Hey fizziks folks! Fusion power, yay or nay?

[Guynemer]

http://www.longnow.org/seminars/02010/jun/16/clean-fusion-power-decade/

Long story short, this fellow claims we can have clean fusion power plants operating within a decade.

How full of crap is he, and why?

[KrazyHorse]

Giant lol smilie, basically

[Kuciwalker]

if fusion power were possible someone would have already invented it

[Al B. Sure!]

The guy seems very credible but his research is federally funded so of course he wants to increase the importance of the work at the National Ignition Facility by making fusion seem imminent. That's how he gets paid.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

if there was no WWII there would never have been regular nuclear power either... so for fusion I think we need WWIII

[Al B. Sure!]

if there was no WWII there would never have been regular nuclear power either... so for fusion I think we need WWIII

What makes you think nuclear power was contingent on WWII happening? Hell, if Germany didn't go all lebensraum, they might have developed nuclear power in the 1940's. The atom was split before WWII broke out.

[Guynemer]

Giant lol smilie, basically

That part I figured out, but why specifically?

[Al B. Sure!]

Not enough economic incentive.

(note, I know nothing of the physics involved but the technology is only half the battle towards fussion power. I at least know that)

[OneFootInTheGrave]

exactly, there was a whole lot of focused effort during WWII for the bomb... if it never happened, it would not have been done so soon or on a similar scale, who would do it, private enerprise? The governments would be more interested in other activities, like building roads, power plants, drilling for oil than spending billions on some exotic tech which only green tree huggin psycho sci-fi lefties would be interested in...

[Al B. Sure!]

exactly, there was a whole lot of focused effort during WWII for the bomb... if it never happened, it would not have been done so soon or on a similar scale, who would do it, private enerprise? The governments would be more interested in other activities, like building roads, power plants, drilling for oil than spending billions on some exotic tech which only green tree huggin psycho sci-fi lefties would be interested in...

Especially since you said power plants... Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" speech? The reason why it took until the 1950's for nuclear power plants to be operational was because only the government had access to the research until the 1950's. It was all classified. There was definitely a strong movement to use it for power which was curtailed because of the necessities of war and the more obvious and easier use of the technology for warfare. WW2 doesn't break out and who knows what could have happened? It might have been developed purely for power in a more peaceful setting (not to mention that the research and tech would likely not have been classified in a peaceful world)

[Krill]

if fusion power were possible someone would have already invented it

God already has. It's called the sun.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Especially since you said power plants... Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" speech? The reason why it took until the 1950's for nuclear power plants to be operational was because only the government had access to the research until the 1950's. It was all classified. There was definitely a strong movement to use it for power which was curtailed because of the necessities of war and the more obvious and easier use of the technology for warfare.

yes, but the catalyst for all that was war... without it it would be all far and out of reach... decades away without proper spending which would have been directed elswhere in hypothetical peaceful 1940's

[Al B. Sure!]

yes, but the catalyst for all that was war... without it it would be all far and out of reach... decades away without proper spending which would have been directed elswhere in hypothetical peaceful 1940's

The first reactor was made in the US in 1942. True, the US was in the war at that point but the first strides were being made not in a bomb context.

[Kuciwalker]

God already has. It's called the sun.

****, out-lawyered

[Kuciwalker]

also you could have said h-bombs