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Exactly.. The article fails to answer the question posed by its very title. What I've gathered, this was a very much expected result and NOT a "breakthrough". A
by vesinisa 4y ago
Exactly.. The article fails to answer the question posed by its very title. What I've gathered, this was a very much expected result and NOT a "breakthrough". And with regards to making fusion a viable source for commercial, large-scale energy production .. this is only tangential at best to that effort.
The problem with celebrating "fake victories" (and being scolded for calling them out) is that when there really is a breakthrough (i.e. something so big it fundamentally changes our perception of the problem), people are going to think you are making just another over-hyped publicity stunt. I am definitely of the opinion that such media attention focused advertising of (otherwise perfectly valid) fundamental research is doing no one favors (not the researches nor the public.)
- tpmx 4y agoAnother danger: I've seen quite a few people arguing in (a European context) that we shouldn't build out nuclear in the "short term", "since we can just get fusion without any of the downsides of fission".
- jokteur 4y agoI've seen also people arguing that we should never ever build nuclear fission again because it is "bad". What I want to say is that bad faith arguments will always exist, and calling this a breakthrough won't significantly increase the number of people using bad faith arguments, because they would just find another excuse instead of the fusion one.
- zmgsabst 4y agoTheir chart seems to indicate that this is a qualitative improvement where the kind of fusion produced substantially changed. I share your skepticism towards commercial impact — but this is certainly a breakthrough in their technology. Just look at the chart. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility#/media/File%3ANIF_output_over_10_years.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility#/...