Sources:

http://www.iter.org/a/index_nav_1.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

ITER, for those who aren’t studying Fusion power plants, is an international research/design proposal involving several countries from around the world. Its goal is to build and operate a 1/5 size fusion reactor to prove that fusion can be done and is worth perusing as a source of power. Supposedly, every gram of deuterium (the fuel for this design, a form of hydrogen) has the power of 2700 gal of gasoline, and can be extracted from seawater. This abundance gives every gallon of sea water theoretically 300 gal of gasoline worth of power. Adjusted for population growth, deuterium would run out about 200 times the length it took the sun to burn out. With all the apparent potential, what is stopping this from being researched non-stop? The answer is largely information cascades!

The average American is not very learned about nuclear fusion, so this example is similar to the one from the text where a person walks by 2 restaurants, one full and one empty. We do not get much of our power from nuclear sources, and in fact the word “nuclear” had become a negative buzzword. (In an effort to combat this negative cascade ITER is no longer called by its full name, International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. Nuclear and experimental tends to scare people off. As a result, the restaurant where everyone dismisses fusion is more full and seems to be a better choice. However, if you go to the intersection of the same two restaurants in another country, say France, you would see the opposite. In fact, France payed roughly 2 billion dollars so that the research facility would be built there. Because France and many other non-US countries get a good deal of their power from nuclear sources, this is akin to seeing a food critic buying the restaurant. This should make Americans think twice before dismissing the future of nuclear power. Compared to France’s 2 billion, the US contributed 100 million last year and the budget is 0 for 2008.

The US’ non-dependence on nuclear power means that with the exception of a few individuals nuclear power is neither publicized or even really accepted as an alternative power source for the future in the public eye. The positives cascade a lot slower than the negatives. (How many people immediately think of Chernobyl when the hear nuclear power and phase out the years of safety and efficiency improvement.) It is clear that sometimes positive information cascades can sometimes hinder the flow of information if there are certain buzzwords present in a related negative cascade.