3 ms·

I'm suspicious of anything said to be 20 years away. It's far enough in the future that you can be a little hand-wavy about how it's going to happen, but not s

by pg 17y ago

I'm suspicious of anything said to be 20 years away. It's far enough in the future that you can be a little hand-wavy about how it's going to happen, but not so far that no one would care. A variant of Occam's razor implies that when something is described in a news article as 20 years away, the 20 came from the demands placed on news articles rather than the nature of the subject.

Aron 17y ago
"Generally the prediction comes as far as possible in the future while still being within the lifetime of the predictor." I don't recall the source of this paraphrase.
DanielBMarkham 17y ago
Sustainable nuclear fusion has been twenty years away for the last fifty years or more. It still is twenty years away. That's a long twenty years.
- ivankirigin 17y ago
  Saying a research project is X years away is silly, given that you could get it done faster by throwing money at the problem. The moon landing should have been 30 or 40 years away from Kennedy's famed announcement, but it was given a high priority. Nuclear Fusion hasn't gotten enough funding, imho. Solar too.
  - wlievens 17y ago
    Somewhat true, but there's an important difference between an engineering challenge and a research challenge. I know next to nothing about nuclear science, but I guess that fusion will require breakthroughs. Moon landings - while not particularly easy - simply require a lot of quality engineering. Engineering like that is mostly a function of the bags of money you throw at it.
    - ivankirigin 17y ago
      From my limited understanding, it is just iterative improvements in fusion that are required. You shoot a laser at something compressed in a strong magnetic field, and use the dissipating heat from fusion to boil water to spin turbines to power the laser and magnet. This whole process already works, but doesn't net energy gains. Improvements in efficiency of the laser, magnets, or power gen could make it tip into net energy gains. It's still an engineering problem from then on, as you need to compete on $/Kwh.

by pg 17y ago

Aron 17y ago

"Generally the prediction comes as far as possible in the future while still being within the lifetime of the predictor." I don't recall the source of this paraphrase.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

Sustainable nuclear fusion has been twenty years away for the last fifty years or more. It still is twenty years away. That's a long twenty years.

ivankirigin 17y ago
Saying a research project is X years away is silly, given that you could get it done faster by throwing money at the problem. The moon landing should have been 30 or 40 years away from Kennedy's famed announcement, but it was given a high priority. Nuclear Fusion hasn't gotten enough funding, imho. Solar too.
- wlievens 17y ago
  Somewhat true, but there's an important difference between an engineering challenge and a research challenge. I know next to nothing about nuclear science, but I guess that fusion will require breakthroughs. Moon landings - while not particularly easy - simply require a lot of quality engineering. Engineering like that is mostly a function of the bags of money you throw at it.
  - ivankirigin 17y ago
    From my limited understanding, it is just iterative improvements in fusion that are required. You shoot a laser at something compressed in a strong magnetic field, and use the dissipating heat from fusion to boil water to spin turbines to power the laser and magnet. This whole process already works, but doesn't net energy gains. Improvements in efficiency of the laser, magnets, or power gen could make it tip into net energy gains. It's still an engineering problem from then on, as you need to compete on $/Kwh.