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The article is completely wrong about US Navy ships having fusion reactors. They have fission reactors, not fusion. I wonder if they are even reporting the breakthrough right since they clearly don't know the difference. For all we know the breakthrough may be smaller fission reactors too, which isn't a big deal at all.
Very cheap energy means cheap war and lots of it. This could be bad.
> U.S. submarines and aircraft carriers run on nuclear power, but they have large fusion reactors on board that have to be replaced on a regular cycle. sigh To the extent this is true I suspect those "large fusion reactors" are tuned not so much for generating electricity and a great deal for annihilating whatever the carrying missile is pointed at. But never mind fuzzy thinking at Reuters right now. This is amazing…
Here is more on the tech, including a drawing: http://aviationweek.com/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compa...
The team acknowledges that the project is in its earliest stages, and many key challenges remain before a viable prototype can be built
This falls under the xkcd 10 year plan:
"we haven't finished inventing it yet, but when we do, it'll be awesome"
Very cheap energy means cheap war and lots of it. This could be bad.
If they can manage to build what they envision we will have tanks with with laser weapons.
Because a whole fleet of fusion air carriers, battleships, submarines and bombers versus a conventional army has plenty of implications in term of autonomy, reach, etc.
But on the other hand, there is a such demand for energy everywhere that it would really hard to morally ban all the civilians applications.
Very cheap energy means cheap war and lots of it. This could be bad.
Cheap clean electricity means no-one needs to care about the Middle East for starters — most of the fighting there is superpower proxy fighting — e.g. Assad would be gone if not backed by Russia and China, so no Islamic State. No Oil, no Iraq war x2. No oil, no Hugo Chavez for that matter.