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Everyone mildly interested in the topic knows about what's written in the article. There are popular scientists making youtube videos about what is Q, etc. It'

Everyone mildly interested in the topic knows about what's written in the article. There are popular scientists making youtube videos about what is Q, etc. It's the gain factor of the fuel itself, not the entire system that achieved positive value. The point is that until 2022, noone was able to achieve any gain at all. So this was a breakthrough (alas many more needed to make it commercially usable) and just because some stupid people misinterpreted it, it doesn't mean it's not important.

catapart 3y ago
Agreed. This is a weirdly negative and short-sighted article. It's like... yeah, maybe lasers aren't the way to go, guy. But the fact that we proved it in a practical, empirical test - regardless of the method we used - means that all of our theories are strengthened. All of our research into the topic is either on the right track, or can now be measured against a practical result. It's... huge. It's a huge deal that was rightly praised. And, like you said, nobody who was interested that I talked to failed to understand the pretty simple setup: overall cost is the asterisk, but gain factor is great! The best I can assume is that this guy deals a lot with students and maybe students didn't grok the whole situation (as all idealistic and naive - wonderful traits in students - are likely to do). In any case, it just seems really pessimistic to say "really don't expect anything to come of this laser process", because of the obvious practical reality: other fusion researchers aren't all using lasers to create fusion, yet all of them can use the results from the laser fusion to make efficiencies in their own designs.
tootie 3y ago
I was aware of this but reading this article makes it seem like we're just completely barking up the wrong tree and this entire approach is never going to be practical.
- gpjanik 3y ago
  On what premise? It just says we can't make it economical anytime soon, but you have to start somewhere - or should we all agree that unlimited clean energy is not worth trying because it's a long shot?
  - tootie 3y ago
    My impression from previous news was we had passed a barrier, but still had a short way to get net positive on the total system and that we were on the right trajectory. This article makes it sound like we're essentially nowhere. That we've made a nice experiment, but the tech involved is so wildly inefficient we will be back to the drawing board when it comes to building a real generator. I had no idea the lasers were consuming such a massive amount of energy or that they were so expensive to operate.
    - gpjanik 3y ago
      You falsly assume that the intent of people building that device was to make it efficient - it wasn't. They wanted to make sure the fuel, heated up to the right temperature, will yield energy gain and that happened. You can think of a this as test flight with a plane model vs. building the actual plane. We needed to test the aerodynamics and see if this flies at all, it worked, and now it's the time to build the actual plane. Someone has to do that test at some point. Would make no sense to build a plane without knowing if it's going to work.
  - willis936 3y ago
    I think "this approach" is short for "ICF" rather than "fusion energy".
stjohnswarts 3y ago
Yeah felt more like a rant. He could have done a TLDR in 10 sentences or less. Like I said above, it sounds more like a professor really ready for emeritus status.

catapart 3y ago

Agreed. This is a weirdly negative and short-sighted article. It's like... yeah, maybe lasers aren't the way to go, guy. But the fact that we proved it in a practical, empirical test - regardless of the method we used - means that all of our theories are strengthened. All of our research into the topic is either on the right track, or can now be measured against a practical result. It's... huge. It's a huge deal that was rightly praised. And, like you said, nobody who was interested that I talked to failed to understand the pretty simple setup: overall cost is the asterisk, but gain factor is great! The best I can assume is that this guy deals a lot with students and maybe students didn't grok the whole situation (as all idealistic and naive - wonderful traits in students - are likely to do). In any case, it just seems really pessimistic to say "really don't expect anything to come of this laser process", because of the obvious practical reality: other fusion researchers aren't all using lasers to create fusion, yet all of them can use the results from the laser fusion to make efficiencies in their own designs.

tootie 3y ago

I was aware of this but reading this article makes it seem like we're just completely barking up the wrong tree and this entire approach is never going to be practical.

gpjanik 3y ago
On what premise? It just says we can't make it economical anytime soon, but you have to start somewhere - or should we all agree that unlimited clean energy is not worth trying because it's a long shot?
- tootie 3y ago
  My impression from previous news was we had passed a barrier, but still had a short way to get net positive on the total system and that we were on the right trajectory. This article makes it sound like we're essentially nowhere. That we've made a nice experiment, but the tech involved is so wildly inefficient we will be back to the drawing board when it comes to building a real generator. I had no idea the lasers were consuming such a massive amount of energy or that they were so expensive to operate.
  - gpjanik 3y ago
    You falsly assume that the intent of people building that device was to make it efficient - it wasn't. They wanted to make sure the fuel, heated up to the right temperature, will yield energy gain and that happened. You can think of a this as test flight with a plane model vs. building the actual plane. We needed to test the aerodynamics and see if this flies at all, it worked, and now it's the time to build the actual plane. Someone has to do that test at some point. Would make no sense to build a plane without knowing if it's going to work.
- willis936 3y ago
  I think "this approach" is short for "ICF" rather than "fusion energy".

stjohnswarts 3y ago

Yeah felt more like a rant. He could have done a TLDR in 10 sentences or less. Like I said above, it sounds more like a professor really ready for emeritus status.