US Department of Energy - science funding

The US DOE has released it's roadmap for science funding: from the New Scientist bq. Making clean energy by nuclear fusion and building supercomputers to speed up scientific research are the top priorities in physical science, according to a new US Department of Energy road map. bq. Other major projects given a top ranking include designing microbes to scrub the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and the search for the mysterious dark energy that is driving the expansion of the Universe. bq. However, high energy physics (HEP) experiments that smash particles together did not fare so well in the 20-year plan announced on Monday. HEP experiments could one day unite quantum mechanics and general relativity, and explain why our Universe has mass. bq. But the Linear Collider, described as "the next big step" in the field, was ranked only 13 in a list of 28 priority facilities. Furthermore, three projects that a HEP task force ranked as "absolutely central" in March did not make the list at all. Not so good for the big-iron particle physics but not too bad for energy (Fusion) and supercomputers (where a lot of basic work can be done)