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  1. Re: anyone interested in using less energy? on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 1

    You can't geoengineer with less. Since we didn't solve the greenhouse gas problem properly when we had the chance, - observation

    You omit axiom. Never omit axiom.

    The first axiom is that climate is a nonlinear, noncyclic dynamic system of the sort described by Henri Poincare for climate in 1890 and discovered by Edward Lorenz in 1961.

    The second axiom is that once you have actively transitioned from one strange attractor to another, you have to actively transition back.

    The concept follows automatically and unavoidably.

    (Our chance to do anything passive lay between 1960, when we first had the means to avoid the global warming predicted in 1896, and 1998 when the environment became too degraded and positive feedback loops started kicking in. This is observation.)

  2. Re: This has been going on for quite a while... on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 2

    You'll find a lot of the technology can't be exported from America due to ITAR regulations. Doesn't matter if the U.S. is paying into ITER now, you can't retroactively install projects into a fusion facility and the workload is locked in. That was the US' doing, political whinging and mincing around in revenge for France refusing to commit illegal acts.

    Once a project is abandoned, that's it, there is no catch-up. At least, not at same cost. It would require practically rebuilding ITER and the U.S. didn't provide funds for that. Fusion research isn't like making a baking soda volcano, you can't miss bits off and come back later. You do it right or you do it over at twice the cost.

  3. Re: This has been going on for quite a while... on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 1

    Those are the figures the researchers use.

  4. Re: Things to consider on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 1

    I also spend a lot of time correcting Wikipedia. Like the Hitchhiker's Guide, it is definitively wrong.

  5. Re: This has been going on for quite a while... on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 1

    Fusion work started in the mid 1950s. We've a bit to go before 100 years.

    Yes, I agree with most of what you wrote, though MIT's recent announcement is very interesting. I'd be interested in your opinions on that.

    You're not going to model fusion precisely until the millennium prize on fluid dynamics is won. That may take a while. The question is how accurate we actually need it.

    Had ITER been fully funded, with no projects cut, would you agree we'd be closer?

    What do you make of China's 101.2 seconds of sustained fusion, should we be looking to a full scientific exchange of knowledge?

    Yes, HT superconductors are a long way off, although if the U.S. or Europe claimed the supercomputer crown and used it for such work and not weapons upgrades, it might be faster.

  6. Re:Things to consider on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 1

    Check the science press, not the conspiracy theory press. You might learn something.

  7. Re:Things to consider on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 1

    No, I will not. This has been covered many times, I've posted the links in many articles, you do your own bloody homework.

  8. Re: Things to consider on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 2

    Wikipedia is unreliable. I use silly things like research papers.

  9. Re: Oh, I should probably add on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 1

    I'll believe the U.S. government isn't involved in the continued use of technology when fossil fuel stops getting $5 trillion a year in subsidies.

  10. Re: This has been going on for quite a while... on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 2

    Total funding for fusion is $313 million per year. International cooperation is banned by the U.S.

    Total subsidies for fossil fuel are $5 trillion a year.

    If people want to complain about disproportionate funding, why is the taxpayer giving five trillion dollars to private business?

    If people want to complain about a lack of progress, get those numbers swapped round and see what happens.

  11. Re: anyone interested in using less energy? on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 1

    You can't geoengineer with less. Since we didn't solve the greenhouse gas problem properly when we had the chance, we have to use geoengineering if any life is to survive.

  12. Re: If only there was a really big fusion reactor on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 0

    Solar energy is very inefficient and the mining of the necessary rare earths for the panels and batteries produces sizeable amounts of CO2, along with deadly toxins and radioactive waste.

    The atmosphere also limits how much you can get. You need something in space, but transferring the energy back would require a tight-beam microwave laser that would disrupt the atmosphere and incinerate anything that came near. What could go wrong?

    Solar is only useful if you build a Dyson ring.

  13. Re: The Cold Fusion Cycle on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 1

    We have hot fusion. We have already succeeded in passing break-even and have managed sustained reactions of 101.2 seconds.

    That's hot fusion, right there. It's not a matter of producing hot fusion, it's a matter of producing useful amounts of it.

    There has never been a useful amount of cold fusion, or indeed any amount at all.

  14. Re: Enough with the 'clean' already! on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 1

    Fission involves lots of carbon.

