ESSENTIAL TO SURVIVAL

After the US supplied a 40-ton superconducting magnet (designed and built by the Argonne National Laboratory), the Soviet MHD generator U25 at the Institute of High Temperatures north of Moscow reached its rated capacity of 20.4 MW and has been operated "for hundreds of hours," though apparently not in a single, uninterrupted run.

In general, the USSR has emphasized the construction of large and complex plants, whilst the US has limited its research to the develonment of small scale, high-performance (and also low-risk) components such as magnets and electrodes, which the Soviets are evidently incapable of producing.

But the US is not building any major MHD plants; it is concentrating on re-introducing energy sources that were, for good reason, abandoned in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Dr A.R. Kantrowitz, chairman of AVCO Everett Research Lab and father of the US MHD effort, succinctly characterized this loss of spirit in a statement "MHD in the Time of Timidity," read into the Congressional Record of Nov. 18, 1977 (page E 7041). Excerpts:

"[The past few years] have been a period of timidity's triumphs. We have learned how to utilize procurement delays to avoid taking courageous steps, we have learned how to take the small steps that avoid criticism. In fact, these forward steps are now so small that if we continue this way we will never get there. In particular, timidity has developed the finding of difficulties into a fine art. We have learned to find something which, to the uninitiated, seems like a milestone that ought to be passed when we go forward. . .

"The artificial difficulty [in the case of a US MHD pilot plant] is nothing but a Catch 22. It says you cannot build a pilot plant until you show that something much bigger [than a pilot plant] works...

"In a time of timidity you do not proceed with anything unless you have certainty. Thus, you are very careful never to do anything new. In this way you commit few errors, but consider what you omit. The energy economy of the US has always depended on vigorous and courageous technological adventures. . . I submit that although in a time of timidity you will commit few mistakes, you will omit the spirit of adventure which is essential to survival. MHD represents our energy problem in microcosm. How often has this frustrating experience been repeated across the energy spectrum?"

Predictably, the shallow and small hearted will object that all past civilizations have survived without MHD.

But that evades the real point: None of them survived once the courageous search for the new had been abandoned.