When has Polywell fusion ever been tried before? It's markedly different from the Farnsworth fusor if that's what you're referring to.
Where is the "hot thing in contact with a cold thing"? There is no physical contact of this sort in Polywell fusion. Unless you're referring to the particles involved?
For the pollywell to work it need to keep electrons and ions away from thermodynamic equilibrium. Yet the ion-election interaction probability is orders of magnitude higher than fusion. So without black magic it will use more energy that it produces. It does not matter how they are confined.
Only if you permit the laws of physics to be wrong and a number of experiments to also be wrong.
Polywell doesn't violate any laws of physics that I'm aware of. The physical limits of electrostatic confinement do not apply to the Polywell fusor since it uses magnetism for the bottle.
Also most say that for next gen conventional nuclear we are looking at 10-20 years at least as well (for the experimental reactors).
Thermonuclear fusion has been failing for over 30 years now, and it will probably continue to fail for another 30 years.
As I responded to another comment in this thread, the analysis is provided in the article I linked to by Dr. Micheal Dittmar. I'm not just pulling numbers out of a hat here.
As I explained in another post, there is a good reason why the U-233 produced in a Thorium reactor does not lend itself well to weaponization. Thorium reactors do decrease proliferation risk, and this is well known.
More than that, the power scales linearly with the plant size, so there's little incentive to invest in one huge reactor over multiple small ones. Thorium reactors encourage incremental investments over huge long-term planned, and likely heavily subsidized, investments.
Molten fluoride salts are not known for safe handling.
Experience suggests otherwise. Any dangers due to fluoride salts are more than compensated by the fact that the reactor does not suffer from steam explosions or regulation complexities of a light water reactor. Furthermore, several molten salt reactors have been built and run for extended periods of time. This technology is proven.
And fusion is at least 30 years out, I guarantee you. The only promising fusion possibility is Brussard's Polywell, and if that pans out, we're talking about a whole new untested technology that will take decades to refine.
Read the article I linked. Dr. Michael Dittmar composed a series of articles analyzing the future of the nuclear industry. The conclusions are his.
And nuclear is not as economical as you claim. Only if you eliminate all externalities associated with refinement, regulation and waste disposal does nuclear appear attractive on paper. "Meltdown-proof" reactor designs, like pebble-bed or molten salt reactors would significant limit the safety costs of operating a reactor, but only Thorium can increase the efficiency of the nuclear reaction as well.
Nuclear is already expensive as it is, and mining and refining scarce Uranium sources will send the price of nuclear power through the roof.
Thorium is 4-5 times more abundant than the sum of all Uranium isotopes, ie. U-232 through to U-238, and Thorium is easily mined and refined.
Furthermore, the Thorium reaction is over 95% efficient in its use of fissile material; pure Uranium reaction efficiency is paltry by comparison, ie. the waste still contains plenty of fissile material but the mixture is no longer usable in the reactor.
There is no question that Thorium is and should be the future of nuclear fission. Its advantages are many, and its disadvantages are purely engineering challenges, and not significant ones at that.
Thorium will also produce dangerous, radioactive by products,
And Uranium produces candy canes and puppies? If Thorium really is harder to refine or weaponize than Uranium, we'd be better off switching to Thorium, so you contradict yourself.
Also, Thorium reactions do not produce plutonium. The fact that Thorium reactions do not produce weaponized by products is one of its huge advantages, above and beyond its abundance and higher efficiency as nuclear fuel when compared to Uranium.
Because we're scheduled to run out of easily mined Uranium within the next 10 years, unless the US's military stockpiles are released. Thorium is far more abundant, is safer since it can't be weaponized and it's meltdown-proof in liquid salt reactors, and more importantly, is much, much more efficient as a nuclear fuel. So I disagree with all of your points, save one: Uranium is not abundant or safe, but I grant you that Uranium is more well known; it's infamy can also be considered a problem however.
Thorium is a significant efficiency improvement over Uranium or Plutonium reactors, and this is disregarding the safety improvements inherent to a salt-based reactor. I'm not sure how you could possibly conclude it's a minor improvement.
