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Also relevant: The Trouble With Fusion [1]. It's from 1983, but could well have been written today, as nothing has really changed in the grand scheme of things.
by mppm 2y ago
Also relevant: The Trouble With Fusion [1]. It's from 1983, but could well have been written today, as nothing has really changed in the grand scheme of things. In short, there are multiple technical and economical challenges that stand in the way of nuclear fusion becoming a viable path towards clean energy, even after the first successful demonstration of a self-sustained burning plasma. Which, by the way, still seems about 10 years out, with the latest round of delays on ITER. I think most of the people involved understand this, but there is ongoing political will to sink billions of dollars into these projects, so here we are.
1. https://orcutt.net/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/The-Trouble-With-Fusion_MIT_Tech_Review_1983.pdf https://orcutt.net/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/The-Tro...
- pfdietz 2y agoLidsky is long dead (as are Pfirsch and Schmitter, who had similar critiques in Germany), but I like to think he'd have been a supporter of Helion. Helion's approach is close to what Lidsky advocated (aneutronic fusion), at least before Lidsky's student Todd Rider showed truly aneutronic fusion was not likely to work. However, the Helion approach has greatly reduced neutronicity, particularly of energetic DT neutrons, and exploits the kind of non-Maxwellian plasmas w. energy recovery/recirculation that Rider was analyzing.