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It’s insane how much cynicism I’m seeing here. I know people who are nuclear scientists at LLNL - if they’re excited about this then it’s a big deal. The experiment actually created more energy than expected and damaged the sensors. This website is seriously infested with reflexive contrarians and it’s a not healthy.
It’s insane how much cynicism I’m seeing here. I know people who are nuclear scientists at LLNL - if they’re excited about this then it’s a big deal. The experiment actually created more energy than expected and damaged the sensors. This website is seriously infested with reflexive contrarians and it’s a not healthy.
We're hackers, engineers. We poke around for problems before there are problems and we pry open the black box to make sure it's not just filled with Bullshit. If you want to unquestioningly lap up everything that's offered to you, then I've got some ocean-front property in Afghanistan I'd like to sell you.
It’s insane how much cynicism I’m seeing here. I know people who are nuclear scientists at LLNL - if they’re excited about this then it’s a big deal. The experiment actually created more energy than expected and damaged the sensors. This website is seriously infested with reflexive contrarians and it’s a not healthy.
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The entire point of LLNL is to study nuclear bombs.
The original point of LLNL was to develop nuclear bombs. There is such as thing as "mission creep", also the challenge of maintaining the ability to develop bombs in the future if we need to.
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Also this assumes we get 20 years and the science budget will not be eaten by emerging endless crisis and wars.
To be fair, fusion technology is a strategic imperative. The first nation to master it will quickly enjoy defacto Energy independence. Given that many of the crises will likely be energy-eccentric, we may see more investment in the space rather than less, especially if visible progress is being made.
If you are programmer, think of it like your program compiled successfully for the first time. It means that all of the bits between you designing the program, the program being compiled, and the operating system recognizing it as a program, all did what they were supposed to. Of course your program probably doesn't do what you want it to yet, but you have validated a huge chunk of the "pipeline" between what you are trying to do, and doing it with the equipment you have. That is what this is, "hello world" for Fusion Physicists.
And the reason they are so pumped is that they have literally been told for DECADES that why they proposed to do "wasn't possible" (and by that I mean creating actual fusion through inertial confinement.)
Steps 2 - n look a LOT more like engineering steps than "can this even work" steps, okay?
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> This website is seriously infested with reflexive contrarians and it’s a not healthy. I don't know. Looking closely at the article reveals that the researchers achieved 1.2x energy gain from the lasers, which are about 1% efficient. Given the SOTA for such lasers is closer to 20% efficiency, this means that they achieved about 60% of break-even. But that's energy, no electricity. Even with the best current methods,…
How many times have you or literally anyone you know achieved a state of the art breakthrough in the production of energy from a nuclear fusion reactor? Is this just another Monday to you?
When you consider the power that big oil and gas have worldwide, and all they've already done to sabotage adoption of clean energy, it just seems improbable to me that one day tech will arrive that provides unlimited clean energy without some kind of big ugly fight. Big. Like I can see these guys doing everything from run of the mill regulatory capture to kill it all the way up to supporting right wing (or communist)…
It’s insane how much cynicism I’m seeing here. I know people who are nuclear scientists at LLNL - if they’re excited about this then it’s a big deal. The experiment actually created more energy than expected and damaged the sensors. This website is seriously infested with reflexive contrarians and it’s a not healthy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally I think fission power's failure is a political and marketing one. I don't agree that the waste disposal issues, or the safety issues, are quite the big deal people make of them. (Not saying there are no unsolved issues, just that the issues that exist are not significantly worse than those present burning fossil fuels, and are better in some dimensions. They're just different, and in some ways very emotion…
Nuclear plants are also very expensive, no?
After all we already have a giant fusion reactor just 12 light-minutes away from us! We just have to harvest that energy. The direction were already going (mostly market-driven nowadays actually!) is generation from renewable sources, flexible grids and storage systems to balance everything out.