Why is nuclear fusion so hard?

Post by pfdietz » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 12:58 PM UTC

Tade0 wrote: post #84

DennisP wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point to a commercial operation recovering lithium from seawater? Demand for lithium is high and expected to go much higher, so a seawater extraction plant should at least be in development if it's feasible to do that. If it's purely a future technology, just like zinc-air batteries, then we should be allowed to look at future nuclear technologies as well, some of which are very much in development.

Can you point to a commercial operation recovering lithium from seawater No, because it's exactly like with tar sands: it will happen when it's commercially viable. At this point it's much cheaper to "mine" the brines in Chile. If it's purely a future technology, just like zinc-air batteries Thing is - it isn't. Here's a company making grid-scale Zinc-Air batteries: https://eosenergystorage.com They figured it out in…

Post by narag » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 2:10 PM UTC

kungtotte wrote: post #146

sethrin wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what it is about the idea of the far future that makes people so willing to throw out fundamental physical laws. The relevant point here would be that there are fundamental limits to heat transfer, and a finite amount of work which can be done on Earth-as-we-know-it for a given unit of time, irrespective of the energy source. An "unlimited" source of energy would be in practice limited by its heat output…

Improbable is not the same as impossible. We didn't even know about atoms for a huge stretch of science, and now we're smashing them together to break them apart looking for smaller things. Is it completely out of the question that some discovery will be made that invalidates our current understanding of physics?

Post by throwawayaway12 » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 3:44 PM UTC

yummybear wrote: post #71

This a totally ignorant question - can you add “something” to the plasma to achieve the “jello like” analogy to water?

Post by sethrin » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

kungtotte wrote: post #146

sethrin wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what it is about the idea of the far future that makes people so willing to throw out fundamental physical laws. The relevant point here would be that there are fundamental limits to heat transfer, and a finite amount of work which can be done on Earth-as-we-know-it for a given unit of time, irrespective of the energy source. An "unlimited" source of energy would be in practice limited by its heat output…

Improbable is not the same as impossible. We didn't even know about atoms for a huge stretch of science, and now we're smashing them together to break them apart looking for smaller things. Is it completely out of the question that some discovery will be made that invalidates our current understanding of physics?

Post by kungtotte » Mon, Dec 10, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

sethrin wrote: post #157

kungtotte wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Improbable is not the same as impossible. We didn't even know about atoms for a huge stretch of science, and now we're smashing them together to break them apart looking for smaller things. Is it completely out of the question that some discovery will be made that invalidates our current understanding of physics?

Yes, it's absurd to consider that there will be any large-scale violation of thermodynamics in the indefinitely far future. Literally, nothing is less probable.