I really have trouble believing that any sort of fusion project, especially one funded by the states, has a measly budget of 2 million a year.


Projects are done in stages. 2 million a year on a project still in essentially a design stage, before it reaches the engineer stage where actually prototypes of important physical systems are built and tested, isn't so far-fetched.

You have to take a look at hard far down the road FIRE is to put the cost in perspective. FIRE was just beginning to assess the cost of contruction of things like the magnetic field coils. If FIRE was still a priority, there are several rounds of additional funding that would have gone into the project as it met specific review criteria. These project don't get budgetted for the full project at the beginning. There are multiple phases, with reviews, that if successful mean more money when its needed to actually build things. You don't get the money to even build prototype of critical systems till there is a significant review process of the physics and engineering concerns.

-jef