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I'm about 40. Do you realize that people have been heralding nanotechnology as the solution to all these problems since I was 17? Same goes for fusion. I rem

I'm about 40. Do you realize that people have been heralding nanotechnology as the solution to all these problems since I was 17? Same goes for fusion. I remember reading in Scientific American that fusion was just a few years off. that was over 20 years ago.

jessaustin 12y ago
They keep fusion in the news as marketing for the uneconomical nuclear fission power that we're actually forced to use. "Any day now, we won't be producing all this noxious waste!"
- Ygg2 12y ago
  I'm sorry, but what noxious waste? You mean coal, right?
  - crpatino 12y ago
    He meant the radioactive waste from nuclear fission (with an I) plants. If I picked up the argument correctly, fusion was never meant to work, it was just a smoke screen so that people would not look too closely at what the nuclear industry was actually doing. I don't share that opinion, though I think nuclear fusion power production - at least in the scales that would matter for the project of human civilization - turned out to be much more harder to achieve than what anyone had expected 50 years ago; and that some hard questions about the practical feasibility of that option went unasked for far too long. Out of normal human nature, of course. No need to cry conspiracy!
Retric 12y ago
We have really dropped the ball on fusion research. JET the current best fusion reactor was built between 1978-1982 (Q ~= 0.7). So from 1982 to now there has been zero count it zero actual progress with a physical device. (They waited to 1991 to actually start using it for fusion not just plasma experiments and the record comes from 1997.) Arguably, if we had been building a new state of the art device every 5 years we would have had a working fusion reactor in the late 1990's. Though computer models suggested it would not be cost effective. PS: Yes, the world’s best fusion reactor was designed in 1977 and people wonder why progress is so slow. Hmm, I wonder.
deleted 12y ago
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jessriedel 12y ago
My comment from a few months ago might interest you then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8307584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8307584

jessaustin 12y ago

They keep fusion in the news as marketing for the uneconomical nuclear fission power that we're actually forced to use. "Any day now, we won't be producing all this noxious waste!"

Ygg2 12y ago
I'm sorry, but what noxious waste? You mean coal, right?
- crpatino 12y ago
  He meant the radioactive waste from nuclear fission (with an I) plants. If I picked up the argument correctly, fusion was never meant to work, it was just a smoke screen so that people would not look too closely at what the nuclear industry was actually doing. I don't share that opinion, though I think nuclear fusion power production - at least in the scales that would matter for the project of human civilization - turned out to be much more harder to achieve than what anyone had expected 50 years ago; and that some hard questions about the practical feasibility of that option went unasked for far too long. Out of normal human nature, of course. No need to cry conspiracy!

Retric 12y ago

We have really dropped the ball on fusion research. JET the current best fusion reactor was built between 1978-1982 (Q ~= 0.7). So from 1982 to now there has been zero count it zero actual progress with a physical device. (They waited to 1991 to actually start using it for fusion not just plasma experiments and the record comes from 1997.) Arguably, if we had been building a new state of the art device every 5 years we would have had a working fusion reactor in the late 1990's. Though computer models suggested it would not be cost effective. PS: Yes, the world’s best fusion reactor was designed in 1977 and people wonder why progress is so slow. Hmm, I wonder.

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jessriedel 12y ago

My comment from a few months ago might interest you then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8307584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8307584