First! Fusion Net Energy Gain

[Perknose]

Fusion? I'm jazzed.

 

[UNCjigga]

In before the peer review.

 

[esquared]

Fusion? I'm jazzed.

I see what you did there.

 

[senseamp]

Good job, fellow educated liberal elites👍

 

[trenchfoot]

Is it really true that liberals are open-minded and forward-driven while conservatives are........conservative? As in anathema toward change, regressive, regimented, habitually reliant on authority figures to make decisions for them, etc.? (redundant)

 

[woolfe9998]

It's interesting that this inertial confinement method using high powered lasers has been the one hitting all these milestones, including this, the biggest yet. Assuming the finding holds. Most other experimental reactors are using magnetic containment and these tokomak (donut shaped) reacters. Almost all the outside corporate money and plenty of .gov money is going to those projects, with ITER being the largest. Then again, Lawrence Livermore has been researching this method since the 1960's, so I guess they had a head start.

Let's hope something comes of this in the foreseeable future. It would be a game changer, possibly the most important technological advance in human history.

 

[sdifox]

I hope this is the breakthrough we all hope it is. We so need fusion yesterday.

 

[Pens1566]

Drools in "making liquefied dinosaur carcasses irrelevant".

 

[Commodus]

I hope this is the breakthrough we all hope it is. We so need fusion yesterday.

It's probably going to be a long while before there's practical fusion power, but definitely. It'd wipe out all the excuses to hold on to coal/natural gas, not to mention ICE vehicles (the classic "but you're getting your energy from dirty power plants anyway" argument).

 

[kage69]

Sounds great. Now we just have to stop China from stealing it like everything else.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Sounds great. Now we just have to stop China from stealing it like everything else.

I take energy advancements as one of those things we should just share. We don't win by China burning fossil fuels. We win by everyone burning hydrogen.

 

[eelw]

Sounds great. Now we just have to stop China from stealing it like everything else.

But in this case, why would this be a bad thing? Best to have the largest dirty energy consumer to be one of the first to move to fusion.

 

[Greenman]

It's probably going to be a long while before there's practical fusion power, but definitely. It'd wipe out all the excuses to hold on to coal/natural gas, not to mention ICE vehicles (the classic "but you're getting your energy from dirty power plants anyway" argument).

They made it into the plus column for energy production, that's pretty huge. Now it's all about performance and packaging.

 

[trenchfoot]

Sounds great. Now we just have to stop China from stealing it like everything else.

You may have mentioned that tongue in cheek yet there's a lot of truth in what you say.

Like so many other intellectual property theft cases that China has committed against the world, it seems to me the Chinese will, in one way or another, attempt to use this source of energy to further their influence and power throughout the world. It's what they are totally focused on as a national policy. If they're not able to, then great, although it just makes sense that they'll try it any way they can.

I agree that sharing this wonderful tech with the world is a humanitarian gesture that the world's peoples can benefit from in so many ways, but the Chinese gov't has proven without doubt that they want to be the world's premier power and it seems the only way for them to do that is to deploy an expansionist policy in the way of controlling more and more of the earth's resources including energy production and anything else they can use to further their primary goal.

It may sound silly of me to see things that way yet it did occur to me that it would align with what the Chinese have been up to in recent history.

 

[Jaskalas]

Sounds great. Now we just have to stop China from stealing it like everything else.

China, ALONE, would destroy the planet in pollution and CO2.
We need them to have this as much as we need it.
Humanity at large needs abundant clean energy.

 

[Commodus]

They made it into the plus column for energy production, that's pretty huge. Now it's all about performance and packaging.

It is huge. I just want to stress that there's still a lot of work left, such as sustaining reactions for long periods and otherwise improving efficiency. I still wouldn't expect fusion reactors for 10 or more years, and realistically more like 20-plus.

 

[Jaskalas]

It is huge. I just want to stress that there's still a lot of work left, such as sustaining reactions for long periods and otherwise improving efficiency. I still wouldn't expect fusion reactors for 10 or more years, and realistically more like 20-plus.

Even when all the testing is done, production at the scale we need would take decades.
Given that, we are still possibly a life time away even if everything smoothly falls into place one after another.

