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If Fusion Is the Answer, We Need To Do It Quickly
Lasrick writes: Yale's Jason Parisi makes a compelling case for fusion power, and explains why fusion is cleaner, safer, and doesn't provide opportunities for nuclear smuggling and proliferation. The only downside will be the transition period, when there are both fission and fusion plants available and the small amount of "booster" elements (tritium and deuterium) found in fusion power could provide would-be proliferators what they need to boost the yield of fission bombs: "The period during which both fission and fusion plants coexist could be dangerous, however. Just a few grams of deuterium and tritium are needed to increase the yield of a fission bomb, in a process known as 'boosting.'" Details about current research into fusion power and an exploration of relative costs make fusion power seem like the answer to a civilization trying to get away from fossil fuels.
What a load of bull. Only in the core of the Sun does fusion actually occur. The temperature at the core is 15 million Kelvin and the central density is 160,000 kg/m^3. That is an energy density fucking orders of magnitude about decomposing manure. The numbers you get are by averaging over the entire Sun, which is irrelevant, because only a tiny central region of the Sun is hot enough for fusion.
10+ years on Slashdot and in the past few years it has really been taken over by amateurs. Every hard physics / astronomy article is filled with nonsense patently FALSE comments modded up to +4. Our collective intelligence has been decreasing, friends.
Please know what you are doing before you mod up an incorrect article... a simple Wikipedia peek will fix it for you folks.