5 ms·

To be fair to LM if they get this right and it works, they will assume a large portion of all the world's wealth rather quickly. Also surely we need a Manhatte

To be fair to LM if they get this right and it works, they will assume a large portion of all the world's wealth rather quickly. Also surely we need a Manhatten project for nuclear fusion. Indeed it is possible it the the fault of the Manhatten project that Fusion wasn't pursued at the time

keeganpoppen 12y ago
haha yeah-- not saying it's an easy problem or anything, but you'd think that we'd have about as good a chance as humanity could ever hope for if you ask while Oppenheimer, Fermi, Feynman, Bohr et alia are all working together... ON THE SAME PROJECT. And this is ignoring the fact that we wouldn't even give Einstein security clearance...
- maccard 12y ago
  Well we have computers now...
Icybee 12y ago
If this works, and the global demand for fossil fuels significantly reduces or disappears, imagine the impact it will have on the countries whose economies are largely dependant on exporting oil, gas or coal. A large part of the Middle East, or even countries lie Russia or Venezuela could be in for a very bad few decades. We could be in for turbulent times, if it works.
- jahnu 12y ago
  Surely cheap energy for all would help any country raise it's standard of living. I think you could as easy argue that we'd see less turbulence since nearly all resource constraints would be relaxed. Salt-water can be desalinated cheaply and pumped anywhere. Factories powered. Homes heated or cooled. Travel would be inexpensive. CO2 could be extracted from the air and buried.
  - patrickk 12y ago
    > Travel would be inexpensive. This would be particularly exciting. Ships, trains and physically large forms of transport (maybe even aircraft/spacecraft?!?) could have fusion reactors built in. Electric cars charged by cheap power from local, neighbourhood fusion reactors. The power grid is decentralised with reliable baseload power sources, that are clean, reliable (no intermittent problems with weather with renewables) and safe. Power sources can be located where they are needed, whether it's in a basement, on a roof of an urban building or on Mars.
    - db48x 12y ago
      Don't get too starry-eyed; this is deuterium-tritium or deuterium-deuterium fusion they're talking about. It produces neutron radiation so you still need shielding, and it really complicates the materials engineering. All the properties of the material you're using to do some job depend on what kind of atoms are in it, and all those neutrons are busy transmuting those same atoms. The first working fusion reactor will probably have crazy maintenance requirements. (It's already a bit of a problem with fission plants, but with the simpler fusion reactions as much as 80% of the energy is produced in the form of neutrons.) The holy grail that you're thinking of is aneutronic fusion, usually deuterium-helium3 or deuterium-lithium6. He3 is super rare though, so a D-He3 reactor using it might need to get the He3 from a bigger fusion reactor using D-D fusion, which produces it (and that pesky neutron). Even better still might be proton-boron fusion; it needs temperatures an order of magnitude higher than D-D fusion (and magnetic confinement two or three orders of magnitude stronger), but produces far fewer neutrons (there are fewer undesirable side reactions). Alas, this route will produce four orders of magnitude less energy than the much simpler D-D reaction. Given the scale of the engineering problems, we could even end up harnessing fusion power by building dyson spheres; a star might be the only feasible, stable way to build a fusion reactor. Hopefully our universe was set on an easier difficulty setting than that when it was instantiated.
      - mcv 12y ago
        > The holy grail that you're thinking of is aneutronic fusion, usually deuterium-helium3 or deuterium-lithium6. He3 is super rare though Finally a good reason to go to the moon!
- mtbcoder 12y ago
  Given that fossil fuels are a non-renewable resource and the urgent need to reduce/eliminate dependence on fossil fuels due to climate change, will this not happen regardless though? I would hope these countries have the sensibilities to see the writing on the wall.
- Systemic33 12y ago
  There will still be a significant demand for oil for other product, such as plastic, rubber, etc.
- XorNot 12y ago
  This wouldn't do a thing to oil wealth. Fusion displaces coal, not oil.
- Zigurd 12y ago
  "Turbulent times" but at much lower stakes. If you take oil off the table as an incitement to resource wars, there is much less chance of US, Russian, or Chinese adventurism. That's a tradeoff I'd take. Having to get serious about building open modern secular self-sustaining economies would not be a bad influence on that region either.
jahnu 12y ago
That kind of assumes no country would just copy it. Which they simply would unless LM sold these devices or licenses to them at very reasonable prices.
- bottled_poe 12y ago
  Just like how countries can simply 'copy' nuclear weapon designs, right?
  - adventured 12y ago
    Or how China can easily just copy and use nuclear reactor designs, instead of buying them from Westinghouse or GE (that is to say, not).
  - patrickk 12y ago
    One way or another, if a successful fusion reactor is actually built, the design will eventually get out and be reverse engineered and copied. It's too important for it to not happen.
    - XorNot 12y ago
      Knowing something is definitely feasible is very, very different to trying to invent the first working prototype. i.e. knowing that a particular design of plane does actually fly, means you can make very different assumptions about information you get from looking at it's shape.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

keeganpoppen 12y ago

haha yeah-- not saying it's an easy problem or anything, but you'd think that we'd have about as good a chance as humanity could ever hope for if you ask while Oppenheimer, Fermi, Feynman, Bohr et alia are all working together... ON THE SAME PROJECT. And this is ignoring the fact that we wouldn't even give Einstein security clearance...

maccard 12y ago
Well we have computers now...

