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A Step Closer To Cheap Nuclear Fusion
ewsnow writes "The Focus Fusion Society reports that the scientists and engineers at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics have finally built an operational Dense Plasma Focus device. While still at less than half power, they were able to achieve a pinch on their device. The small company that Eric Lerner started recently gathered enough funding to start a two-year study on the validity of his theory regarding fusion-inducing plasmoids. If the theory holds, the device will produce more electricity than it consumes. In contrast to the billions of dollars spent on Tokamak fusion (think ITER), LPP is conducting their research on a budget around a million dollars. Yet, if it works, it will provide nuclear fusion with much simpler equipment and much less cost. Eric Lerner and Focus Fusion have been discussed on Slashdot before."
Agreed. Every joker who builds a farnsworth fusor in his basement thinks he is going to be producing commercial power some time next year, and when they make a noise about this, and idiots with money buy into their promises of more for less, it can take funding from genuine research. When you are doing something that is inherently slow, costly, and prone to overruns, you've constantly got some bullshit artist nipping at your heels claiming they can do the same for less money, in less time, with big fucking bells and whistles on.
I'm involved in a cubesat project, and we recently had to explain why we were spending 100k on a launch when some random jokers on the internet with new-age mysticism and off-the-shelf amateur rocket motors claimed to be able to do the same for 10k "some time next year".
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
nonsense. The public is afraid because of two reactor accidents; the first one was caused in large part because the reactor in question was little more advanced than the graphite/uranium pile we used in the 40's and that the reactor's safety mechanisms and proper procedure were ignored by a quota happy communist state. The second was contained. The incident at three mile island was also caused by ignoring the safety mechanisms in the reactor *again*. You want an example of an industry with a checkered past? Try Coal for once. The number of people killed mining coal and all the mercury, uranium and thorium release not to mention that it's fraking up our atmosphere and climate with excess CO2 and you're worried about nuclear energy? Where the only problems with nuclear power involved two incidents with 30 and 40 year old reactor designs where even then didn't come close to the kill score that coal has. Not even an order of magnitude.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Your model omits some readily available data that would seem relevant. Population growth among non-immigrants of advanced, wealthy nations such as the US, Japan and parts of western Europe has plateaued at or below replacement. The "western" world has, despite an abundance or food, energy and space (in the case of North America,) tamed its population growth. This has occurred without coercive government control of breeding behavior.
Apparently there are more factors involved in the growth curve than Malthusians such as yourself choose to allow. It is certain that our international governance is equally blind; the next global treaty on the environment that acknowledges this success and, heaven forbid, incorporates population growth into its protocol bean counting will be the first.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
Good call. The energy price spike in 2007-2008 caused a global food crisis; modern agriculture provides food as a function of how much energy is put into each unit area of land, so there is much more at stake than whether you can have incandescent light bulbs and leave your TV on standby.
Even if low-energy agriculture could somehow feed the world, that isn't our only problem. China and India have shrugged off imperialism, modernised their economies, and thats 2.5 billion people demanding western-level lifestyles and we don't have the political clout (nor the moral right) to say no to them. With our current energy sources, the planet simply can't handle it though.
Produce more energy. Promote gender equality (which reduces fertility rates to sustainable levels, without Chinese-style draconian population control methods). A better world is a higher energy one.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Produce more energy. Promote gender equality (which reduces fertility rates to sustainable levels, without Chinese-style draconian population control methods).
And educate, for the love of God, educate!!!
weinersmith