Google improved web search. Apple with Steve Jobs improved portable music (iPod), music and video distribution (iTunes and AppleTV), mobile phones, personal computers (first computers to go all-USB, Firewire, consumer-friendly iMacs, trendy computers), and to an extent, operating systems (not that Mac OS X is revolutionary, but they open sourced it, which is unprecedented for a commercial operating system for end-users). I don't think there is a single sector of the consumer electronics or computer industry that has not been significantly affected by Steve Jobs.
Google is positioning itself for this honour in the coming decade with Android, its online apps, AppEngine, etc. but I don't think they've had as significant an effect on the end-user as Apple this past decade.
Funny and sad that these regulations meant to address the Christmas Day incident wouldn't have prevented it. He was seated, and didn't have anything in his lap. I think this goes to show you that they wanted to push these regulations through but didn't think they would be tolerated, so they were just waiting for an "incident" as an excuse.
C# let's me use anonymous types, but I can't return them from my method. How sucky is that?
Sure, it's a limitation of.NET's nominal typing, but I think you're confusing the scope of type inference with anonymous types. The link you provided was about type inference, which has little to do with anonymous types.
To be honest, C#'s type inference already falls down in simple cases. For instance, using the ?: ternary operator to choose between two types with a common base class, or when there are implicit coercions it can't resolve the type of the expression even when it's unambiguous. I don't mind specifying types on function arguments and return types, but they haven't even gotten local type inference working perfectly. Still, it's a marked improvement over previous C# versions, and definitely better than Java.
I don't see much advantage to extension properties personally. Covariance is coming in C# 4. I'm not sure what you mean by "class method return types" in regards to type inference.
That is communism and I believe you are correct, it doesn't work and it creates more problems than it solves.
Communism != Socialism
They are not the same thing. Socialism is practised at varying levels in virtually every industrialized western nation. People need to get over the propaganda they've been fed for decades. You can have socialism and still have private ownership of production, free market competition, compensation based on effort, skill and knowledge, etc.
You don't get to redefine terms at will. What you describe is not Socialism, it's Keynesian economics. Ultimately, only "public goods", like the environment, require centralized control and distribution; private and common goods are most efficiently produced and distributed by the free market. A good government is one that intervenes only to regulate public goods, and that's where public debate should stay.
Whether health care is a public good, as defined economically, is a good question. Here in Canada, we've done fairly well with universal health care, though it's not without its problems.
As for "exploitation", our standard of living is higher than ever because of the efficiency with which private goods can be produced in a capitalist economy; trying to intervene in these markets and impose regulations or "socialist" ideals impedes the efficient operation of the market and stunts the growth of our standard of living. I'm also not sure how the wealth differential is a valid ruler by which to gauge standard of living, though it is a popular rhetorical device.
In socialism the worker gains more personally from their work and that is the incentive to work harder.
Then describe it for me. What do they gain? How do they get that work? How is a shortage of one type of labour and an overabundance of another type of labour balanced? Frankly, I think any socialist system in which people are free to choose their own work to self-actualize, will suffer from a labour shortage in some sector, and so either people will be forced to work in a job they don't want to in order to compensate, or a market will develop where people will curry favour or trade commodities to get that work sooner.
In capitalism [..] the incentive is to work hard at getting out of the lame job to start your own business so you can dictate the wages of the workers and maximize your personal profit at their expense.
Ah, the old "capitalism is exploitation" chestnut. Contrary to popular opinion, many people actually enjoy their jobs and are not being "exploited".
And not everyone is cut out for entrepreneurship, so I reject your assertion that that is or should be everyone's goal. There is a trade-off between risk and safety that every person makes with their life choices.
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When has Polywell fusion ever been tried before? It's markedly different from the Farnsworth fusor if that's what you're referring to.
Where is the "hot thing in contact with a cold thing"? There is no physical contact of this sort in Polywell fusion. Unless you're referring to the particles involved?
Indeed, Brussard explained in many venues why Polywell fusion is quite different from previous ideas, and he was hardly a crackpot.
Considering the proliferation risk of Uranium is already relatively practical, we've lost nothing by switching, and potentially gained significantly.
For the pollywell to work it need to keep electrons and ions away from thermodynamic equilibrium. Yet the ion-election interaction probability is orders of magnitude higher than fusion. So without black magic it will use more energy that it produces. It does not matter how they are confined.
See the paper referenced here.
