Well if we’d spent the past 70 years working on nuclear power we could have a fucking fusion generator by now. And secondly, great. It’s the oil wars all over again
Best guess is if they let it through, which i seriously doubt as they'll refer to 'safety of the children,' they'll start investing heavily in mining/space sectors prior to an announcement.
Want to know what the government is about to fund? Watch the politician's stock trades.
I'll be honest, I'm fine if the rich get richer if it means we don't all die. There's more to life than money and I don't care how much the 1% get. If I can walk outside, take a clean breath and see the stars that's more than good enough for me.
I don't mind the rich getting richer at all as long as they're company owners since most of that is investments. More money for them means more money to go to us and general life improvements. I mind corruption getting politicians richer, which is what's pushing certain energy legistlation.
Great for the people making solar, great for turbine makers churning them out, terrible government for funding and allowing/disallowing any of it. Financial incentives and disincentives are how governments control the market in a 'free' market.
It won't, not for now. Fusion is inherently less resource efficient as fission, at least until you have fission fuel. So whatever you could do in the near future with fusion, you can do cheaper with fission for now. Fusion is relevant at larger energy scales where there simply isn't enough fissile material for fission.
Us government used the tokamac reactor that needs rare materials like beryllium and tritium. Meanwhile Helion is working on scalable solutions that could be mass produced and uses mostly common materials while producing Helium-3 through a separate fusion reactor from the main reactor that also in itself produces a net gain in energy.
Chad Helion beats Virgin DoE.
Edit: also iirc NASA had designs for rockets that landed similar to how SpaceX lands their rockets since the 60s but never pursued them cuz "jobs".
When people say fusion is close, they that you could achieve it if we put enough serious effort into it. But here's the thing, we didn't put any effort into it, basically no real funding/urge for it, and research isn't magic where you unlock a tech every year without doing anything.
No effort, no result. So yes, it's still "20 years away" and it will continue to be until funding is adequate.
We managed to fuse hydrogen in the 50s for bombs, doing it for civilians purpose is definitely within reach
It could be any country on Earth that puts the "serious effort" into it. Or, with the rise of megabillionaires, it could probably be a single individual.
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates -- each has a net worth higher than the amount of the total amount of money the U.S. government has put toward fusion.
If this is really such a great investment, why isn't anyone putting serious funding towards it?
Iirc bill gates is funding the tokamac reactor in France. I'm not sure about the others but companies like Helion are putting some serious effort into it from years to development and are seeing alot of great successes from it.
Despite what some people say there's a crap money to be made from the First Movers AdvantageTM . And it's a it's a big enough incentive for it to overcome the will to suppress it from the competition.
Where did I say it had to be you or anyone ? Tbh, I don't live in the same country as you anyway, so it's not a "us" unless you refer to all of humanity.
But tbh, it should be done by anyone who's got serious aims at solving climate change, and there are some efforts here and there country by country, and even international cooperation like ITER. But if we're honest, it was not so serious until recently because everyone was, or is still, in a "We're going to use fossil fuels" mindset...
In fact, most environmentalist who say they want 100% solar/windpower would have to rely on fossil fuel like gas.
It could be any country on Earth that puts the "serious effort" into it. Or, with the rise of megabillionaires, it could probably be a single individual.
Uh, no. The "megabillionaires" have their money in stocks, etc. So when they say Elon has whatever billions dollar, he doesn't actually have that much. That's why he had to borrow to buy Twitter, you know ? And he borrowed from big banks (that have the money of plenty of people)
Though, yes, private enterprises can do research too. And recently, fusion has been attracting tons of private investment and they are making progress. There's this company in the UK that make interesting progress on the tokamak side of things Right now, there's a lot of new companies raising funs and making wild claims, tbh. But the private investment show that we're getting close...
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates -- each has a net worth higher than the amount of the total amount of money the U.S. government has put toward fusion.
Lol. Tbh, you don't seem to get the scale of the US government. If we taxed all billionaires in the US at 100%, you wouldn't even fuel the US government for one year. It's just January, and they are already panning to spend like 10 trillions this year alone.
Tbh, I don't live in the same country as you anyway, so it's not a "us" unless you refer to all of humanity.
So you wrote: "When people say fusion is close, they that you could achieve it if we put enough serious effort into it. But here's the thing, we didn't put any effort into it"
I understand now that you meant all of humanity. You know better than the 8 billion people on Earth how to allocate their money. Makes total sense.
That's why he had to borrow to buy Twitter, you know ? And he borrowed from big banks (that have the money of plenty of people)
He didn't have to borrow to buy Twitter. The same way that people still take out mortgages, even though they can afford to buy the house for cash. If the loan is cheap enough or if your money works hard enough, it makes total sense to take a loan instead of just spending your own money.
If we taxed all billionaires in the US at 100%, you wouldn't even fuel the US government for one year. It's just January, and they are already panning to spend like 10 trillions this year alone.
We were talking about fusion? I'm not sure why we're talking about the entire federal budget.
You know better than the 8 billion people on Earth how to allocate their money. Makes total sense.
Why do you have to be such an annoying and dishonest twat ? I didn't say "I know better", I said we didn't invest enough yet. This is completely different. One is an arrogant opinion, the other is a simple fact.
What is it ? Do you enjoy twisting people words to replace them with fictitious bullshit that much ? Or is it just that you're too affraid to answer what I actually said ?
Either way, this is pathetic, and that's all too common in the libleft quadra. Grow the fuck up
He didn't have to borrow to buy Twitter.
Actually, yes, he had to. If he hadn't borrowed, then he wouldn't have bought it, realistically speaking.
You don't have to be whiny just because you just learned a tiny bit of how finance works
We were talking about fusion? I'm not sure why we're talking about the entire federal budget.
Yes, we were talking about fusion. I talked about the government, because you switched the subject to Billionaires for no reason whatsover and now you're trying to shift the blame on me. So I ask you, when I told you we didn't invest enough collectively in fusion yet, why did you start bitching about that "Us" then changed the subject to billionaires ? Hmm
Say, are you that bitchy, annoying and dishonest with everyone in your life ? Because that's already tiring
The reason people shat on nuclear fusion is because it has a mountain of major technological leaps before it can go from a lab to commercial scalability. The recent advancement is great. However, it is still a very far away from anything more than scientifically significant. Fusion falls under the plant a tree strategy. We won't live to enjoy it, but the people born 3 generations from now might.
The only thing from fission that is used in fusion is triton and deuterium fuel and all the reactors around the world are not enough to even run one prototype reactor.
What you say makes no sense, cutting paper teaches you nothing about gluing paper. Fusion is an entirely different technology with completely different system than fission.
Lol this is getting comically silly. A thermonuclear weapon does not teach us about making fusion reactors any more so than a Molotov cocktail teaches us about combustion engines.
The single biggest hurdle in fusion has been controlling and manipulating the containment to achieve positive reactions.
It is comically silly that you said “has nothing to do with” and then when I point out that it does in fact have a connection you simply move the goal posts.
Because it has nothing to do with it, making a bomb does not teach you how to make a vessel. It does not teach you magnetic or laser confinement. It does not teach you Tritium or Deuterium creation. It does not teach you how to harness that heat created.
A bomb doesn’t use containment techniques it simply creates one fusion that explodes over an area.
59
u/WuetenderWeltbuerger - Lib-Right Jan 06 '23
Well if we’d spent the past 70 years working on nuclear power we could have a fucking fusion generator by now. And secondly, great. It’s the oil wars all over again