Icybee 12y ago

If this works, and the global demand for fossil fuels significantly reduces or disappears, imagine the impact it will have on the countries whose economies are largely dependant on exporting oil, gas or coal. A large part of the Middle East, or even countries lie Russia or Venezuela could be in for a very bad few decades. We could be in for turbulent times, if it works.

jahnu 12y ago
Surely cheap energy for all would help any country raise it's standard of living. I think you could as easy argue that we'd see less turbulence since nearly all resource constraints would be relaxed. Salt-water can be desalinated cheaply and pumped anywhere. Factories powered. Homes heated or cooled. Travel would be inexpensive. CO2 could be extracted from the air and buried.
- patrickk 12y ago
  > Travel would be inexpensive. This would be particularly exciting. Ships, trains and physically large forms of transport (maybe even aircraft/spacecraft?!?) could have fusion reactors built in. Electric cars charged by cheap power from local, neighbourhood fusion reactors. The power grid is decentralised with reliable baseload power sources, that are clean, reliable (no intermittent problems with weather with renewables) and safe. Power sources can be located where they are needed, whether it's in a basement, on a roof of an urban building or on Mars.
  - db48x 12y ago
    Don't get too starry-eyed; this is deuterium-tritium or deuterium-deuterium fusion they're talking about. It produces neutron radiation so you still need shielding, and it really complicates the materials engineering. All the properties of the material you're using to do some job depend on what kind of atoms are in it, and all those neutrons are busy transmuting those same atoms. The first working fusion reactor will probably have crazy maintenance requirements. (It's already a bit of a problem with fission plants, but with the simpler fusion reactions as much as 80% of the energy is produced in the form of neutrons.) The holy grail that you're thinking of is aneutronic fusion, usually deuterium-helium3 or deuterium-lithium6. He3 is super rare though, so a D-He3 reactor using it might need to get the He3 from a bigger fusion reactor using D-D fusion, which produces it (and that pesky neutron). Even better still might be proton-boron fusion; it needs temperatures an order of magnitude higher than D-D fusion (and magnetic confinement two or three orders of magnitude stronger), but produces far fewer neutrons (there are fewer undesirable side reactions). Alas, this route will produce four orders of magnitude less energy than the much simpler D-D reaction. Given the scale of the engineering problems, we could even end up harnessing fusion power by building dyson spheres; a star might be the only feasible, stable way to build a fusion reactor. Hopefully our universe was set on an easier difficulty setting than that when it was instantiated.
    - mcv 12y ago
      > The holy grail that you're thinking of is aneutronic fusion, usually deuterium-helium3 or deuterium-lithium6. He3 is super rare though Finally a good reason to go to the moon!
mtbcoder 12y ago
Given that fossil fuels are a non-renewable resource and the urgent need to reduce/eliminate dependence on fossil fuels due to climate change, will this not happen regardless though? I would hope these countries have the sensibilities to see the writing on the wall.
Systemic33 12y ago
There will still be a significant demand for oil for other product, such as plastic, rubber, etc.
XorNot 12y ago
This wouldn't do a thing to oil wealth. Fusion displaces coal, not oil.
Zigurd 12y ago
"Turbulent times" but at much lower stakes. If you take oil off the table as an incitement to resource wars, there is much less chance of US, Russian, or Chinese adventurism. That's a tradeoff I'd take. Having to get serious about building open modern secular self-sustaining economies would not be a bad influence on that region either.

jahnu 12y ago

That kind of assumes no country would just copy it. Which they simply would unless LM sold these devices or licenses to them at very reasonable prices.

bottled_poe 12y ago
Just like how countries can simply 'copy' nuclear weapon designs, right?
- adventured 12y ago
  Or how China can easily just copy and use nuclear reactor designs, instead of buying them from Westinghouse or GE (that is to say, not).
- patrickk 12y ago
  One way or another, if a successful fusion reactor is actually built, the design will eventually get out and be reverse engineered and copied. It's too important for it to not happen.
  - XorNot 12y ago
    Knowing something is definitely feasible is very, very different to trying to invent the first working prototype. i.e. knowing that a particular design of plane does actually fly, means you can make very different assumptions about information you get from looking at it's shape.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]