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Again, I really don't think as much is spent on fusion -- or as little on solar -- as you seem to think. People keep throwing this idea around but it's not clea

Again, I really don't think as much is spent on fusion -- or as little on solar -- as you seem to think. People keep throwing this idea around but it's not clear where they get it or they have literally anything to back it up. Fusion spending has amounted to maybe a few billion dollars a year since it began to be something anyone was willing to spend any money on at all, and that's being generous to the idea that a lot is being spent on it. I can find sources that talk about the investments that have gotten us to this point in solar being on the order of trillions of dollars[1]. It's likely that in a parallel universe where 0 investment into fusion happened, and most of it was pumped into solar, the difference might be something like: - One small city might be covered in solar panels. - We'd be farther behind on some areas of material science, superconductor research, and fundamental physics than we are by a bit. [1] eg. https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/decade-renewable-energy-investment-led-solar-tops-usd-25-trillion https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/decade-r...

ncmncm 4y ago
Again, I compared research on fusion against the prospect of research to make manufacturing solar cheap decades earlier than the Chinese government finally commissioned that work, leading to the present miracle. The consequence could have been solar built out decades earlier, millions of tons more coal left in the ground, and climate catastrophe pushed back. Back when that spending might have made a difference, there was no work on superconduction for fusion, because high-temperature superconductors were not a gleam in anybody's eye. That said, it is possible that training up and employing plasma fluid dynamics physicists could yet have unforeseeably consequential results that might yet (as it were) eclipse the effects of cheap solar PV.
- stormbrew 4y ago
  Do you really believe fusion research is the least useful thing the usgov spends $1b a year on? My issue here comes down to "why is fusion the thing you pick on"? They're both energy projects but so are thousands of other more expensive, more dangerous to the climate things. Anyways I suspect $1b of 2022 dollars wouldn't go nearly as far in 1980 or 1990 in terms of advancing solar tech. It's not like all that happened in a vacuum, semiconductor tech likely had to get to a certain point before this explosion could meaningfully happen, and there's never been a shortage of investment into semiconductors. In this whole thread you've provided no evidence or reason to believe fusion research was in any way inhibiting solar research. You just seem to have a feeling it's true, but what, specifically, would those dollars have done for solar, and why are they somehow uniquely suited to being repurposed towards solar? If it's so glaringly obvious you should be able to explain more deeply.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    I don't see any problem with doing the research involved in trying to get fusion working. There are plenty of practical problems that provoke creative attempts at solutions, which are at least educational and might actually advance the state of this or that art. The problem is promoting the work as if it might ever lead to practical power generation. The first is the same as all other research. The other is just lying. I don't like lying. That is all. It is worse when they claim yet another "breakthrough".

ncmncm 4y ago

Again, I compared research on fusion against the prospect of research to make manufacturing solar cheap decades earlier than the Chinese government finally commissioned that work, leading to the present miracle. The consequence could have been solar built out decades earlier, millions of tons more coal left in the ground, and climate catastrophe pushed back. Back when that spending might have made a difference, there was no work on superconduction for fusion, because high-temperature superconductors were not a gleam in anybody's eye. That said, it is possible that training up and employing plasma fluid dynamics physicists could yet have unforeseeably consequential results that might yet (as it were) eclipse the effects of cheap solar PV.

stormbrew 4y ago
Do you really believe fusion research is the least useful thing the usgov spends $1b a year on? My issue here comes down to "why is fusion the thing you pick on"? They're both energy projects but so are thousands of other more expensive, more dangerous to the climate things. Anyways I suspect $1b of 2022 dollars wouldn't go nearly as far in 1980 or 1990 in terms of advancing solar tech. It's not like all that happened in a vacuum, semiconductor tech likely had to get to a certain point before this explosion could meaningfully happen, and there's never been a shortage of investment into semiconductors. In this whole thread you've provided no evidence or reason to believe fusion research was in any way inhibiting solar research. You just seem to have a feeling it's true, but what, specifically, would those dollars have done for solar, and why are they somehow uniquely suited to being repurposed towards solar? If it's so glaringly obvious you should be able to explain more deeply.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  I don't see any problem with doing the research involved in trying to get fusion working. There are plenty of practical problems that provoke creative attempts at solutions, which are at least educational and might actually advance the state of this or that art. The problem is promoting the work as if it might ever lead to practical power generation. The first is the same as all other research. The other is just lying. I don't like lying. That is all. It is worse when they claim yet another "breakthrough".