Progress but more is needed
So in discussions elsewhere, the trick of this design has come out, and it's...neat, but has problems of it's own.
They encased the fuel pellets in gold foil, which created a small magfield as the device powered up, and held the fuel together tighter, longer, and so the machine used less power to get to fusion because the gold acted as a electromagnetic catalyst that was vaporized in the process.
Thus the rub; you literally have to burn gold to make this design work.
There may be a way to engineer around that, but it's not a small snag.
The new design uses less energy because the fuel pellets come with a copper and/or gold sheathing, which decease the energy needed to contain the fuel as it achieves fusion, even if the difference is just a few milliseconds.I like the idea of fusion, I hope we can make it happen for power generation in my lifetime, but the issue I have with it is that people have a habit of making better the enemy of good and fusion is the better to nuclear's good, sucking away attention, funding, and the undermining real impetus to adopt good nuclear power now instead of the forever 10 years in the future fusion reactors. Sorry, I'm cranky, fusion has been 10 years off most of my near 50 years of living, meanwhile we are less nuclear than we were when I was a kid in the 70's/80's.
The new design uses less energy because the fuel pellets come with a copper and/or gold sheathing, which decease the energy needed to contain the fuel as it achieves fusion, even if the difference is just a few milliseconds.
The metal carries it's own magnetic field, where as a raw fuel pellet would not.
The theory is sound, seems to work, and is now an engineering challenge to see if the same results can be achieved with other sheathing materials that are cheaper to burn than copper or gold.
Ironically, that would be the perfect fit with the needs of the muh climate change people
geothermy and biofuels.They alway be working.
True.We still need more.What about heating plants fuelled by any kind of fast growing plants?They do work the problem is implimentation.
Geothermal energy is some thing thats great but its limited by geography. Some Bio fuels do show promise but its not corn but algy based biofuel america uses a corn based one which actually fucks with the global corn supplies in a really bad way. Both are useful but their a part of a greater energy profolio not silver bullets.
Good for a loosely populated third world country with lots of spare farmland and little power needed.True.We still need more.What about heating plants fuelled by any kind of fast growing plants?
In Poland it arleady start working,althought you still need to use part of fields for that.
But - some of our fields have so bad soil,that it could be done there.Becouse nothing good do not rise there anyway.
Ezra Klein had a neat article on it.it's becoming increasingly clear to me at least that what makes the world flow above all else is energy and resources. When the average person no longer has access to resources and the venture capital dries up these politicians and their globalist corporation constituents can't actually produce anything on their own.
Or to simplify, technological civilization needs energy. The more energy you have available, the more technological goodies you can make. Any plan for generating energy which doesn't at least match current energy production capabilities or ideally, exceed them, is therefore going to directly harm quality of life by raising prices such that 'first world middle class' wages no longer cover the elements of a first world middle class lifestyle.The Dystopia We Fear Is Keeping Us From the Utopia We Deserve said:
There's no way around that. Anyone claiming there is who isn't actively building fission reactors or powersats knows it, is lying through their teeth and is attacking your quality of life. Respond accordingly.Gypsy by Carter Scholz said:I thought it was the leaders, the nations, the corporations, the elites, who were out of touch, who didn’t understand the gravity of our situation. I believed in the sincerity of their stupid denials - of global warming, of resource depletion, of nuclear proliferation, of population pressure. I thought them stupid. But if you judge them by their actions instead of their rhetoric, you can see they understood it perfectly and accepted the gravity of it very early. They simply gave it up as unfixable. Concluded that law and democracy and civilization were hindrances to their continued power. Moved quite purposefully and at speed toward this dire world they foresaw, a world in which, to have the amenities even of a middle-class life - things like clean water, food, shelter, energy, transportation, medical care - you would need the wealth of a prince. You would need legal and military force to keep desperate others from seizing it. Seeing that, they moved to amass such wealth for themselves as quickly and ruthlessly as possible, with the full understanding that it hastened the day they feared.
Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven said:"We could!" Tim cried. "You beat them! We could."
Hardy nodded gravely. "Yes, I suppose we could. But first we have to take it—and we can't do that with magic weapons. Grenades and gas bombs aren't much use in the attack. We'd lose people. A lot of people. How many lives are your electric lights worth?"
"Many," Leonilla Malik said. Her voice didn't carry very far. "If I had had proper lights for the operating theater last night, I could have saved ten more at least."
Maureen was moving toward the platform. Harvey hesitated, then went with her. What would he say? Men would charge machine guns for a cause. Viva la republic! For King and Country! Duty, Honor, Country! Remember the Alamo! Liberte! Egalitel Fraternite! But nobody had ever gone over the top shouting "A Higher Standard of Living!" or "Hot Showers and Electric Razors!"
Oil and Gas industry NEVER going away anytime soon!Case in point, windmills aren't a credible competitor to the petrodollar. Nuclear reactors or orbital solar would be, therefore the petrodollar's masters must preemptively prevent their adoption via their usual tactic of giant hordes of brainwashed morons.
They shouldn't, but there have to be better uses for long-chain hydrocarbons than burning them as the first use for everything.Oil and Gas industry NEVER going away anytime soon!
Their use in fertilizer and plastics makes them incredibly usefulThey shouldn't, but there have to be better uses for long-chain hydrocarbons than burning them as the first use for everything.