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Probably because we all know "a decade" means maybe never. They've said the same thing about fusion for 5 decades.
by 7thaccount 2y ago
Probably because we all know "a decade" means maybe never. They've said the same thing about fusion for 5 decades.
- arthurcolle 2y agohttps://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-national-laboratory-makes-history-achieving-fusion-ignition https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-national-laboratory-make...
- simianparrot 2y agoAnd it's still a decade away
- Yizahi 2y agoInertial confinement most likely can't be reasonably commoditized into generating electricity. Also, I may be wrong, but I think on the wave of that hype I read that the number they used was an incomplete one. Basically they reframed the conditions of the problem to get more favorable number for advertisement. NIF research will most likely be limited to the nuclear bomb research and simulations. But even if NIF had a reasonable path to energy generation in say 20-30 years, it still won't matter much, just like ITER probably won't. Solar will be way more cheap and widespread, it's costs are still dropping down ahead of all predictions, govt. or commercial. Fusion may just be a pure science project in the end, for a long time.
- dcchambers 2y agoPerhaps ironically, Sam Altman is also big into Fusion. (https://www.helionenergy.com/ https://www.helionenergy.com/) I guess it makes sense, for deep-learning/LLMs to "scale to infinity" you basically need infinite amounts of power.
- bamboozled 2y agocant we use OA intelligence to figure out how to do more with less rather yhan "stupidly" accelerate the climate crisis? the climate crisis + AI is the nightmare
- 7thaccount 2y agoI don't think people on here who downvoted you understand the sheer scale of data center load growth. Utilities can handle some load growth sure, but the requests from the AI folks are crazy large to the tune of GW. I think it's fair to ask if training the next chat bot and related needs are worth doubling our electricity consumption.
- fragmede 2y agoJevons Paradox says that's not the direction it'll go in.
- bamboozled 2y agoIt's funny how some people seem to have different beliefs around this. Personally, I love making things more efficient, and still try to minimize consumption.
- teaearlgraycold 2y agoAnd perhaps AI can help some of the problems in building a fusion reactor.
- fragmede 2y agoWhich is pretty exciting https://inl.gov/news/going-digital-idaho-students-engineers-demonstrate-first-nuclear-reactor-digital-twin/ https://inl.gov/news/going-digital-idaho-students-engineers-...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]