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Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

ft.com

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Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#451

Post by qayxc »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #404
qayxc wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

> ...I do think it's VERY healthy to approach sensationalist headlines with a level-headed and down to Earth attitude instead. My experience on HN is there is a bias for critical thinking. If it's traditional nuclear power or climate change, the bias is for it. If it's new battery tech or fusion power the bias is against. Does it only feel "very healthy" to be critical because you are being critical of the idea? I ha…

> Does it only feel "very healthy" to be critical because you are being critical of the idea?

Who's critical of the idea? I literally said it's good progress. What 's not good, however, is exaggeration, sensationalism that puts potential views and hype before substance, and raising expectations for something that's still essentially just basic research.

This has nothing to do with bias of any kind. It's just poor journalism, bad form, and misrepresentation of genuinely great work. I simply expect better from a publication like FT. If that's the level of reporting we get from what I thought to be a somewhat reputable source, why even bother taking any publication serious anymore? It's not criticising the researchers or downplaying their work.

It's a critique of the media preventing the public from actually getting a realistic picture. I'd like to be educated and kept up-to-date, not mislead and hyped up.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#452

Post by whimsicalism »

scottLobster wrote: post #437
f38zf5vdt wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

For most people, yes it's just another Monday. Same way the observation of the Higgs Boson was just another day. Maybe worth an hour or two of curious investigation, but of no immediate consequence. Question is, are we watching the first Wright Brothers' flight, or are we watching one of the marginal glider improvements in the 19th century that would eventually contribute to the first Wright Brothers' flight 40 years…

For the vast majority of people, the Wright Brothers' flight was also "just another Monday [or whatever day it happened to be]".

It's a bad criterion for judging something noteworthy.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#453

Post by bufferoverflow »

ashurbanipal wrote: post #430

Is this cold fusion? The article contrasts this experiment with a plasma tokamak in the UK. I suppose the lasers require a lot of energy but it doesn't sound like there is a plasma is there?

Definitely not cold fusion. Using powerful lasers to heat up and pressurize the target.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#454

Post by torben-friis »

scottLobster wrote: post #417
torben-friis wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s definitely how many people here see themselves, but excessive scepticism can also be a problem, something which is overlooked by this crowd. If you don’t push and help the many small steps that come before the big leap, many big leaps will never become feasible.

Over-hyping the small steps as big leaps is the problem. If the scientifically literate people here are sick of it, imagine what the voting public thinks.

“First time ind history fusion releases more energy that is put in” is a big leap. The fact that it’s still a technology in its infancy and decades away from actual use doesn’t make it any less impressive.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#455

Post by marincounty »

jeffparsons wrote: post #281
boc wrote: post #251

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.

> This website is seriously infested with reflexive contrarians and it’s a not healthy. What could be done about that aside from expecting people to just... be better? I think the shape of these forums induces those kinds of comments, even if the community and moderators make a real effort to uphold higher standards. And I think if I encountered the same people in a different kind of forum then I might have a higher…

No post body was provided.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#456

Post by whimsicalism »

ForgotIdAgain wrote: post #365
paxys wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For being a tech entrepreneur forum people here are strangely very anti science and technology. The top voted responses to every new product announcement are essentially "why do we need this? Pen and paper work just fine".

In my experience, the more someone has deep understanding in tech, the more they are critical of it. Especially true in my field of infosec.

Yes, it's called counter-signaling.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#457

Post by thehappypm »

tsimionescu wrote: post #374
thehappypm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like a version 1.0 steam engine. Miniaturization and optimization can come next.

No, this is like research into TNT being presented as a potential way of creating a power plant by capturing the energy of the explosion. The real purpose is producing better explosives. This is not some bizarre idea - Lawrence Livermore is officially a part of the DoE's research into maintaining and improving thermonuclear weapons. That there are some vaguely imaginable applications in energy generation is at the ve…

I’m not following exactly—are the lasers destroyed after each shot? The fuel being destroyed of course makes sense..

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#458

Post by whimsicalism »

yummypaint wrote: post #324
stuckinhell wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been burned time and time again by scientists over hyping stuff in the last 10 years, then combine that with the replication failures over nearly every single scientific field. Then look at the extreme amount of business fraud in the last 10 years with places like Theranos and FTX Hackernews is not infested with reflexive contrarians. Hackernews has healthy amounts of skepticism and doubt. Extraordinary c…

When people use the word "reflexive," they're talking about things like conflating business hype designed to attract publicity and VC capital with a press release for a major scientific paper from NIF. I don't think it's unreasonable for HN to hold itself to an understanding of these things. If you actually want to critically examine evidence then you must necessarily read the paper before posting.

Bodied, and deservedly so.

Bringing FTX into a discussion of nuclear fusion to justify skepticism is parody-worthy.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#459

Post by fundatus »

Galaxeblaffer wrote: post #295
Retric wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuel is hardly the only advantage, the major issue with fission is the enormous costs of trying to avoid problems or cleanup after them. Thus 24/7 security, redundancy on top of redundancy, walls thick enough to stop aircraft etc. Fission is still by far the most expensive power source even with massive subsides and is only even close to economically viable as base load power backed up with peaking power plants. In t…

this is simply not true. according to IEA https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-el... LCOE of nuclear is cheaper than almost all other possibilities we have. sure nuclear is very expensive up front, but a nuclear powerplant can run for 100 years while wind and solar had to be completely replaced every 25 years. your correct that nuclear has had some very expensive accidents, but the chance of a mo…

> sure nuclear is very expensive up front, but a nuclear powerplant can run for 100 years while wind and solar had to be completely replaced every 25 years.

Hinkley Point C is currently expected to cost around $31 billion once finished for a measly 3,000 MW.

For that money you could build ~2,300 15MW onshore wind turbines - which would add up to roughly 34,500 MW capacity. So even under the assumptions that

- you have to replace the wind turbines 3x to reach 100 years life span and

- you always have to build more renewables since they don't run at 100% their capacity throughout their lifespan

wind make more sense economically nowadays.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#460

Post by Robotbeat »

ForgotIdAgain wrote: post #365
paxys wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For being a tech entrepreneur forum people here are strangely very anti science and technology. The top voted responses to every new product announcement are essentially "why do we need this? Pen and paper work just fine".

In my experience, the more someone has deep understanding in tech, the more they are critical of it. Especially true in my field of infosec.

I think as people gain experience, they can start substituting experience and cynicism for actual first principles thinking and curiosity.
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