Scientists plan to ignite tiny man-made star | Hacker News Reader

Scientists plan to ignite tiny man-made star

telegraph.co.uk

28 pointsnickb8 comments

I counsel hopeful skepticism. Engineers (and these guys are doing engineering, better if they realize it, worse if they don't) always underestimate the time to completion on projects which are breaking new ground. I have no real doubt that one day we will achieve controlled nuclear fusion as a power-generating mechanism. I have nothing but doubt about when it will be achieved.

"If successful, the experiment will mark the first step towards building a practical nuclear fusion power station and a source of almost limitless energy."

There have been plenty of 'first steps toward building practical nuclear fusion power stations.'

Excuse my skepticism, but I doubt anyone will come out with a breakthrough anytime soon. Even if they do, it will still take years to figure out how to commercialize the technology safely.

No fusion reactor is going to be the answer to our energy needs in the foreseeable future.

We are slowly building a fusion reactor that will produce a steady state net energy gain Q > 5 for several hundred seconds (ITER.org). The idea that fusion is some mythical problem that we have no idea how to solve is false. The problem is it's extremely expensive to build large scale fusion reactors and nobody has fronted the money to build anything significant in the last 25 years so we don't know how well the "state of the art" has advanced.

For about 35 billion we could have a working 1GW fusion power plant within 15 years. With extremely good odds for spending less money and building something sooner. After that it's just a question of reducing costs.

PS: All of the numbers giving are vary conservative estimates.

What is your opinion of the Polywell? Its proponents claim it will be much cheaper than your 35 billion plant.

Polywell is a scam. There is a lot of claims that it works but zero evidence and no computer models which would be a great place to start if funding is an issue.

It reminds me of a story (how to apply for a job to teach a mule to speak):

Before ten years pass, I die, the mule dies or the sultan dies... </quote> http://nasredin.blogspot.com/2007/11/ibn-khaldouns-mule.html

Come on! don't be so full of cynicism.

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