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Comment by ThomPete | Hacker News Reader

Yup, I also know that we are actually seeing progress in that field because the Chinese are investing in it and which then obviously needs to be factored in like everything else.

The point was that fusion is as far of as 100% solar is. So again unless you show some actual proposals for how to get 100% solar to work realistically you are in no better position than the Fusion crowd is.

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I'd be interested to know more about the Chinese research you are referencing. Could you point me to the research and explain how it overcomes those arguments of Lidsky? Is it using something other than Deuterium and Tritium, or has it found a way around the problems that Lidsky enumerated with the DT approach?

He's probably referring to this:

https://www.universetoday.com/140540/chinese-fusion-experime...

It's nothing very notable.

That thing is interesting for plasma physics though. It isn't really trying to be a fusion reactor, as far as I can tell from following the links past the article. Is more of a scaled down testbed. I have often wondered if the people working on tokomaks are more interested in the science you can do with them, than the potential for generating electricity, even if the people providing the money aren't entirely aware of this.

Its a step toward solving how to control the plasma. So yes its a pretty important step.

Better plasma control doesn't do much to Lidsky's argument though, if you have a look through it.

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