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> A lot of money has been going into fusion for many, many years now Sure, but if you're going to holistically include the cost of the science in the compariso

> A lot of money has been going into fusion for many, many years now Sure, but if you're going to holistically include the cost of the science in the comparison price per KWh you should also balance it against the cost of dealing with the consequences of sustained carbon emissions from other types of power generation.

jlarocco 11y ago
That's really not an unusual or surprising thing. Most products have research and development costs factored into their prices. It's the primary reason why bleeding edge stuff costs so much. As far as carbon emissions go, it's hard to compare without knowing what byproducts fusion will generate.
duaneb 11y ago
> Sure, but if you're going to holistically include the cost of the science in the comparison price per KWh you should also balance it against the cost of dealing with the consequences of sustained carbon emissions from other types of power generation. Guess what? They all still beat fusion hands down. Think of all the cows that farted and then died to feed the researchers. Think of all the carbon emissions generated by the actual research. Think about the real, actual return we have today. You seem to be banking on the fact that we actually CAN produce an efficient fusion reactor in the near future. Total efficiency of our investment is very, very, very dependent on how fast it can crank out. Now compare it to military investments and you might get somewhere.... EDIT: if you disagree, I'd obviously love feedback. It just seems silly to think that fusion is at all something we can depend on being able to pull out of our ass. The manhattan project was never a sure thing.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  > "if you disagree, I'd obviously love feedback." You've clearly made your mind up that pursuing nuclear fusion is a waste of money, there's no point in debating if you're not prepared to consider that the research could pay off.
  - duaneb 11y ago
    I don't make up my mind, I follow the dialectic of the conversation. Who the hell are you used to talking to? The problem is there are NO ARGUMENTS bounding the possibility of the research paying off, and until you can you're going to just talk past the other person.
    - ZenoArrow 11y ago
      Nuclear fusion is relatively well understood from a physics perspective, what remains is an engineering challenge. For the longest time most of the money spent on fusion reactor research has been plowed into a single approach. The good news is that at this point in time a wider variety of approaches are getting decent levels of funding. That's the reality of the situation, we've gone from a one horse race to something closer to an eight horse race. There's a decent chance that the horse we were backing at first will get overtaken by some of the other entrants. If that is the case, some would argue we've been backing the wrong horse for the last 50 years. What it doesn't mean is that the race is over. Again, it's important to understand the level of confidence when it comes to nuclear fusion. The science is relatively well understood, we've built plenty of working fusion reactors, in fact some fusion reactors are so simple that high school students have built them. What remains is mostly an engineering challenge, working on various ways of triggering and controlling the plasma, shielding the machines from the forces that would interfere with its function, and working out the best way to capture the energy as an electric current. The sun proves you can have get more energy than you put in, hydrogen bombs prove the same, so the potential exists, we're just looking at how best to harness it. Is there a chance this research won't pay off in, let's say, 20 years? A slim chance yes, but considering the enormous benefits that's a chance many groups who invest in nuclear fusion are willing to take.

jlarocco 11y ago

That's really not an unusual or surprising thing. Most products have research and development costs factored into their prices. It's the primary reason why bleeding edge stuff costs so much. As far as carbon emissions go, it's hard to compare without knowing what byproducts fusion will generate.

duaneb 11y ago

> Sure, but if you're going to holistically include the cost of the science in the comparison price per KWh you should also balance it against the cost of dealing with the consequences of sustained carbon emissions from other types of power generation. Guess what? They all still beat fusion hands down. Think of all the cows that farted and then died to feed the researchers. Think of all the carbon emissions generated by the actual research. Think about the real, actual return we have today. You seem to be banking on the fact that we actually CAN produce an efficient fusion reactor in the near future. Total efficiency of our investment is very, very, very dependent on how fast it can crank out. Now compare it to military investments and you might get somewhere.... EDIT: if you disagree, I'd obviously love feedback. It just seems silly to think that fusion is at all something we can depend on being able to pull out of our ass. The manhattan project was never a sure thing.

ZenoArrow 11y ago
> "if you disagree, I'd obviously love feedback." You've clearly made your mind up that pursuing nuclear fusion is a waste of money, there's no point in debating if you're not prepared to consider that the research could pay off.
- duaneb 11y ago
  I don't make up my mind, I follow the dialectic of the conversation. Who the hell are you used to talking to? The problem is there are NO ARGUMENTS bounding the possibility of the research paying off, and until you can you're going to just talk past the other person.
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    Nuclear fusion is relatively well understood from a physics perspective, what remains is an engineering challenge. For the longest time most of the money spent on fusion reactor research has been plowed into a single approach. The good news is that at this point in time a wider variety of approaches are getting decent levels of funding. That's the reality of the situation, we've gone from a one horse race to something closer to an eight horse race. There's a decent chance that the horse we were backing at first will get overtaken by some of the other entrants. If that is the case, some would argue we've been backing the wrong horse for the last 50 years. What it doesn't mean is that the race is over. Again, it's important to understand the level of confidence when it comes to nuclear fusion. The science is relatively well understood, we've built plenty of working fusion reactors, in fact some fusion reactors are so simple that high school students have built them. What remains is mostly an engineering challenge, working on various ways of triggering and controlling the plasma, shielding the machines from the forces that would interfere with its function, and working out the best way to capture the energy as an electric current. The sun proves you can have get more energy than you put in, hydrogen bombs prove the same, so the potential exists, we're just looking at how best to harness it. Is there a chance this research won't pay off in, let's say, 20 years? A slim chance yes, but considering the enormous benefits that's a chance many groups who invest in nuclear fusion are willing to take.