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Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#421

Post by worik »

ambrozk wrote: post #280
soperj wrote: post #265

Quoted post unavailable.

Why? He dedicates huge amounts of money to worldwide public health, and is giving away the vast majority of his fortune over the course of his life. Why shouldn't I hold such a person in high regard?

> Why? He dedicates huge amounts of money to worldwide public health, and is giving away the vast majority of his fortune over the course of his life. Why shouldn't I hold such a person in high regard?

We are talking about Bill Gates who because he was better at red in tooth and claw business than technology he held computing back by at least a decade.

In 1995 I was using stable 32-bit personal computer software complete with all the tooling I needed, the very best. My friends were bogged down in expensive, unreliable, insecure, and privacy violating crap DoS with a shell (Windows 95).

They were not fools, but they had been fooled. It was for business reasons that this happened. It was driven by Bill Gates (and the business incompetence of the technically competent of the time)

If he lives another fifty years giving away every cent to good causes - good on him. I will not forget what he did to my industry.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#422

Post by beepbooptheory »

throwawayninja wrote: post #308
soperj wrote: post #265

Quoted post unavailable.

Honestly I find Bill Gates a pretty OK dude, all things considered. If you live life without making any mistakes/enemies that means you really didn't live at all.

I guess it is not a big deal at the end of the day, but it is quite shocking to me on a certain level that this is being said here. But I guess it is just another reminder that HN is much more about the business of computers and software, and not so much about computers and software themselves, even if that can be a very blurry distinction most of the time. But here... the distinction/priority is quite clear!

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#423

Post by dylan604 »

butterfi wrote: post #360
throwawayninja wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I find Bill Gates a pretty OK dude, all things considered. If you live life without making any mistakes/enemies that means you really didn't live at all.

Bill Gates is my poster child for "Do the ends justify the means?" I know people who were absolutely robbed by MCSFT and their business practices in the 90's. I'm glad he's using his wealth for good, but that doesn't change how he got the money.

It's kind of like Pilot washing his hands though, yeah? Who do you have to ask to find out how much of your money must be given away before you're atoned? Does he also have to say a bunch of hail mary's and our father's? Wouldn't it be better to set aside a huge chunk of money to have people re-write history on your behalf after you're gone?

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#424

Post by worik »

malka wrote: post #363
time_to_smile wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bet for sustainable and clean energy The best bet for sustainable and clean energy is to stop using fossil fuels and figure out how to deal with the economic consequences. I feel this optimism around this far off solutions for decades has been just a detrimental to climate action as out right climate denialism. Growing up in the 90s I was always told "everything will be fine, since we'll figure it all out with tech…

> the economic consequences. you mean the death of billions of people ?

No

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#425

Post by gus_massa »

Axien wrote: post #340

I noticed the waste output is helium. Does this fix the worldwide helium scarcity issue?

Let's make some back of the envelope calculation:

* World electricity production: 25000TWh/year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation

* Energy per Helium atom: 17.6MeV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuterium%E2%80%93tritium_fusi...

So per year (with a 100% efficiency [1]) you would produce as a side effect 25000TWh/17.6MeV ~= 3E31 Helium atoms.

The Avogadro constant is 6,022E23 and that produces 22.4 liters of gas, so you get 1.2E9 liters, that is 1.2E6 cubic meters. Let's round that to 1 million cubic meters per year.

The worldwide production of Helium is 140 million cubic meter per year https://www.statista.com/statistics/925214/helium-production...

[1] A 100% efficiency is too optimistic. The second law and the nasty details of the real world reduce the efficiency a lot. Let me guess 50% from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_conversion_efficiency#E... But this is good! If you waste half of the produced energy, you need the double of fusion plants, and that means the double of Helium balloons.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#426

Post by civilized »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #399

As the article itself states: 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."

2050 is coming sooner than any of us can imagine. I'm glad there are people looking out on that horizon!

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#427

Post by willis936 »

louwrentius wrote: post #418
throwaway5752 wrote: post #399

As the article itself states: 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."

Sorry for being like this but what I like most about that remark is the joyful optimism that there will be a society to power in the first place, and secondly one that can (still) build and operate such technology. Edit: maybe I’m needlessly pessimistic but I feel societies are much more fragile than they seem. We had it unreasonably good in ‘the west’ for the last 77 years but that time span is so short in the grand…

Why bet against society existing in 30 years? If you're right then you make money and if you're wrong then money is worthless.

Replace money with "technology that sustains society".

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#428

Post by dylan604 »

louwrentius wrote: post #418
throwaway5752 wrote: post #399

As the article itself states: 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."

Sorry for being like this but what I like most about that remark is the joyful optimism that there will be a society to power in the first place, and secondly one that can (still) build and operate such technology. Edit: maybe I’m needlessly pessimistic but I feel societies are much more fragile than they seem. We had it unreasonably good in ‘the west’ for the last 77 years but that time span is so short in the grand…

Huh? It's only like 30 years off. They didn't say 2150 or something else further into the future. How bad do you think things are currently that 28 years from now, society will be totally shattered?

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#429

Post by mcv »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #399

As the article itself states: 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."

Even that is optimistic; they don't expect any net production of energy before 2055, and I doubt there's any guarantee that that will work, because if there was, they'd be trying that right now.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#430

Post by benlumen »

louwrentius wrote: post #418
throwaway5752 wrote: post #399

As the article itself states: 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."

Sorry for being like this but what I like most about that remark is the joyful optimism that there will be a society to power in the first place, and secondly one that can (still) build and operate such technology. Edit: maybe I’m needlessly pessimistic but I feel societies are much more fragile than they seem. We had it unreasonably good in ‘the west’ for the last 77 years but that time span is so short in the grand…

You don’t give it 28 years? In the early 2000s I was in the “fast crash” camp, too. Not anymore.
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