Only if you permit the laws of physics to be wrong and a number of experiments to also be wrong.
Polywell doesn't violate any laws of physics that I'm aware of. The physical limits of electrostatic confinement do not apply to the Polywell fusor since it uses magnetism for the bottle.
Also most say that for next gen conventional nuclear we are looking at 10-20 years at least as well (for the experimental reactors).
Thermonuclear fusion has been failing for over 30 years now, and it will probably continue to fail for another 30 years.
As I responded to another comment in this thread, the analysis is provided in the article I linked to by Dr. Micheal Dittmar. I'm not just pulling numbers out of a hat here.
we have a large body of knowledge in dealing with Uranium
It's not the knowledge so much as the existing infrastructure and supply chains invested in Uranium. We'd need a whole new supply chain for Thorium.
As I explained in another post, there is a good reason why the U-233 produced in a Thorium reactor does not lend itself well to weaponization. Thorium reactors do decrease proliferation risk, and this is well known.
More than that, the power scales linearly with the plant size, so there's little incentive to invest in one huge reactor over multiple small ones. Thorium reactors encourage incremental investments over huge long-term planned, and likely heavily subsidized, investments.
Molten fluoride salts are not known for safe handling.
Experience suggests otherwise. Any dangers due to fluoride salts are more than compensated by the fact that the reactor does not suffer from steam explosions or regulation complexities of a light water reactor. Furthermore, several molten salt reactors have been built and run for extended periods of time. This technology is proven.
And fusion is at least 30 years out, I guarantee you. The only promising fusion possibility is Brussard's Polywell, and if that pans out, we're talking about a whole new untested technology that will take decades to refine.
Thorium is tried and proven right now.
Read the article I linked. Dr. Michael Dittmar composed a series of articles analyzing the future of the nuclear industry. The conclusions are his.
And nuclear is not as economical as you claim. Only if you eliminate all externalities associated with refinement, regulation and waste disposal does nuclear appear attractive on paper. "Meltdown-proof" reactor designs, like pebble-bed or molten salt reactors would significant limit the safety costs of operating a reactor, but only Thorium can increase the efficiency of the nuclear reaction as well.
Nuclear is already expensive as it is, and mining and refining scarce Uranium sources will send the price of nuclear power through the roof.
Thorium is 4-5 times more abundant than the sum of all Uranium isotopes, ie. U-232 through to U-238, and Thorium is easily mined and refined.
Furthermore, the Thorium reaction is over 95% efficient in its use of fissile material; pure Uranium reaction efficiency is paltry by comparison, ie. the waste still contains plenty of fissile material but the mixture is no longer usable in the reactor.
There is no question that Thorium is and should be the future of nuclear fission. Its advantages are many, and its disadvantages are purely engineering challenges, and not significant ones at that.
The U-233 generated in a Thorium reactor is consumed in the Thorium reaction itself to sustain the reaction. It would take significant effort to extract it in a usable form. The proliferation danger is significantly lower when compared to our existing nuclear infrastructure.
By most accounts, a functional prototype reactor is 20 years away.
The designer of the molten salt Thorium reactors ran his reactor non-stop for over 10 years IIRC. This was in the 1960s. What is unproven exactly?
Extracting thorium from the ground is harder than for uranium,
Which we will run out of in 10 years.
Thorium will also produce dangerous, radioactive by products,
And Uranium produces candy canes and puppies? If Thorium really is harder to refine or weaponize than Uranium, we'd be better off switching to Thorium, so you contradict yourself.
Also, Thorium reactions do not produce plutonium. The fact that Thorium reactions do not produce weaponized by products is one of its huge advantages, above and beyond its abundance and higher efficiency as nuclear fuel when compared to Uranium.
Because we're scheduled to run out of easily mined Uranium within the next 10 years, unless the US's military stockpiles are released. Thorium is far more abundant, is safer since it can't be weaponized and it's meltdown-proof in liquid salt reactors, and more importantly, is much, much more efficient as a nuclear fuel. So I disagree with all of your points, save one: Uranium is not abundant or safe, but I grant you that Uranium is more well known; it's infamy can also be considered a problem however.
Thorium is a significant efficiency improvement over Uranium or Plutonium reactors, and this is disregarding the safety improvements inherent to a salt-based reactor. I'm not sure how you could possibly conclude it's a minor improvement.
