Betting on fusion
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Betting on fusion
1–10 of 13 posts
Re: Betting on fusion
#2I'm kind of astonished to hear someone paid money for the e-cat. I'd always thought of Rossi as a crank. Hopefully I was wrong and we get a revolutionary new energy source, but I'm still not convinced.
General Fusion is still awesome though, and it's great to see they're making progress. I wish I were a rich VC because I would have bet on them 6 years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/8np70/fusion_dream...
Re: Betting on fusion
#3I'm kind of astonished to hear someone paid money for the e-cat. I'd always thought of Rossi as a crank. Hopefully I was wrong and we get a revolutionary new energy source, but I'm still not convinced. General Fusion is still awesome though, and it's great to see they're making progress. I wish I were a rich VC because I would have bet on them 6 years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/8np70/fusion_dream.…
That is because he is a crank. Anyone who actually has a working device would simply sell electricity at below market rates to earn the money to continue the development. And any system which cannot generate enough energy to pay for its cost of operation and generate at least some profit, is not a working system.
That said, since there is a whole of confusion about just what is going on around LENR type systems, it feels a lot like Sarnoff and Tesla arguing about Radio to me.
Re: Betting on fusion
#4> Scientists are learning much from all this tinkering, but experts say these big projects—if they work—are at best decades away from commercialization.
I don't understand what the rush is. Are we really that shortsighted that we can't wait a few decades or even centuries for the ultimate energy cure-all? We continue to enthusiastically support a space program, even though we know the practical payoff is a long way away. Why can't we have the same attitude about fusion? Traditional nuclear and associated advanced concepts can carry us in the medium term, albeit with some proliferation risk.
It's a shame that the smaller projects got cut from government funding, and I'm glad venture capitalists are stepping in and contributing. But it seems that they are outright dismissing of mainstream academic scientists, and believe that nothing useful can be learned from the scientific community. This seems hubristic, and will just lead to wasted resources and good will.
Plasma physicists have tried many things over the decades and have gotten good at pointing out failure modes. There is no good reason why there can't be more collaboration between academia and industry in this space.
If it's secret, it's not science.
Re: Betting on fusion
#5At least they are trying
to do some real innovation --
powerful, valuable, important, useful,
difficult to duplicate or equal,
lots of intellectual property and
trade secrets, etc.
Much better than yet another social, local, mobile, sharing, membership, app.
Terrific! Go for it, guys.
Uh, guys, original research in applied physics is not the only good direction for especially powerful innovations.
There is also information technology from original research in applied mathematics (theorem and proof kind) for, yes, powerful, valuable, important, useful, difficult to duplicate or equal, lots of intellectual property and trade secrets, etc.
Re: Betting on fusion
#6> Scientists are learning much from all this tinkering, but experts say these big projects—if they work—are at best decades away from commercialization. I don't understand what the rush is. Are we really that shortsighted that we can't wait a few decades or even centuries for the ultimate energy cure-all? We continue to enthusiastically support a space program, even though we know the practical payoff is a long way a…
[deleted]
Re: Betting on fusion
#7I'm kind of astonished to hear someone paid money for the e-cat. I'd always thought of Rossi as a crank. Hopefully I was wrong and we get a revolutionary new energy source, but I'm still not convinced. General Fusion is still awesome though, and it's great to see they're making progress. I wish I were a rich VC because I would have bet on them 6 years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/8np70/fusion_dream.…
That is because he is a crank. Anyone who actually has a working device would simply sell electricity at below market rates to earn the money to continue the development. And any system which cannot generate enough energy to pay for its cost of operation and generate at least some profit, is not a working system. That said, since there is a whole of confusion about just what is going on around LENR type systems, it f…
Rossi is a crank, not arguing about that.
But have you ever calculated how expensive is to get any amount of heat-generated electricity into the grid? Even if one had a completely free source of heat, any generator that is not at least on the tens of MW isn't economicaly viable. And for tens of MW, one needs tens of millions of dollars.
Re: Betting on fusion
#8> Scientists are learning much from all this tinkering, but experts say these big projects—if they work—are at best decades away from commercialization. I don't understand what the rush is. Are we really that shortsighted that we can't wait a few decades or even centuries for the ultimate energy cure-all? We continue to enthusiastically support a space program, even though we know the practical payoff is a long way a…
[deleted]
Yes, we can certainly use more skepticism of kooks and frauds, like the cold fusion folks discussed in the article.
Perhaps you are misunderstanding my complaint? What I'm talking about is the dismissal of mainstream plasma physicists, many of whom are rightly skeptical of these get-rich-quick schemes.
(editted out needless antagonism)
Re: Betting on fusion
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is because he is a crank. Anyone who actually has a working device would simply sell electricity at below market rates to earn the money to continue the development. And any system which cannot generate enough energy to pay for its cost of operation and generate at least some profit, is not a working system. That said, since there is a whole of confusion about just what is going on around LENR type systems, it f…
Rossi is a crank, not arguing about that. But have you ever calculated how expensive is to get any amount of heat-generated electricity into the grid? Even if one had a completely free source of heat, any generator that is not at least on the tens of MW isn't economicaly viable. And for tens of MW, one needs tens of millions of dollars.
Rossi has sold 1MW heat plants.
Re: Betting on fusion
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
[deleted]
Yes, we can certainly use more skepticism of kooks and frauds, like the cold fusion folks discussed in the article. Perhaps you are misunderstanding my complaint? What I'm talking about is the dismissal of mainstream plasma physicists, many of whom are rightly skeptical of these get-rich-quick schemes. (editted out needless antagonism)
Indeed, I had a hard time understanding your complaint.