181–190 of 194 posts
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Why talk about what might be the biggest scientific breakthrough of the year, when we can regurgitate snarky comments about Elsevier again?
Well if Elsever would make it easier to access, we wouldn't have to. $32 to read about what might be the biggest breakthrough of the year?
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Well if Elsever would make it easier to access, we wouldn't have to. $32 to read about what might be the biggest breakthrough of the year?
Sounds cheap.
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Yeah... I see no benefit in those, having a few more colliders instead would be really great. Or just start building the next version already!
> Yeah... I see no benefit in those, having a few more colliders instead would be really great. That's because you're seeing it through the lens of our time. Remember, the B-2, and many other programs including the F-22, were devised during the trailing end of the Cold War (edit: that's actually a lie; the call for contracts and other such nonsense that would lead to the B-2 started in the 70s, and the F-22 program h…
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> Yeah... I see no benefit in those, having a few more colliders instead would be really great. That's because you're seeing it through the lens of our time. Remember, the B-2, and many other programs including the F-22, were devised during the trailing end of the Cold War (edit: that's actually a lie; the call for contracts and other such nonsense that would lead to the B-2 started in the 70s, and the F-22 program h…
The Supercoducting Supercollider was started during the Cold War too, but that didn't stop anyone from cancelling it half-way through.
> led NIF's critics to label the facility an enormous waste of taxpayer dollars > government shifted NIF away from its fusion goals to focus on its other mission: simulating the conditions inside nuclear weapons I think right there lies the problem with our world. People take up more issue with a multi-billion dollar research facility for science than one for military applications. If we spent a small fraction of the…
> we could probably solve some really fundamental world problems (i.e. energy, climate change) in the near future I have a feeling that if we had fusion plants providing limitless cheap power, we'd get back on an 8% yearly growth track for energy consumption, like with oil consumption before 1970. Then within a century or so, we'd be producing an amount of power equivalent to 20% of what the earth receives from the s…
Water shortages could be addressed with large scale desalination. Shipping/transportation would become real cheap without significant fuel costs. Food issues could be addressed by commercial hydroponics.
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Isn't the primary cost of fission complying with safety regs? In that case, a safer design would directly translate to lower costs.
According to Wikipedia the cost of electricity from modern nuclear stations is roughly comparable with sources like coal - which surprised me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source What I don't know is how much of the cost of nuclear power is the much higher level of safety precautions they need. I haven't seen any projected costs for DEMO which might well be the first fusion power plant (DEMO is…
It has to be, otherwise nobody would be using nuclear power plants...
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> we could probably solve some really fundamental world problems (i.e. energy, climate change) in the near future I have a feeling that if we had fusion plants providing limitless cheap power, we'd get back on an 8% yearly growth track for energy consumption, like with oil consumption before 1970. Then within a century or so, we'd be producing an amount of power equivalent to 20% of what the earth receives from the s…
An abundance of energy would result in new technologies, engineering and infrastructure to use it. Water shortages could be addressed with large scale desalination. Shipping/transportation would become real cheap without significant fuel costs. Food issues could be addressed by commercial hydroponics.
It all fits into my evil plan! You see, I plan to use this "laser" to turn the moon into a weapon. With this "death star", all the governments of the world will be powerless against me! If they try to stop me, I'll use the "death star" to create "nuclear fusion"! [holds right pinky to the corner of his mouth]
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I'm on campus right now and can download the PDF. I'd upload it, but I don't want to pull an Aaron Swartz. EDIT: Okay here, but I have limited bandwidth so get it while you can: https://mega.co.nz/#!CNgVhZra!JcsLGB5y0FGUffI4rdyNr-BBl82YJD...
Upvoted for the sentiment. The actual paper marks just another incremental step in a triple marathon that we seem to be running veeeery slowly. Also, if you do "pull an Aaron Schwartz" please change the ending - we need a very public Supreme court administered kick-in-the-teeth for all the out of control copyright regime and its criminal sentencing farce.
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I don't think fusion power plants are going to be that much cheaper to run than current nuclear power plants. Fuel costs are a small part of the operating costs of a nuclear plant (16% to 28%) and the capex costs probably won't be that different (e.g. they will still be based on heating water to create steam to power turbines to turn generators). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plan...
I totally agree with you, but now I'm wondering what the upside to fusion is over fission, besides being a great science landmark. No radioactive inputs or outputs?
Fusion reactions can only be self-sustaining at incredibly high temperatures and pressures. If the containment mechanism loses power, the reaction stops. Unlike fission reactions, at least as used in current reactors, which have the potential to keep on going unless we do something active to stop them. Yeah, the modern, well-designed ones have lots of designed-in safeguards against this, void coefficients and all, but it's still safer still to be running fusion.
Hydrogen and it's isotopes in, with other isotopes or helium out is better than assorted radioactive heavy metal isotopes with relatively long half-lives. The only possibility for dangerous waste from a fusion reactor is any transmutation that takes place in reactor components from the neutron flux. Seems likely to be better, but I don't think anybody has really investigated what this part will look like in a running fusion reactor with reaction rates high enough for commercial power production.