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I was speaking to a nuclear physicist about Fusion, and he stated that really was being used to verify nuclear models for making bombs and such, and that it wou
by alexhaefner 15y ago
I was speaking to a nuclear physicist about Fusion, and he stated that really was being used to verify nuclear models for making bombs and such, and that it would never be practical for power generation.
- carbocation 15y agoHe's referring to the National Ignition Facility, but that's not the only project. In Europe, there is ITER. And the NIF has recently gotten serious about trying to actually do fusion for power generation. This isn't to say that fusion power generation will be a reality anytime soon, so on that most critical point I'm sure the nuclear physicist is correct.
- alexhaefner 15y agoI'm not really sure why I am getting downvoted. I was talking to a friend about this and a nuclear engineering ph.d. candidate at the University of Michigan working on plasma physics started talking with me about it and essentially echoed the same sentiment. I'm paraphrasing, "One of the jokes of Fusion is that it's always 50 years off... It's sexy, but in reality it gets funding because it happens to be what we build nuclear bombs with, and because we can't do live simulations anymore, we build supercomputers and fusion experiments to verify our bomb making."
- carbocation 15y agoI don't know why you're getting downvoted, either. Your comment contributed positively to the discussion. No need for downvotes here.