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How Close Are We, Really, To Nuclear Fusion?
StartsWithABang writes: The ultimate dream when it comes to clean, green, safe, abundant energy is nuclear fusion. The same process that powers the core of the Sun could also power everything on Earth millions of times over, if only we could figure out how to reach that breakeven point. Right now, we have three different candidates for doing so: inertial confinement, magnetic confinement, and magnetized target fusion. Recent advances have all three looking promising in various ways, making one wonder why we don't spend more resources towards achieving the holy grail of energy.
30 years. Didn't you get the memo? It came out 40 years ago.
I would say roughly 1 AU, but it varies with the elliptical orbit of the earth.
year() +10;
No problem disposing of the fusion by-products; just fuse H + H to make He, He + H to make Li then fuse Li + Li to create a non-fossil source of Carbon then burn it. Its the clean coal technology we've been hearing so much about.
Nullius in verba
That would be silly. Just fuse 2H to form He, and sell the He for party balloons.
Or dirigibles. That would also work.
Or just vent the He. It will outgas from the planet soon enough.
Will
about 8.3 light-minutes
"snow on the pannels" - this truly sounds like an insurmountable problem. No amount of billion$ or effort could hope to resolve this.
Good thing snow doesn't fall on the roads or cars or we'd be living like Eskimos for "more than half the year".
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Manganese--A dialect of Japanese only used in comics.