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[smjjames]

Yes we do. Current tokamak designs are just barely overunity on production.

The stellerator was the child of theory, and test designs of reactors of this type have produced huge efficiency gains over traditional tokamak reactors.

I think he meant stuff in the realm of science fiction, stuff WAY more powerful than fusion.

[RedKing]

Not to be a curmudgeon, but maybe this belongs in a "Can we save the world, or is it too late?" thread. This thread is more about "Can we save the United States, or is it too late?" 

[Harry Baldman]

Not to be a curmudgeon, but maybe this belongs in a "Can we save the world, or is it too late?" thread. This thread is more about "Can we save the United States, or is it too late?" 

But can we save the world from the United States, or is it too late?

[wierd]

To make fusion a reality, a LOT more theory has to be created and tested.  That reality, coupled with the obscene lack of funding for actual fusion research (one of the diagnostic features that drives my pessimism is that while the problems are acknowledged, nobody in power EVER wants to address them, which has been a historical mainstay of human societies before resource scarcity induced collapses.), pretty much says straight up that we need to not think of fusion as a solved problem.


RedKing-- Given that the US consumes some absurd amount of the world's energy budget, it still fits.

[sluissa]

Once again, we have beyond forseeable future energy just being shot at us in abundance from the sun.

[wierd]

Once again-- NO.

That kind of thinking presumes that it is safe or reasonable to cover significant portions of the earth in solar panels. (it isnt.)

[Trekkin]

Like the Post Trans-Uranic reactor stuff in the Schlock Mercenary comic? Also, you said 'in theory', we don't need to 'in theory' fusion.

It's slightly more complicated than that. For both fusion and conversion, we know that the underlying phenomenon is energetic enough to be sustain the reaction as long as we have fuel present; it remains unknown how to build a machine efficient enough to sustain that reaction with a usable energy surplus.

We can just make inefficient fusion happen more observably than inefficient SBH of the appropriate size.

Do bear in mind that when I say "in theory", I'm usually using "theory" in the actual scientific sense, not the lay sense. Read "theoretically possible" as "we can prove that the solution space contains at least one usable thing contingent on certain assumptions of known probability, but we don't know where in the space to look for it."

[wierd]

Indeed, hence my "Yes we do!" argument about stellerators, and the abysmal state of fusion research funding.

[smjjames]

To make fusion a reality, a LOT more theory has to be created and tested.  That reality, coupled with the obscene lack of funding for actual fusion research (one of the diagnostic features that drives my pessimism is that while the problems are acknowledged, nobody in power EVER wants to address them, which has been a historical mainstay of human societies before resource scarcity induced collapses.), pretty much says straight up that we need to not think of fusion as a solved problem.


RedKing-- Given that the US consumes some absurd amount of the world's energy budget, it still fits.

Not to mention that it'll take time to build a fusion plant once we find a workable solution, so, it doesn't work as a right-now-in-this-decade sense.

Indeed, hence my "Yes we do!" argument about stellerators, and the abysmal state of fusion research funding.

Because it's tough to convince politicians to invest in something that costs a LOT of money and isn't clear it'd even work. Makes you wonder how we got into space in the first place, right? heh.

[Trekkin]

Because it's tough to convince politicians to invest in something that costs a LOT of money and isn't clear it'd even work. Makes you wonder how we got into space in the first place, right? heh.

Well, the best way is to tell them the Russians' one is bigger and more powerful, so we need to build an even bigger one than that.

[wierd]

Sadly, that is pretty much true. (and you wonder why I am so pessimistic about this?)

[RedKing]

RedKing-- Given that the US consumes some absurd amount of the world's energy budget, it still fits.

That's as may be, but my concern is that this will drown out any and all other political happenings. We very well may all be fucked, but in the meantime there are budgets to pass (or just got passed), tax breaks to the wealthy to give away, stupid shit for the Leader of the Free World to tweet, etc.

[Arx]

Whether fusion energy is a transitional fuel source fits in this thread about as well as EU news does, since the EU represents a fifth of all US trade. Take it to another thread.

[sluissa]

You have some news, then news us.

[Egan_BW]

Oi nerds.