A heavy water reactor is the anti-thesis of the salt-based Thorium reactors.
Google improved web search. Apple with Steve Jobs improved portable music (iPod), music and video distribution (iTunes and AppleTV), mobile phones, personal computers (first computers to go all-USB, Firewire, consumer-friendly iMacs, trendy computers), and to an extent, operating systems (not that Mac OS X is revolutionary, but they open sourced it, which is unprecedented for a commercial operating system for end-users). I don't think there is a single sector of the consumer electronics or computer industry that has not been significantly affected by Steve Jobs.
Google is positioning itself for this honour in the coming decade with Android, its online apps, AppEngine, etc. but I don't think they've had as significant an effect on the end-user as Apple this past decade.
Funny and sad that these regulations meant to address the Christmas Day incident wouldn't have prevented it. He was seated, and didn't have anything in his lap. I think this goes to show you that they wanted to push these regulations through but didn't think they would be tolerated, so they were just waiting for an "incident" as an excuse.
If the studies aren't convincing enough, just read up on the physics to see why cell phone radiation is not dangerous.
C# let's me use anonymous types, but I can't return them from my method. How sucky is that?
Sure, it's a limitation of .NET's nominal typing, but I think you're confusing the scope of type inference with anonymous types. The link you provided was about type inference, which has little to do with anonymous types.
To be honest, C#'s type inference already falls down in simple cases. For instance, using the ?: ternary operator to choose between two types with a common base class, or when there are implicit coercions it can't resolve the type of the expression even when it's unambiguous. I don't mind specifying types on function arguments and return types, but they haven't even gotten local type inference working perfectly. Still, it's a marked improvement over previous C# versions, and definitely better than Java.
I don't see much advantage to extension properties personally. Covariance is coming in C# 4. I'm not sure what you mean by "class method return types" in regards to type inference.
C# has plenty of problems, but you haven't identified any of the serious ones IMO.
That is communism and I believe you are correct, it doesn't work and it creates more problems than it solves.
Communism != Socialism
They are not the same thing. Socialism is practised at varying levels in virtually every industrialized western nation. People need to get over the propaganda they've been fed for decades. You can have socialism and still have private ownership of production, free market competition, compensation based on effort, skill and knowledge, etc.
You don't get to redefine terms at will. What you describe is not Socialism, it's Keynesian economics. Ultimately, only "public goods", like the environment, require centralized control and distribution; private and common goods are most efficiently produced and distributed by the free market. A good government is one that intervenes only to regulate public goods, and that's where public debate should stay.
Whether health care is a public good, as defined economically, is a good question. Here in Canada, we've done fairly well with universal health care, though it's not without its problems.
As for "exploitation", our standard of living is higher than ever because of the efficiency with which private goods can be produced in a capitalist economy; trying to intervene in these markets and impose regulations or "socialist" ideals impedes the efficient operation of the market and stunts the growth of our standard of living. I'm also not sure how the wealth differential is a valid ruler by which to gauge standard of living, though it is a popular rhetorical device.
In socialism the worker gains more personally from their work and that is the incentive to work harder.
Then describe it for me. What do they gain? How do they get that work? How is a shortage of one type of labour and an overabundance of another type of labour balanced? Frankly, I think any socialist system in which people are free to choose their own work to self-actualize, will suffer from a labour shortage in some sector, and so either people will be forced to work in a job they don't want to in order to compensate, or a market will develop where people will curry favour or trade commodities to get that work sooner.
In capitalism [..] the incentive is to work hard at getting out of the lame job to start your own business so you can dictate the wages of the workers and maximize your personal profit at their expense.
Ah, the old "capitalism is exploitation" chestnut. Contrary to popular opinion, many people actually enjoy their jobs and are not being "exploited".
And not everyone is cut out for entrepreneurship, so I reject your assertion that that is or should be everyone's goal. There is a trade-off between risk and safety that every person makes with their life choices.
I would like to think that ideas are separate from their implementations.
Depends to what extent the ideas were faithfully represented in said implementations.
and capitalism doesn't have a feedback loop to ensure a decent standard of living for people.
Neither does socialism, so capitalism is better on at least one count.