this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (23 children)

Hey, at least we have actually accomplished (edit: net-positive) fusion. 10-20 years before the first commercial plant comes online, but fusion is a technology which now exists. This is extremely awesome. Honestly, I never thought I’d see it. But, it’s here, it exists, and now the distance between today and when the first power plant comes online is just a matter of scaling the tech upwards.

Full, autonomous self-driving cabs - especially from Tesla - on a massive scale… not so much.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (9 children)

Er, not really with fusion actually, unless you just mean "have made atoms fuse regardless of if it generates net energy or not" in which case we've had it for decades. We have managed net energy production if you compare the output of a very powerful laser used to compress the fuel to the energy of the resulting reaction, but crucially, the laser in question isn't perfectly efficient, and only a fraction of the electrical energy put in is turned into laser energy in the beam. This means that we still don't have net electricity production, and even once we finally get that, getting the tech efficient enough to produce enough electricity to be cost competitive will be a tough ask, especially as electricity from solar in particular has been going down in price of late.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

Yes, net-positive fusion was achieved in August of last year:

Scientists achieve net energy gain breakthrough with nuclear fusion

Obviously, this will take a decade or two to develop into a viable commercial energy source, but the barrier has been overcome with regards to net-positive fusion.

[–] n3m37h 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Its been a decade away since 80's. We should have been working on MSR and make them sustainable before getting to the next stage

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

It’s not a binary, not really.

We have achieved net-positive fusion as of last year. That’s the achievement we needed to move to the next stage, and it’s the one which was always a hopeful “maybe”. But we finally did it. It’s imperfect and needs to be refined and scaled up (another Herculean effort, to be sure), but we’ve crossed from the “is it even possible?” to the “we proved it can be done, now let’s make this into a practical technology.”

So, when scientists claim 10-20 years from now, it’s no longer hopeful speculation but a well-educated projection based on current development.

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