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Because the way it is done really. Putting it all in some gigantic money pit with 50 governments each helping finance one part or another, each part bought from

by nickik 6y ago

Because the way it is done really. Putting it all in some gigantic money pit with 50 governments each helping finance one part or another, each part bought from some company from each of the governments. The project is so slow that its out of date before its close to being finished. However, 21$ billion allocated more like it was for Commercial Crew/Cargo by NASA would make more sense. Have many competitors who get a little money and get more to those who can actually prove out the system. Building advanced commercial fission reactors and helping them with getting threw the currently idiotic license scheme would probably be an even better return on investment then fusion. But somehow the world has decide that fission is evil and only fusion can save humanity, even if that makes little sense from a physics perspective.

pfdietz 6y ago
No, because fusion is inherently flawed. The idea that it's some great thing to be striving for has little or no basis in fact.
- d_tr 6y ago
  Are you suggesting that we should just forget about it? What do you mean by "inherently flawed"?
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    Fusion, especially the mainstream approaches, does not appear capable of getting to a competitive energy source, even if it somehow (physically) "works". It's very bad from an engineering point of view, with showstoppers of materials, power density, complexity, maintainability, and reliability. Daniel J. Boorstin described a celebrity as a person who is "well known for their well known-ness". Fusion is a technology that is similarly recursive: it's being investigated because it was being investigated, not because it's worth doing when examined freshly. Whatever rationale for pushing DT fusion that once existed has largely evaporated. If fusion survives at all, it has to be as a lower key modest pure research effort into long shot ideas that might evade the showstoppers. And new blood should be kept out of the field until it's shrunk enough. Anyone going into fusion these days is being poorly advised.

by nickik 6y ago

pfdietz 6y ago

No, because fusion is inherently flawed. The idea that it's some great thing to be striving for has little or no basis in fact.

d_tr 6y ago
Are you suggesting that we should just forget about it? What do you mean by "inherently flawed"?
- pfdietz 6y ago
  Fusion, especially the mainstream approaches, does not appear capable of getting to a competitive energy source, even if it somehow (physically) "works". It's very bad from an engineering point of view, with showstoppers of materials, power density, complexity, maintainability, and reliability. Daniel J. Boorstin described a celebrity as a person who is "well known for their well known-ness". Fusion is a technology that is similarly recursive: it's being investigated because it was being investigated, not because it's worth doing when examined freshly. Whatever rationale for pushing DT fusion that once existed has largely evaporated. If fusion survives at all, it has to be as a lower key modest pure research effort into long shot ideas that might evade the showstoppers. And new blood should be kept out of the field until it's shrunk enough. Anyone going into fusion these days is being poorly advised.