Believe it when I see it: US scientists reach long-awaited nuclear fusion breakthrough

You need to watch ancient apocalypse on Netflix
Humans already knew all that stuff

 

I'm Team Nuclear for better or worse. Really hope we can transition to nuclear in my lifetime.

 

Likewise. Believe it when I see it.

 

This is a really big deal.

People are likely going to complain for a decade or more when there isn't an instantaneous change to our life - but it is coming. Over the next 15-20 years, this is going to make a massive difference to how we see and use energy.

This also will likely have major impacts of the US economy as well.

 

Agreed. However, if what is CLAIMED is real - then it is a massive deal.

 

Maybe a massive change 20 years from now, but I don't foresee a massive change in the 19 years up to that point. Forget that they've been saying we're 2 years away for half a century. Right now, they just have a successful experiment. They still need to make a working prototype, need to scale it up, need to mass produce it in an economic and safe way, interconnect all these plants in the grid, create new supply chains, change legislative and regulatory regimes, fix the disrupted wholesale markets, and then maybe people would start seeing benefits.

 

My understanding is a milestone, but somewhat theoretically as in the real world there are huge inefficiencies getting the "input energy" to the proper state to where it can heat the plasma, and about a million other real world practical issues. Like, even at mythical/theoretical break-even, if you take into account the full transmission chain, you are still putting in a ton more than you are getting out.

You need gain much greater than 1 to make it workable anywhere but theoretically.

 

brings to mind a Michael Crichton essay:

Let’s think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horseshit? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?

But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport. And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn’t know what an atom was. They didn’t know its structure. They also didn’t know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet, interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS. None of this would have meant anything to a person in the year 1900. They wouldn’t know what you are talking about.

Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it’s even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the future. They’re bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment’s thought knows it.
​

https://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Crichton2003.pdf

​

 

That's the running gag of leading tech CEOs and paid science communicators across many industries. You say it's a cutting edge tech about 30 to 40 years down the road which is also about the time you start entering retirement and pass the mantle onto the next guy looking to cash in those checks. I'm glad there's progress being made in nuclear fusion as it is a worthwhile research investment but often times these breakthroughs are misleading in terms of practical application arriving on the energy grid anytime soon.

 

They didn't have lap dances in 1900???

 

this is fake news

 

So, if and when we achieve these nuclear net positive capabilities, I have a question:


As a resident idiot, didn't the navy file parents on these types of technogies a few years ago?


Shortly after the time of the Fraver incident?



Here's a snippet of a Forbes article from 2019:


President Donald Trump’s energy dominance narrative – fueled by the prolific production of oil and gas from America’s Shale Gale – recently got a boost from the United States Navy. The US Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division filed a patent for a compact fusion reactor (CFR) last month, one that claims to improve upon the shortcomings of the Lockheed Martin Skunkworks CFR that uses similar “plasma confinement” technology.



The man behind the state-of-the-art design is US Navy researcher Salvatore Cezar Pais, who received major publicity for patenting room-temperature superconductors and a suspiciously UFO-like aircraft that uses “anti-gravity” technology.


If it sounds like science fiction, that’s because it sort of is.


Nuclear fusion, the reaction that powers the sun, has been the elusive dream of the scientific community for decades. Theoretically, a fusion power plant would be able to produce near limitless amounts of clean, safe energy from a small amount of electricity and a handful of hydrogen isotopes.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielc...tents-compact-fusion-reactor/?sh=7d8fa8b11070

 

Wow what a timing!

I was just about to sign the papers for going solar.

 

I need some help with the fusion thing.
What is the purpose of finding Fusion?

I mean in application. I want to know the process
IS it
Fusion --> Heat water --> Turn turbine --> Electricity to run out stuff

Is that it in a nutshell?

Rocket River

 

**** load of close to free energy from abundant resources.

 

Solar panels depend on fossil fuels - it's so outdated anyway - you made right decision to dump the solar panels

 

I saw this movie. Elisabeth Shue was hot.