Lockheed Martin puts out a Fusion Related Press Release
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Tripamang
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The whole ITER method of fusion has been the main focus of funding the last 60 years. There are literally dozens of new reactor designs that don't require the kind of crazy engineering that ITER does and could be researched for (I'm not making this up) 1/100th of the cost of what's been dumped into ITER. We're talking several million dollars a project for them to flesh out their idea and test to see if it'll actually produce net energy. Private enterprise is very hesitant to invest into fusion because of perception that it's a problem we can never solve on the near term (ITER), meanwhile people with good theoretically sound fusion designs can't get funding. There was a letter not too long ago signed by some of the top people in the field some of who even work on ITER saying that we need to diversify the research as soon as possible because we are literally shooting ourselves in the foot. (FUSION | Open Letter on Fusion).
If Lockheed really is where they think they are, then theres no reason that we can't dump huge amounts of money into something that will literally transform our world into a better, sustainable and hopefully more fair place to live.
Tuco
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That letter and your paragraph seems really specious to me. Also
=(Tripamang_sl said:
Tripamang
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Sorry that you don't like that link! Here is one from nature on the same subject that's an editorial linked off the same website.Fusion furore : Nature News Comment
I find it amusing how legitimate someone can think a project is based on how well done the web page is hah. They are starved for cash, I don't think they have the money to hire a web developer to fix that hideous mess.
Chanur
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Cad
scientia potentia est
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The point was, Tucbro, that the fossil fuel industry uses a VAST amount of resources and pollutes our air, changes our climate, and causes other natural disasters like exxon valdez, the gulf oil spill a few years ago, etc. Nuclear has had some famous accidents too, but mind you every famous nuclear accident has been plants that use 50's and 60's designs that haven't been updated because of NIMBY.
If Cad was elected dictator for life next year, my first order of business would be to allocate 50% of the defense and brown-people slaying budget to 1> NASA, 2> fusion research, 3> genetic engineering research. And I'd supervise it personally and make sure it did not turn into some government program pile of shit.
We arefigurativelyshooting ourselves right in the face by using fossil fuels on the scale we are using them. Especially when the technology exists to have emissions-free nearly unlimited electricity.
Foggy
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Xequecal
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I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't really see the huge benefits that come from developing fusion power. We already have thousands of years' worth of resources available for fission power and the latest generation of nuclear plants can't melt down either. The only real problem a working fusion plant solves is reducing the amount of nuclear waste generated, and that's hardly a world-changing breakthrough.
We don't use nuclear power because people are simply irrationally afraid of anything to do with radiation, and discovering a workable method of fusion will not change this.
Additionally, fusion plants actually leak radiation, unlike fission plants. Hydrogen gas is very difficult to 100% contain. Of course, we're talking about extremely tiny amounts of short-lived tritium here, but good luck getting past the hurdle of selling this little factoid to the scare mongers.
We don't use nuclear power because people are simply irrationally afraid of anything to do with radiation, and discovering a workable method of fusion will not change this.
Additionally, fusion plants actually leak radiation, unlike fission plants. Hydrogen gas is very difficult to 100% contain. Of course, we're talking about extremely tiny amounts of short-lived tritium here, but good luck getting past the hurdle of selling this little factoid to the scare mongers.
Cad
scientia potentia est
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I think fusion releases a lot more energy per unit fuel (obviously once we refine the reactors so that we can harness this energy without spending more than we're getting, you "net negative energy" shitlords) than fission, and the fuel for fusion is plentiful. So eventually we'll want to be on fusion. Other than that I totally agree with you, no reason to not be using fission right now.
I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt atm. I know that at least one of the military's designs has gotten the money for the next stage of testing...
Xequecal
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This is technically true, but.....who cares? Ok, maybe we have 30,000 years worth of fusion fuel and only 3,000 years of fission fuel, but that's pretty much the epitome of irrelevant.
Cad
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Well and because of the differences in fuel, fusion fuel would be far less dangerous to handle, more compact, etc; less radioactive shit to deal with afterwards, and fusion reactors wouldn't be militarily relevant; fission reactors (if they are of the breeder type) can help countries without nuclear weapons develop the fuel to produce nuclear weapons.
Past all that, yea, I got nothing. Fission is pretty good too and if you check my post history, I've been railing on people for not building fission reactors for years.
Caliane
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Fission fuel isn't particularly dangerous to handle. its the output that is marginally, and then of course only marginally. Certainly enough to buy us another 300 years even if we went 100% fission.
Tuco
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