Those mission led projects with strict conditionality

It is, of course, entirely true that there are slips twixt cup and lip. That plans gang agley and all that.

That was initially the aim of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter) which 35 countries – including European states, China, Russia and the US – agreed to build at Saint-Paul-lez-Durance in southern France at a starting cost of $6bn. Work began in 2010, with a commitment that there would be energy-producing reactions by 2020.

Then reality set in. Cost overruns, Covid, corrosion of key parts, last-minute redesigns and confrontations with nuclear safety officials triggered delays that mean Iter is not going to be ready for another decade, it has just been announced. Worse, energy-producing fusion reactions will not be generated until 2039, while Iter’s budget – which has already soared to $20bn – will increase by a further $5bn.

Big international project becomes exceedingly late and extraordinarily expensive. Well, doesn’t that just strike one for mission led projects with strict conditionality. With that ability of the government, the bureaucracy, to define a target, run a project and thereby add to the wealth of nations.

But that’s not all here:

Dozens of private companies now threaten to create fusion reactors on a shorter timescale, warn scientists. These include Tokamak Energy in Oxford and Commonwealth Fusion Systems in the US.

“The trouble is that Iter has been going on for such a long time, and suffered so many delays, that the rest of the world has moved on,” said fusion expert Robbie Scott of the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. “A host of new technologies have emerged since Iter was planned. That has left the project with real problems.”

Ah, the private sector - running on its own fumes - is doing better. Cheaper and getting further.

So the argument in favour of mission led projects with strict conditionality becomes what? Other than that it gives governments, the bureaucracy, budgets and power to play with? That immediately preceding sentence being why the idea is so popular among governments and bureaucracies and those who would make a living by pandering to them.

Is it actually possible - you know, within the bounds of credence - that mission led projects with strict conditionality aren’t, in fact, the way to advance the wealth of nations? Whatever they might do to the joy of being in government?#

Tim Worstall