3 ms·
"They are forever smashing this or that record, on the verge of break-even, on track to producing free energy without nasty radionuclides." Hacker News comment
by garyrob 5y ago
"They are forever smashing this or that record, on the verge of break-even, on track to producing free energy without nasty radionuclides."
Hacker News comment in late 19th century: "They are forever making flying machines have a little more lift, on the verge of break-even, on track to enabling free flight without nasty immediate crashes. But it is always a con.... The only reliable product of flying machine research is dishonesty."
- wpietri 5y agoOh? By your logic, we shouldn't say negative things about perpetual motion machines, as they keep getting better and who knows what the future holds! The truth is that people both over- and under-estimate what can happen in the future. You can't use simple-minded heuristics either way; technoutopianism is at least as dangerous as blind opposition to change.
- Intermernet 5y agoWe have currently demonstrable laws of physics stating why perpetual motion can't be achieved. We have a visible universe of examples of fusion. Not saying that fusion power on earth is viable (I personally think that it is), but it's disingenuous to compare it to perpetual motion.
- pfdietz 5y agoI think the obstacles to practical, competitive fusion power, particularly DT fusion, and especially the mainstream approach of JET/ITER, are so great that calling investment in it "the economic equivalent of perpetual motion" is not far off.
- wpietri 5y agoGood thing I didn't compare fusion to perpetual motion, then. I was pointing out that his too-simple approach could be easily misapplied, and picked an especially obvious negative example to counter his especially obvious positive one. At this point we just don't know whether fusion is like airplanes or whether it's like perpetual motion. Unless you are proposing building an actual star, the existence of stars tells us approximately nothing about whether a fusion-based power plant is economically achievable in our lifetimes. I think it's an interesting idea and I'd love to see it happen. But I think it's important to be realistic in our discussion of it.
- pfdietz 5y agoThe "stars exist!" argument really annoys me. Among other objections, stars don't even use the specific fusion reactions that terrestrial fusion reactors would use.
- ncmncm 5y agoStars are, anyway, not subject to economics. It is the combination of Tokamak fusion power generation with economic viability that resembles perpetual motion.
- garyrob 5y agoI don't disagree at all with what you say above, and I do not think it's inevitable that fusion reactors will be useful in the foreseeable future. You are right that "You can't use simple-minded heuristics either way". I was just pointing out that they were being used in one direction in the comment I responded to.
- wpietri 5y ago> they were being used in one direction in the comment That's not correct at all. The simple-minded heuristic is along the lines of "technology is bad" or "this new thing will never work". But the dream of fusion as "too cheap to meter" has been going on for 70 years. The comment you're replying to wasn't talking in general terms, but had specific critique of both the long track record and the practical utility of the product they're shooting for. It might work and it might not; I have no idea. But your attacking a straw man won't help it get there.
- ncmncm 5y agoNotably, none of the people getting big grants and promoting their flying machine experiments succeeded, or were even on track to succeed someday. ITER is the Samuel Langley of the present day.