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I'll just say this: there is a lot of obvious fraud in fusion energy. Cold or hot, a lot of nonsense gets billions in funding. I doubt steam pistons blasting li

by ohiovr 5y ago

I'll just say this: there is a lot of obvious fraud in fusion energy. Cold or hot, a lot of nonsense gets billions in funding. I doubt steam pistons blasting liquid vortexes will yield anything other than an expensive mess. And I doubt anything that does not depend on magnetic fields far stronger than what we have now will ever lead to fusion energy being more economical than burning whale oil for steam powered electric plants.

Retric 5y ago
It’s a mixed bag, but plenty of options are theoretically viable. However, it’s much easier to pull off a scam than build a practical fusion device. Still looking around you can find many seemingly reasonable designs. Using fusion bombs to heat up rock and then extracting energy is completely buildable today, but not currently economically viable. The history of inertial confinement fusion had more to do with validating models of fusion bombs than a realistic energy source, but things have ramped up enough that it’s starting to seem more possible though still unlikely to work any time soon. Outside of that things get odd. Simply firing a fusion bullet scales really well, but runs into serious issues designing the gun. A coil gun in high vacuum might in theory work, but trying to actually build one is another story Piston fusion is quite similar to inertial confinement in theory. Of course it’s a long shot that’s closer to snake oil than a practical design, but high risk reward long shots aren’t scams as long as the team is upfront about what’s going on. Sometimes physics just doesn’t work the way you think it would. Sonoluminescence is one of my go to examples that seems stranger than fiction. PS: A liquid vortex is actually one method for building a blanket for steady state magnetic fusion setup. It solves several real problems, but is mostly about economic viability not achieving break even.

by ohiovr 5y ago

Retric 5y ago

It’s a mixed bag, but plenty of options are theoretically viable. However, it’s much easier to pull off a scam than build a practical fusion device. Still looking around you can find many seemingly reasonable designs. Using fusion bombs to heat up rock and then extracting energy is completely buildable today, but not currently economically viable. The history of inertial confinement fusion had more to do with validating models of fusion bombs than a realistic energy source, but things have ramped up enough that it’s starting to seem more possible though still unlikely to work any time soon. Outside of that things get odd. Simply firing a fusion bullet scales really well, but runs into serious issues designing the gun. A coil gun in high vacuum might in theory work, but trying to actually build one is another story Piston fusion is quite similar to inertial confinement in theory. Of course it’s a long shot that’s closer to snake oil than a practical design, but high risk reward long shots aren’t scams as long as the team is upfront about what’s going on. Sometimes physics just doesn’t work the way you think it would. Sonoluminescence is one of my go to examples that seems stranger than fiction. PS: A liquid vortex is actually one method for building a blanket for steady state magnetic fusion setup. It solves several real problems, but is mostly about economic viability not achieving break even.