The dream could not be bigger: produce nuclear power without the radioactive waste or meltdown potential. Generate an unlimited clean source of energy by replicating the sun’s power on earth. The federally-funded research project at MIT for what is known as “nuclear fusion” has been, for more than a decade, the university’s single largest science experiment, in terms of employees and budget. But the Obama administration, while sharing the hope that nuclear fusion will one day be harnessed as a power source, concluded that the MIT experiment was a waste of taxpayer money. It deemed MIT’s facility outdated and small, the least scientifically useful of three domestic fusion reactors. Indeed, critics of the experiment said it amounts to a $1.5 million-per-student training program that MIT wants to keep going to protect its turf and prestige.