    Fusion is clean because the radiation is trivial.

  15. Re: Things to consider on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 1

    $393 million a year is spend on fusion. Not exactly billions.

    October 2013, fusion scientists in Europe reached break-even. Ok, not quite a decade. 2014, the U.S. exceeds break-even.

    South Korea reached 70 seconds sustained fusion in December of 2016. 2017, China reached 101.2 seconds.

    Looks like progress to me. Fusion isn't where you thought it was. It moved on, even if you didn't. That happens. Recognize the fact and move forwards to today. No use dwelling on the past.

    Renewables aren't competing with fusion. Life has never been a race and there are no winners.

  16. Re: This has been going on for quite a while... on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 1

    Also, the U.S. pulled out of ITER, resulting in half the project being abandoned. Tends to slow things up. The U.S. banned fusion cooperation with Europe and is unlikely he working much with China either.

  17. Re: This has been going on for quite a while... on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 1

    Break-even was passed about a decade ago.

    The mini reactor that came out of MIT recently is the one to look at.

  18. Re: fusion is great, but,,, on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 1

    We can have fusion in 10-20 years, if we spent adequate money on it and scrap the bans on cooperation.

    We've technology enough to build highly reliable self-sealing piping, which means a next generation reactor using sodium wood be perfectly safe.

    Most of the problem with fission is waste. We can reprocess waste to some degree. But nothing prevents us from storing waste in the reactor. Since you have more very long-lived isotopes than short-lived or stable ones, see if you can get them to do something interesting, like become short-lived isotopes.

    Putting the waste onto the moon is safe, we're past September 13th 1999.

  19. Re: This has been going on for quite a while... on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 2

    First, funding keeps getting cut. If you halve spending, you double the time. That's what delayed renewables.

    You happen to remember which year the Salter Duck came out? Or when Einstein calculated the photoelectric effect? In the case of the Salter Duck, do you remember the scandal when it was revealed the nuclear industry had paid civil servants to falsify documents over energy costs by renewables? Or the funding cuts to renewables that followed?

    Give fusion the same money as is given to fossil fuel and scrap the ban on cooperation between Europe and America. As long as the game is rigged, the clock hasn't started.

    Second, we passed break even and sustained fusion is now running into either tens of seconds or minutes. But better than the 1980s.

  20. Re: I don't think billionaires are who we should r on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 1

    You don't get a choice. Taxpayers consistently vote to give more power to the wealthy.

    Ultimately, the only enterprise they can replace the CEO of, the only enterprise they can pressure into their agenda, is tg e enterprise they're determined to make smaller.

    Power is a function of wealth and if you're not going to work collectively to have effective power through common wealth, the rich will take power through their individual wealth. You can't arm-wrestle a gorilla.

  21. They did. Vanadium batteries (Tesla) and hydrogen storage (everyone else).

  22. Things to consider on Billionaires Are Chasing The Holy Grail of Energy: Fusion (bloombergquint.com) · · Score: 1

    1. The total money spent on fusion research since 1960 is about 1% of the annual subsidy given to fossil fuels.

    2. Break even was passed about a decade ago.

    3. The current record for sustained fusion is 22 seconds or 2 minutes, depending on whether you believe the Chinese.

    4. Mini fusion reactors which reduce the stability problem were announced a few weeks ago.

    5. Renewables had just as many problems when their funding was throttled.

  23. Re: So let's talk about it on Facebook Allowed Advertisers To Target Users Interested in 'White Genocide' (theintercept.com) · · Score: 1

    You know the movement was originally by left-wing women before being hijacked by right-wing terrorists, right?

  24. Re: So let's talk about it on Facebook Allowed Advertisers To Target Users Interested in 'White Genocide' (theintercept.com) · · Score: 1

    You mean, the people who think that if America copied the countries with lower crime, higher employment, better jobs, longer lifespans and more successful businesses?

    Or are you referring to the ancient philosophers, mathematicians, robotics and historians who essentially founded all of civilization on such beliefs?

    Yes, I can see why you might be resentful of either group.

  25. Re: So let's talk about it on Facebook Allowed Advertisers To Target Users Interested in 'White Genocide' (theintercept.com) · · Score: 1

    That's ok, white supremacists know even less.