absorbed so many millions of tax dollars were working with a known reliable energy source: the Sun. Yet they were unable to advance the state of the art sufficiently to repay their government grants and loans. Haven’t we learned anything from those experiences?