181–190 of 686 posts
Put the same amount of spending into building a robotic solar collection factory on the moon and beam the power where we need it. No crazy particles to deal with and zero nuclear weapons byproducts.
It means we are closer to success when we see a lot more VC funding of nuclear fusion versus government (taxpayer) funding. VCs don't have the timeline or ability to lose money without much consequence or blame like the government does.
They didn't because they don't have the guts to create entire new branch of science.
Once the government has built research laboratiries, trained physicists and engineers, built prototypes, waited untill those engineers come up with viables plans, then the VC are ready to swoop in and take all the credit.
Thats fine if Venture capital can't make 60 year investments. Whats not cool, is everyone else buying the narrative that we don't need government funding for fundamental research, that VCs will solve all problems in the world as long as we let them run wild and don't tax them
Why don’t we just leave the fusion where it works best, i.e. the sun? Put the same amount of spending into building a robotic solar collection factory on the moon and beam the power where we need it. No crazy particles to deal with and zero nuclear weapons byproducts.
Why don’t we just leave the fusion where it works best, i.e. the sun? Put the same amount of spending into building a robotic solar collection factory on the moon and beam the power where we need it. No crazy particles to deal with and zero nuclear weapons byproducts.
A beam of power many times stronger than the Sun sounds like a pretty terrifying weapon
Why don’t we just leave the fusion where it works best, i.e. the sun? Put the same amount of spending into building a robotic solar collection factory on the moon and beam the power where we need it. No crazy particles to deal with and zero nuclear weapons byproducts.
A beam of power many times stronger than the Sun sounds like a pretty terrifying weapon
The article doesn't seem to mention why exactly but I'm guessing it's some combination of 1) visible climate change (extreme heat, wildfires, drought, etc.) so people want better energy sources and 2) the mayhem Russia started seeing as it is one of the bigger energy providers. Or has there been anything else?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A beam of power many times stronger than the Sun sounds like a pretty terrifying weapon
The microwave beam would be pretty wide by the time it reached the surface. The power levels wouldn’t make an effective weapon but would take up a sizable footprint for the collectors.
If it is many times stronger than sunlight, that's pretty dangerous!
On the contrary, physics suggest that performance scales with size, so even the extraordinary expensive ITER project is way too small to achieve engineering break even, let alone financial break-even. You will only hear about scientific break-even, which is a useless milestone because, yes, you get more energy than you put it, but you put electric energy and get fast neutron energy, only you need an order of magnitude more of that to get back the electricity you put in.
Understanding different types of break-even would be an obligatory primer to anyone navigating hyped fusion claims: https://news.newenergytimes.net/2022/04/08/fusion-q-values-a...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So the problem fusion is that is will be too good? Interesting take.
No, it's not "too good".