[turbo69bird]

It’s an amazing day if it’s legit, nuclear fushion (2 atoms combined) Vs fission. (An atom split.) Supposedly has been proven to give a net gain. With zero carbon emissions and zero waste - A true free lunch!
Could it be possible the term there is no free lunch has been proven wrong?

Or is it a ploy to get energy prices down across the globe? Hard to know.

[kingbuzzo]

I was watching this on the teevee.

I'm no Sheldon but it looks promising. I'm no tree hugger neither but we can't run dino juice for ever.

[turbo69bird]

Originally Posted by kingbuzzo

I was watching this on the teevee.

I'm no Sheldon but it looks promising. I'm no tree hugger neither but we can't run dino juice for ever.

I agree I’m no tree hugger either, although I do like nature. I’ do like clean waters China is the biggest polluter of the whole world and we are buying tons of products there as well as currently buying car dirtier oil elsewhere than we’d produce here . But that’s another story.
They are saying , One cups worth of nuclear fusion energy could power a house for hundreds of years
I personally don’t know much about it beyond what I’ve posted but I do know they said similar things about quantum computing and it hasn’t really seemed to make the difference we’ve expected so far .

[Stuart]

Don't expect any big changes soon. From the article in the New York Times:

Does this mean we’ll have cheap fusion energy soon?

No. Even if scientists figure out how to generate bigger bursts of fusion, immense engineering hurdles remain.

A practical fusion power plant using this concept would require a machine-gun pace of laser bursts with new hydrogen targets sliding into place for each burst. Then the torrents of neutrons flying outward from the fusion reactions would have to be converted into electricity.

The laser complex fills a building with a footprint equal to three football fields — too big, too expensive, too inefficient for a commercial power plant. A manufacturing process to mass-produce the precise hydrogen targets would have to be developed.

[bulletpruf]

It's great news, but we're still a few decades away from something viable, from what I can tell.

[Mr Anonymous]

Next, you'll hear that we can start dividing by zero

[jhein]

Chuck Norris has counted to infinite. Twice...

[kingbuzzo]

hopefully doesn't accelerate the extinction of my gasser...before I die anyways lol

[dataway]

Viable Fusion is going to be a very tough row to hoe. While I think the basic science is there, we are going to have to make some strides in materials technology to make it viable. Or ... some break through in a completely different direction than the current methods.

I think it will happen, but could easily be 50 years in the future. Fission is the very, very beat up red headed step child of nature, Fusion is the Grandmother of Mother Nature. Me, you, we and everything we know or can imagine is the result of Fusion and the energy it's provided to the Universe.

ALL power is Fusion power, oil, hydro, solar, wind ... all created by the energy of the fusion taking place in our sun, to harness that power would of course be a game changer in every sense of the phrase.

[Half-Inch Stud]

My favorite fusion apparatus remains the coffer mug form factor with piezos providing pulsed PSI into an amonia-like liquid.

[77 TRASHCAN]

The "goodness" of fusion has long been known. Harnessing it, another story, as many here have mentioned.
I'm not surprised to hear about it. Likely someone wanting to upstart an industry with investors mega bucks (know anyone like that, now?)

All the talk about going to Mars? I'm not sure if ALL the technology is even close to being in place to allow that to happen. Another whim...

When I was in high school, in the 70's, the technology back then, available, it would take like 35 years to get to Mars. THAT technology is still all we have available at the moment. We lost 2 space shuttles, that we oh-so carefully built with absolute safety in mind...although the first failure had nothing to do with the shuttle craft. Itself.

Imagine 35 years on a space craft. The checkerboard is going to get worn out quickly....and that's a lot of groceries to bring along...

Bla bla bla

[dataway]

I think the current estimate for travel time to mars is about 7 months there, possibly a three month wait on Mars for planet alignment, and 7 months back. This is based on the probes that have made the trip already and the comparative speed of currently available NASA rockets used on manned missions.

We easily have the technology right now to put a man on mars .... but it would be a man that's going to die on mars. HUGE difference between putting a man somewhere, and bringing him back.