 

[Greenman]

It is huge. I just want to stress that there's still a lot of work left, such as sustaining reactions for long periods and otherwise improving efficiency. I still wouldn't expect fusion reactors for 10 or more years, and realistically more like 20-plus.

That's in line with what I would guess.
Just knowing the system works and is possibly viable is enough to kick start a lot of investment and energy into it.

 

[cytg111]

But in this case, why would this be a bad thing? Best to have the largest dirty energy consumer to be one of the first to move to fusion.

This. When we dont have to fight over energy or food… At some point maybe we wont?

 

[hal2kilo]

Been watching the NIF for twenty years. It's still got a long way to go, for anything practical. Just like ITER, hot fusion will probably go no where. Let me know when a house get powered from one these extremely expensive projects.

 

[Jaskalas]

This. When we dont have to fight over energy or food… At some point maybe we wont?

Not sure how you threw food into the equation.
The topic is the (slowly) growing potential for clean and abundant energy.
Never heard of anything remotely similar of comparable for food

 

[cytg111]

Not sure how you threw food into the equation.
The topic is the (slowly) growing potential for clean and abundant energy.
Never heard of anything remotely similar of comparable for food

Cause energy -> food? You could desalinate seawater and tons other stuff.

 

[kage69]

I take energy advancements as one of those things we should just share. We don't win by China burning fossil fuels. We win by everyone burning hydrogen.

We don't win by helping China with their military advances either.

I would agree with you if we were dealing with a democracy, but helping the CCP take over a hemisphere is pretty fucking far from a win, sorry.

 

[kage69]

But in this case, why would this be a bad thing? Best to have the largest dirty energy consumer to be one of the first to move to fusion.

Have you guys been following China at all for the last 20 years? There is no divide between civil and private development and that of their military. Don't view China through the lens of American rules and culture. The country quite open about it's desire to do away with the world order America built has weaponized everything they said they wouldn't, and you guys want to give the CCP fusion technology?

Haha please

 

[darkswordsman17]

We don't win by helping China with their military advances either.

I would agree with you if we were dealing with a democracy, but helping the CCP take over a hemisphere is pretty fucking far from a win, sorry.

What does that have to do with this thread? Its like you saw nuclear and decided to Dubya yourself. zOMG Axis of Evil, Weapons of Mass Destruction!!!!

Have you guys been following China at all for the last 20 years? There is no divide between civil and private development and that of their military. Don't view China through the lens of American rules and culture. The country quite open about it's desire to do away with the world order America built has weaponized everything they said they wouldn't, and you guys want to give the CCP fusion technology?

Haha please

Ah yes, because America has been a true arbiter of morality when it comes to military use. Then again, that has fucking nothing to do with this thread.

It takes a special kind of stupid to go "we must spite ourselves to prevent our enemy from possibly polluting less (which would also benefit us)!" Further, if we discover a source of abundant, clean, and potentially almost pollution free energy and we deliberately withhold it from the rest of the world, that would literally be fucking evil. But I guess it'd be ok for capitalists to do that to enrich the wealthiest that are doing more harm to the American people than China is. Meanwhile, China is gaining clout internationally by building major public projects that is enriching non-Chinese countries. All while America fights itself "nah we shouldn't help them, cause it costs money!!!" (that's actually the most polite argument against helping out foreign countries that I've seen, and well we literally had a sitting President say how we should exploit everyone for our own gains only and calling places that we deliberately fucked over "shithole countries" among many many many other fucked up behavior by Americans that show we are hardly ones that should be casting stones - even if China is doing horrible shit, it takes a special level of asshole to be "well its fine when we do it, but not them" and then wonder why the US is losing credibility in the world.) "How dare China gain influence by helping people like we used to do!!! Those dastardly villains!"

China doesn't give a fuck because they've watched literally the entire rest of the world do awful heinous shit (several times to them even; Boxer Rebellion, Japanese atrocities, hell the US was considering just murdering them and Russia with nukes in the 1940s and 1950s) and then whitewash that history. I can't fault them for that without looking like a hypocrite, and its absurd that we want to sit here after having reaped the benefits of that shit and go "no you are bad for doing that!!!" with zero self awareness. Hell we're still to this day doing the shit you're bitching about China doing, where we've intervened with our military in conflicts for our own personal gains.