4 ms·

I'm very skeptical about those great announcements, even more when there's an announcement of the announcement. 300MJ in, 3MJ out, I wouldn't call it a breakthr

I'm very skeptical about those great announcements, even more when there's an announcement of the announcement. 300MJ in, 3MJ out, I wouldn't call it a breakthrough, maybe a milestone, nothing more.

moffkalast 4y ago
I mean yeah it doesn't really change much in terms of usability, but it is the point from where onwards you can actually say you're doing fusion and not just heating stuff to high temps.
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
And yet, they need to keep making announcements, else their funding will be cut. They knew all along that fusion energy would take decades to develop, and every year they need billions in funding to keep pushing for advancements. They can't just go radio silent until they're like "we've done it", they need to regularly publish papers and make big media announcements etc. Come to think of it, the LHC has been silent for a good while. Edit: It had a 3 year hiatus, started up again April this year.
- albertopv 4y ago
  I understand, but twice the expectation, double the disappointment, at least for me and in this specific case.
- jakeinspace 4y ago
  Their funding isn’t getting cut. US spending on updating the nuclear stockpile is going up substantially.
DennisP 4y ago
That ratio is so bad only because they're using really inefficient decades-old lasers. Equivalent modern lasers have forty times better efficiency. https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/pt.6.2.20211020a/full/ https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/pt.6.2.2021102...
hinkley 4y ago
Someone said in another comment that they elected to use old lasers, and that state of the art are about 40x more efficient. That’s still a big gap, and I’m dubious about the tritium supply, and the amount of beryllium they’re using to breed the tritium. Also tritium is nuclear proliferation of fusion bombs.

4 ms·

I'm very skeptical about those great announcements, even more when there's an announcement of the announcement. 300MJ in, 3MJ out, I wouldn't call it a breakthr

by albertopv 4y ago

I'm very skeptical about those great announcements, even more when there's an announcement of the announcement. 300MJ in, 3MJ out, I wouldn't call it a breakthrough, maybe a milestone, nothing more.

moffkalast 4y ago
I mean yeah it doesn't really change much in terms of usability, but it is the point from where onwards you can actually say you're doing fusion and not just heating stuff to high temps.
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
And yet, they need to keep making announcements, else their funding will be cut. They knew all along that fusion energy would take decades to develop, and every year they need billions in funding to keep pushing for advancements. They can't just go radio silent until they're like "we've done it", they need to regularly publish papers and make big media announcements etc. Come to think of it, the LHC has been silent for a good while. Edit: It had a 3 year hiatus, started up again April this year.
- albertopv 4y ago
  I understand, but twice the expectation, double the disappointment, at least for me and in this specific case.
- jakeinspace 4y ago
  Their funding isn’t getting cut. US spending on updating the nuclear stockpile is going up substantially.
DennisP 4y ago
That ratio is so bad only because they're using really inefficient decades-old lasers. Equivalent modern lasers have forty times better efficiency. https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/pt.6.2.20211020a/full/ https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/pt.6.2.2021102...
hinkley 4y ago
Someone said in another comment that they elected to use old lasers, and that state of the art are about 40x more efficient. That’s still a big gap, and I’m dubious about the tritium supply, and the amount of beryllium they’re using to breed the tritium. Also tritium is nuclear proliferation of fusion bombs.