it was one of the most important breakthroughs to date in fusion
What ? It was not really. Here’s a physicist discussing why.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2023/08/fusion-foolery/
In the end, the NIF fusion accomplishment might be called a stunt. Stunts explore what we can do (often after an insane amount of preparation, practice, and failure), rather than what’s practical. Stunts hide the pains and present an appearance of ease and grace, but it’s a show.
The “more energy out than laser energy in” equation masks several fundamental problems. NIF’s doped glass lasers have an efficiency of about 0.5 percent, meaning that they would have sucked in roughly 400 megajoules of energy from the grid in order to produce the 2.1 megajoules of light energy…
To be fair the hype machine was from the press not the scientists
Let’s pause to say: well done! Honestly. No sarcasm. What they did was ridiculously hard, and it finally worked after more than a decade of trying. They actually produced a significant number of fusion events! There’s no faking that, and I’d like to see you try. So let’s be clear that I’m not knocking the accomplishment in itself. My major beef is how we interpret the implications for society.
sibachian@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
oil, coal and nuclear are clearly not winning.
we could solve the worlds energy problems today but they’d never be applied simply because oil exists. its literally why the US just attacked venezuela. They could have built another reactor or windmills or whatever the fuck else they feel they need if energy was the reason. but energy has nothing to do with energy and all to do with being a natural monopoly that’s making a small group of people quite wealthy.
Deceptichum@quokk.au 3 weeks ago
Yes but those are not fusion. Fusion is the ‘holy-grail’ of energy technology. It is a long term goal that we must work towards. It’s a problem of science.
For now renewables are the cheapest, quickest, and best method we have. They should be receiving all the money wasted on those 3 methods you’ve mentioned above. That’s a problem of politics.
We easily have the means to achieve both, we are hamstrung by shortsighted corporate interests and yes this applies to China as well.
masterofn001@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
It doesn’t matter if the people with the war machines are the ones who control the grids,lines,pipes,etc.
The ‘holy grail’ will most likely result in further top down dominance. As god king tyrants demonstrate their continued uselessness to humanity by creating more powerful and destructive weapons and hoarding the infinite power supply for their own.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I gotta be honest, as amazing as the promise of limitless fusion energy is, I’m really not optimistic that it’ll be a major or even an important technology for the energy sector, at least for the next 200 or so years.
The thing is, we already have fission power and we’re struggling to use it right now. And fusion has almost all the same strengths and drawbacks, but bigger. I do believe we will achieve sustainable fusion, probably soon. But I’m certain that while it will “work”, it will also prove to be the most expensive form of power generation with the largest upfront costs that the world has ever seen. And I don’t expect those prices to come down for a very long time.
Personally, I think anyone who expects fusion to be some kind of miracle technology is kidding themselves. And if people really want a miracle technology in the energy sector, look at geothermal, that’s the only tech I see that has any potential to become cheap, limitless, and constant.
I do think fusion will have good applications, but it will likely remain niche for a while. I definitely look forward to seeing spacecraft propelled by ion drives and powered by fusion, it would be amazing to be able to get to Jupiter and back in on tank of (xenon) gas.
Potatar@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Fission has the “long (1+ centuries) term storage solution of the byproducts” problem (output is dirty and long lasting). Fusion has no such big problem (output is dirty and short lasting).
I like hyperboles so here: If everyone did fission in their backyard, we’d have a big and long lasting problem. If everyone did fusion in their backyard, we’d have a medium and short lasting problem.
BoJackHorseman@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Nuclear is different from oil and coal.
They’re not solving the world’s problems not because oil exists, but because big powerful private oil companies exist who lobby the government and publish propaganda to manipulate the public. And big oil companies exist because of capitalism. But at this point, you start spewing all the anti communism propaganda you’ve been fed since your birth.
sibachian@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
nuclear is the current dream for capitalists. because fuel is controlled and power is a monopoly - nuclear is guaranteed to always be profitable whereas hydro, solar and wind tend to run at a surplus and collapse the market by going into the negative value. since power can’t be stored, they have no choice but to supply power at no cost. with nuclear, they control the flow of power production and can always keep supply at the breaking point of demand to keep prices high.
chocrates@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
God, I wonder if we could fund a next gen fission plant with what we already spent on Venezuela
nforminvasion@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Why you attacking nuclear? It’s an amazing technology
sibachian@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
it’s only amazing as long as the government owns it. in my country we could technically have free power because of renewables (and almost did, but EU stopped us from doing it because it would crash the commercial power market elsewhere - EU bs even made power more expensive just to make it competitive and not to crash oil and coal markets). but because of surplus power generated from renewables, our current neoliberal government has been getting rid of solar and shutting down windpower and attacked hydro in favor of constructing nuclear power plants; on top of making it law that the government isn’t allowed to own or buy the nuclear power plants and also offered to fund private interests the construction of nuclear power plants.
the reason? power is a natural monopoly, and nuclear is fuel based. which means the supplier of power decides the supply and demand by artificially controlling the fuel flow - the idea is to never let power run at a surplus supply generated by solar, wind, and hydro ever again so there is no risk that privately owned power monopolies would be unprofitable.
AA5B@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
With US being the leading oil producer and stealing all of Venezuela’s’s oil, we’re positioning ourselves to control the world’s supply …… as they yawn and continue moving to the future
sibachian@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
the US is more likely to invade and destroy any country that make fusion viable than to let it compete on the energy market.
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Not that easy, considering the major candidates to succeed is China and the EU.
scarabic@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
We killed a lot of people to ensure that oil is bought and sold with dollars around the world. No way we’re going to let that currency crutch just go away.
green_red_black@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Erm pretty sure Nuclear Fusion is a thing. Meaning Fusion research involves nuclear material
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
Passenger vehicles and homes and most businesses could be owed by solar and wind, but oil will still be used for quite a while for cargo shipping and commercial trucks and things like tires. We could use a lot less, but oil is going to hang around for quite a while. Passenger vehicles account for about 25% of oil used.