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Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#371

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

taftster wrote: post #347
guhidalg wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting sci-fi thought, but why wouldn't the second spaceship just catch up with the first one and pick up the passengers to avoid their unnecessary travel time?

Incompatible docking apparatus, not backwards compatible. Engineers invented these doors, after all.

So? If you know there's another spaceship that you're going to pass and you need to pick people up, you make your docking apparatus backwards compatible.

This isn't rocket science :-)

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#373

Post by bostonsre »

soperj wrote: post #310
wowokay wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, we should discount all his contributions and hold him a accountable for his past actions right? Man I'm glad the rest of us never make mistakes and have all contributed so much more then him..

I'm sorry, but if the Queen can disavow her own kid for his affiliation with Jeffery Epstein, and Bill's wife can do the same, we can disavow Bill Gates. Just because he has money doesn't mean a damn thing w/r to whether we have to hold him to any regard. He's proven over decades to not be a good person. There's a reason Paul Allen ended his relationship with Bill Gates.

So are you suggesting he be completely shunned from society? Why not let him try to atone for his sins and try to do good in the world by giving away a large portion of his wealth to noble causes?

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#374

Post by openknot »

tra3 wrote: post #355

Can someone ELI5 for people that don't follow fusion tech closely? In particular does this mean we're going to have fusion soon?

To respond to the second question, though I haven't followed fusion tech closely, from the environmental analyst featured in the article:

"The fusion announcement is great news but sadly it won't help in our battle to lessen the effects of climate change.

"There's huge uncertainty about when fusion power will be ready for commercialisation. One estimate suggests maybe 20 years. Then fusion would need to scale up, which would mean a delay of perhaps another few decades.

"And here's the problem: the need for carbon-free energy is urgent - and the government has pledged that all electricity in the UK must be zero emissions by 2035. That means nuclear, renewables and energy storage.

"In the words of my colleague Jon Amos: "Fusion is not a solution to get us to 2050 net zero. This is a solution to power society in the second half of this century.""

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#375

Post by anonporridge »

pkaye wrote: post #367

What do people think of this critique of nuclear fusion power? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ4W1g-6JiY

Generally good.

My take is that the crux of her argument is that fusion is unlikely to be the great solution of all our energy problems any time soon, so we should not let that false hope direct our funding decisions in the race to a sustainable energy future.

It would be an insanely good outcome if fusion becomes viable and massively scaled by the end of the century, and frankly, that's not soon enough for our climate and peak oil problems.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#376

Post by rndmize »

soperj wrote: post #313
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats with public schooling? I havent found anything that looks relevant

They're responsible for common core, which basically makes teachers teach to the test to keep their jobs.

Pretty sure that was a part of No Child Left Behind, years before Common Core. I'm also not sure how development of a set of tests and standards would be related to teacher employment - I would have expected that to be up to the states and how they implement them.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#378

Post by unfocussed_mike »

CodeGlitch wrote: post #82
unfocussed_mike wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pillow stuff was fraudulent, sorry. You can't hold up a bed pillow and say all these regulations cover pillows when almost all of the uses of the word "pillow" were from engineering safety regulations (pillow blocks etc.) The Syrian immigration thing was based on a lie (and about specific fearmongering concerning Turkey's supposed accession to the EU -- a process that has entirely stalled and is even in reverse b…

> The pillow stuff was fraudulent, sorry. That's why I said they were proxies - please read what I wrote again.

It wasn't a proxy; it was a deception.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#379

Post by ClumsyPilot »

mschuster91 wrote: post #118
biorach wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ITER vs SpaceX is a really poor comparison. ITER is a high risk foray into still-experimental technology with no hope of direct return on investment (it can not function as a commercial power plant). It had to be built at this scale because they had reached the limits of smaller-scale prototypes (tho I think there was not unanimity about this). Pooling resources makes sense here. SpaceX is a more efficient take on te…

> Pooling resources makes sense here. Yes, but still - instead of all the components needed being manufactured on or near site, they are shipped from across the world... so parts end up damaged [1], not made according to spec or the spec having errors introduced somewhere among dozens of companies and institutions. With sometimes weeks or months of shipping round-trip times, that is causing a fucking lot of delays. N…

Airbus is an inefficient port project? They build almosy half the world's aircraft.

Boeing has 1 boss and what are they better at, defrauding regulators to sell dangerous aircraft? And all other private manufacturers combined are a rounding error?

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#380

Post by rini17 »

pkaye wrote: post #367

What do people think of this critique of nuclear fusion power? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ4W1g-6JiY

Spot on. I also saw another good metaphor: it's like building jet engine in the 1800s right after discovering Bernoulli's equation.

However, since it has such mighty political backing as a solemn hope to tackle climate change, politics will always win.

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