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Pessimists were saying solar panels and batteries were too expensive too, not so long ago. If we discover fusion power to be viable in our lifetime, it will be

Pessimists were saying solar panels and batteries were too expensive too, not so long ago. If we discover fusion power to be viable in our lifetime, it will be a breathtaking accomplishment to witness. It's a fork in the timeline with repercussions that will reverberate for millenia, across trillions of human lives.

codealot 4y ago
Beautifully stated. I teared up. This and watching us settle on the moon and Mars would be incredible. And achieving more breakthroughs in AI and medicine and everything else. I am an optimist and really excited by everything on the horizon.
pfdietz 4y ago
They laughed at Galileo, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. Most skepticism is ratified by subsequent events. DT fusion doesn't appear to have much to recommend it, since it still requires a thermal cycle like fission or coal, and that keeps its cost high. From an engineering point of view it involves large monolithic plants with very complex and stressed equipment. This seems the opposite of good engineering.
- gabesullice 4y ago
  My impression is that the research efforts have been focused on "can we do it?" Then, if the answer is yes, they'll focus on "how do we do it efficiently?" Where efficiency can mean anything from capital efficient, to resource efficient, to energy conversion efficiency. Limiting one's focus on the next blocker in the critical path and not increasing scope beyond it sounds like perfectly good engineering to me.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    It seems like terrible myopic project management to me. You want to avoid first steps that you know are very likely going to lead to dead ends down the line. We're constantly being told to take the long term view. Are we only to do that when it's favorable to the technological optimist's case or budget?
- rgmerk 4y ago
  This. If you have to build a steam turbine to convert the energy from your fusion reactor into electricity, it's never going to compete with solar and wind power in most of the world. Doesn't mean that there won't be applications (if you can make all those lasers compact enough, submarines, ships, and ultimately spacecraft come to mind), but grid electricity is doubtful.

codealot 4y ago

Beautifully stated. I teared up. This and watching us settle on the moon and Mars would be incredible. And achieving more breakthroughs in AI and medicine and everything else. I am an optimist and really excited by everything on the horizon.

pfdietz 4y ago

They laughed at Galileo, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. Most skepticism is ratified by subsequent events. DT fusion doesn't appear to have much to recommend it, since it still requires a thermal cycle like fission or coal, and that keeps its cost high. From an engineering point of view it involves large monolithic plants with very complex and stressed equipment. This seems the opposite of good engineering.

gabesullice 4y ago
My impression is that the research efforts have been focused on "can we do it?" Then, if the answer is yes, they'll focus on "how do we do it efficiently?" Where efficiency can mean anything from capital efficient, to resource efficient, to energy conversion efficiency. Limiting one's focus on the next blocker in the critical path and not increasing scope beyond it sounds like perfectly good engineering to me.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  It seems like terrible myopic project management to me. You want to avoid first steps that you know are very likely going to lead to dead ends down the line. We're constantly being told to take the long term view. Are we only to do that when it's favorable to the technological optimist's case or budget?
rgmerk 4y ago
This. If you have to build a steam turbine to convert the energy from your fusion reactor into electricity, it's never going to compete with solar and wind power in most of the world. Doesn't mean that there won't be applications (if you can make all those lasers compact enough, submarines, ships, and ultimately spacecraft come to mind), but grid electricity is doubtful.