For me the big questions is WHY. Mars is a desert wasteland, with an atmosphere 1% the density of earth (practically a vacuum), incredibly hostile temperature variations, no natural radiation shielding (magnetosphere, atmosphere) so it's constantly bombarded by solar radiation. Mars has zero to offer humans, we'll never live there, it would be easier to live on the moon ... even including the transport of water, due to it proximity to the earth. There is absolutely zero reason I can fathom for any human to go to, or live on, Mars ... unless it's just a pissing contest. The money it would cost to put one man on Mars would probably rebuild all the infrastructure in our entire country.

[carbking]

I'm from Missouri!

When I was working in the engineering dept of a utility company 55 years ago, fusion was the "big thing". Use the waste from fission plants in the fusion plants. Lots of energy, and get rid of the waste.

I guess if the story is true, there has been a little progress in 50 years, but the fusion plants promised for the 1980's didn't happen.

Jon

[Half-Inch Stud]

Moon is more realistic because the logistics supply is everything.

As for fusion, longk ago, before i knew more (was told my idea isn't so), i had the idea that fusion had to be occurring in plants in order to make the solid wood, bark, leaves, and fruits from photosynthesis. We are all told that the roots bring up the elements for the bio-chem formation. But when doing a poor-boys hydroponics, the plant will make all the materials to appear as if grown in soil, except for taste. The hydroponic make lack the wonderful flavors of the dirt-grown plant.

Point is, the variety of plant ought have a variety of materials in the grown plant, yet the roots, air, and sunlight have a controlled/ controllable set if ingredients. Silly humans made the assumption that neutron release is mandatory to prove fusion is happening.

Yet, As i learned on the job regarding natural radiation and man-intervened radiation, the peculiar strong& natural RAD sources from Colbalt-60 and Cesium-137 are strong due to the concentration of the metal element. Those radiating elements never aid plant growth, nor any living growth. The traits of such radiation turn anything organic (solft, flexible, hydrogenated etc) into chalk, powder, dust and usually with a chemical conversion, not just an internal charge change.

BTW: Sunlight only releases/contains X-rays when there is a CME event. Yet the Sun is a fusion reactor. Solar emission is a broad light spectrum of IR thru visible, and we notice the yellow-orange peaking in energy, yet the IR feels much nicer for warmth. Engineering Physics tests tell us the higher energy is from the shorter wavelength, and Solar cells derive electricity (8%-40%) depending on poly-crystal thru singlecrystal thru thru 3-tuned layers of single-crystal. Yet the unconverted IR (92%-60%) remains as heat.

Fusion as a power supply; if the idea of bio-fusion was occurring with plants, and perhaps any digestion, it would be extremely low energy-power density-intensity, yet profuse in quantity and desired form since our bodies derive far more energy from digestion than the "calories" account for. As for fusion contraptions, the contraptions are always looking for over-unity whether pulsed or continuous duty, and seem to make law that neutron need be emitted.

The seemingly simple, large hydrogen atoms are allegedly the easy element to fiddle with. Yet the theory that iron ( Fe) is the lowest fission and fusion product is an interesting read.

Attempt to conclude: Small fusion contraptions would be most interesting for residential power. Consider that ( billion dollar ) pulsed science projects may never scale down, yet Continuous-duty contraptions of any size may scale down or up.

[dataway]

Originally Posted by Half-Inch Stud

Moon is more realistic because the logistics supply is everything.

Like they say ... amateurs talk about tactics, professionals talk about logistics

[61-63]

I hope they come up with a method of controlling/harnessing fusion sooner rather than later. It would solve mankind's energy problems and issues and who knows what else. No one on this board knows when or if it will ever happen although we can speculate on it forever. Half-Inch Stud your post was interesting but way over my head. I'll have to stick to carburetors.

[george kujanski]

A Basic dilemma: insulating from the heat of the plasma while getting the produced energy out..........

George

[hurryinhoosier62]

Originally Posted by george kujanski

A Basic dilemma: insulating from the heat of the plasma while getting the produced energy out..........

George

Along with the same dilemma that affects fission: radioactive waste.

[Half-Inch Stud]

I think the news release was glorified bunk. Whereas there may be some un-reported progress on cold-fusion. Who here knows?