Fusion Really Is 20 Years Away

Scientists always say that fusion is 20 years away, but this time the physicist says it's for real.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• bigthink
• 5min

[kakisala]

I love how scientists like Kaku refer to themselves as 'we' despite national boundaries (refering to the reactor in France). If we are to rise to Type I civilization (see the first related video) we must get rid of nationalism and the destructive competition it breeds.

[Awesteez]

@kakisala We must get rid of nations in GENERAL. Of course, the majority of nations, hell, all of them, are not evolved as people mentally enough for this. We are still primitive in our greed and boundaries.

[iamadness69]

i thought we would have to extract Helium isotops from the moon soil to be able to create a form of nuclear fusion that doesnt get too hot and that requires less energy to trigger

[khunderwood50]

1:32 he said doo doo lol

[DRAT311]

@mutley2209 Go back and read the link I sent you. "Swathes of land" is silly. All your power can be offset by a panel on your roof. Do you desperately need your roof space for something more important? Solar is here now and will be cheaper than grid electricity by 2018. Fusion is hypothetical. Why spend more on coal, gas, oil for no reason because you're waiting for a hypothetical tech that's at least 20 years away?

[max19731978]

@HomesteadScientific i just found out «the best way» to concentrate deuterium, i think it is a catastrophic water consuption. Your thoughs on that? youtube .com/ watch?v=fyK6kPi8k78&feature=ch­annel

[mutley2209]

@DRAT311 you're missing my point, why on earth would we build swathes of panels using up vast amounts of land which not every country can afford us for such means (in both space and land value) as opposed to building these reactors which will far out strip the energy production at far less cost? It would make no sense to build fields up fields of panels when one reactor would do a better job using the most abundant resources in the universe to create a reaction, so it's cheap to

[mutley2209]

@DRAT311 Solar power would be a part of a broad approach towards tackling the energy crisis but at it's core the only way for us to continue to consume the amount of energy we use today is nuclear fusion. It would provide clean abundant energy that far outweigh's the potential of any other energy source and it is that which we need a combined effort towards. Why spend the money, time and use the land to build acres of panels when one reactor would produce more energy for less? That's the point

[mutley2209]

@DRAT311 there's two goals,first to achieve what you are describing and then to achieve what Cox was describing, however his number show that even if you were to scale the numbers down and apply it on a national basis for the US solar panels cannot produce enough energy to make any serious headway into it's energy needs, nor would it be possible to build enough in any 'game changing' amount of time, on an individual basis it makes a difference nationally it would be small part of a grand scheme

[DRAT311]

@mutley2209 Don't have enough land mass? You couldn't be more wrong. We only need to capture .0002 of the suns energy to meet 100% of the worlds energy needs. All you have to do is look at people in the southeast who have solar solutions that produce more power than they use and those solutions fit on their roof. The only limit is how fast we can produce panels. blogsDOTscientificamericanDOTc­om/guest-blog /2011/03/16/smaller-cheaper-fa­ster- does-moores-law-apply-to-solar­-cells/ (remove spaces

[DRAT311]

@mutley2209 Whether or not it's possible to build enough panels to meet the arbitrarily decided upon goal of supplying 5kw of power to everyone in the world has no bearing on whether or not it's possible for people in the U.S. to build enough panels to transition to a primarily solar based system and save money doing it. I'm trying to solve a practical problem. Cox was trying to create a utopia by bringing abundant power to everyone in the world despite the fact that they have no $ to buy it.