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Comment on China’s ‘artificial sun’ breaks nuclear fusion limit thought to be impossible

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.

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masterofn001@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ 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.

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Cocodapuf@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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- Potatar@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.
  
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  - Cocodapuf@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    This is true, the waste issue is different with these two technologies, but I don’t think it’s all that significant in either case.
    
    Fission produces some awful waste, but what I like to point out is just how little it produces. My favorite example is nuclear submarines. Nuke subs have to come to port every so often for food, equipment, supplies, etc, but not because they’re low on fuel. They don’t carry a lot, about 500kg (half ton) and that lasts them a very long time. So how often do they need to be refueled? Once, most subs are refueled just once in their ~30 year lifetime. Some subs will be decommissioned before ever refuelling, using just one set of uranium fuel rods for their whole life.
    
    Given the tiny volume of waste produced over such a long time… We can figure out the storage. Even if the solution is costly, there’s really not much to store, this is very manageable.
    
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    Potatar@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    My problem is that waste being unborn next generation’s problem. Who are we to demand them to keep guarding our shit? With fusion, the waste is the alive-generation’s problem.
    
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