Companies say they're closing in on nuclear fusion as an energy source. Will it work?
Companies say they're closing in on nuclear fusion as an energy source. Will it work?
For decades, government scientists have toiled away trying to make nuclear fusion work. Will commercial companies sprint to the finish?
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They have been 'closing in' for 60 years.
Most highly sought-after technologies 'take time', and develop in an iterative fashion called 'successive approximation'.
Heckling from the sidelines is what is known as 'being unhelpful'.
I am not 'heckling from the sideline' to the ppl working on it. I am just 'heckling from the sideline' the media for trying to generate clicks with such headlines.
It would have been achieved by now if it had more than just token amounts of funding.
You're completely missing the point. Yeah, this stuff takes time, and it will continue to take time. The point is, this article saying we're "closing in on it" is clickbait garbage that's just as useful as the one a decade ago saying we are "closing in on it", and a decade before that.
So you're unimpressed with what's been going on at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory? Where they've induced a fusion reaction for a net energy gain? And repeated with better results?
Were we achieving net energy gain a decade ago? The decade before that?
Is net energy gain the goal? If so, does repeatable demonstration of the phenomena mean that we are closing in on it, or does it mean that we are moving further away from it?
So you're unimpressed with what's been going on at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory? Where they've induced a fusion reaction for a net energy gain? And repeated with better results?
It is not intruduced either. Maybe the model they want to deliver next year will be net positiv. But no not at the moment.
The company has already built six generations of devices, showing steady improvement. Kirtley says he believes the next machine, known as Polaris, will be able to produce more electricity than it requires — a crucial milestone known as "break even." Polaris, which is under construction in the next warehouse over, is expected to begin operation in 2024. Kirtley believes that they will prove they can extract electrical power from the device by the end of next year, though it's not clear whether the power out will exceed the power in.
Just 10 more years!
I have been hearing this since the mid-80s.