Fusion, salvation through science

[Angel]

So, in the news
https://youtu.be/HfP-eFbdrjM

Fusion. Clean, safe, unlimited energy.
Next those scientists will be telling everyone they cured cancer, or perhaps they cure death.

Some prophecies say Armageddon - the end - wars - famine

Scientists carefully whisper clean energy if you can figure the politics out, if the oil tycoons don't get too angry...

Anyways... if anyone starts any gloom and doom around you this holiday, share the good news, the science news... some cool stuff.

[deacon blues]

Being born in the "latter days" has its advantages. Think of how much we've learned since Pres. Nelson took office. I wouldn't be surprised if following the covenant path has caused God to open up a veritable tidal wave of revelation to..... now who was the guy who figured this fusion thing out?

[Angel]

Outliers, by Gladwell is a great book if anyone is interested in reading over the holidays.

Ch8, Rice paddies and outliers, is what the book is named for I think. "Don't depend on heaven for food, but on your own two hands" - Athiest Chinese communist saying, as they work long hours in the demanding fields...

[Hagoth]

The fusion announcement is exciting but they still have a long way to go. There's another technology being developed that might get there faster. They collide a pellet of frozen fusible (is that a word?) material with an ultra-accelerated metal "bullet" with enough kinetic energy to ignite a tiny burst of fusion with enough heat to turn water to steam and run generators. It only requires about one shot every 30 seconds. I'm crossing my fingers for an announcement about that in the next couple of years.

[RubinHighlander]

Fusion has a long way to go, but this is an exciting advancement. The amount of energy they used to fire up all those lasers is way more than the single tiny explosion they made, in spite of what the click-bait headlines like to imply. Resolving all the remaining issues and scaling this up to efficient energy production is still decades away. I'd place bets on Thorium salt fission to happen first or a breakthrough in solar efficiency. It's too bad fission got such a bad rep, the newer reactors can recycle most of the waist and they are way safer now (which could have got us off the fossils and slowed down the warming until we get to fusion or cleaner options). But just the fact we are creating sun/plasma type reactions and holding that material in place with powerful magnets, that's some crazy cool science!

[stealthbishop]

It's a big advancement for humanity. I hope I can see it become applicable and pragmatic in my lifetime. Perhaps the "necessity" for it because of climate change will hasten it becoming usable in a cost effective way. Glad you posted about it. Hurray for science!!!

[Just This Guy]

I was intrigued at first, but the articles on this have been rather misleading.

The initial press release stated that they managed to generate 3.2 Magajoules of energy with 2.1MJ of laser input. However, what they forgot to mention is that it took 400 MJ of electricity to generate the 2.1MJ of laser energy into the test. So in the end, it still took almost 125 times the amount of energy into the system than they were able to extract out of it. And that is not counting what it took to make the fuel pellet they used for the test.

www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/ ... re/672439/

While it is fascinating that they are able to do this and it is another stepping stone, we are still a LONNNNNNNNNG way away from fusion power being a thing.

KInda of a bummer.

[Hagoth]

They better hurry; the global population just passed 8 billion consumers and last I checked there were no more dinosaurs turning into oil. Here's my plan. Give everyone a hand-crank generator. They are able to use exactly the amount of energy they can produce by cranking. The remaining fossil fuels will be dedicated to powering crank generator making factories. I'd tell you more about it but I need to stop and turn the crank for a while.

[alas]

They better hurry; the global population just passed 8 billion consumers and last I checked there were no more dinosaurs turning into oil. Here's my plan. Give everyone a hand-crank generator. They are able to use exactly the amount of energy they can produce by cranking. The remaining fossil fuels will be dedicated to powering crank generator making factories. I'd tell you more about it but I need to stop and turn the crank for a while.

Yes, I don’t think fusion will make it in time to stop the global warming. We need stuff yesterday. And now we need carbon capture to undo the current damage, huge carbon capture with some way to make it into a money making project so someone will actually do it.

[Hagoth]

They better hurry; the global population just passed 8 billion consumers and last I checked there were no more dinosaurs turning into oil. Here's my plan. Give everyone a hand-crank generator. They are able to use exactly the amount of energy they can produce by cranking. The remaining fossil fuels will be dedicated to powering crank generator making factories. I'd tell you more about it but I need to stop and turn the crank for a while.

Yes, I don’t think fusion will make it in time to stop the global warming. We need stuff yesterday. And now we need carbon capture to undo the current damage, huge carbon capture with some way to make it into a money making project so someone will actually do it.

The real reason for the Ensign Peak Investments hording:
https://youtu.be/0_kMhMHRAQE?t=26