Speaking of wasting money …

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Expand view Topic review: Speaking of wasting money …

Re: Speaking of wasting money …

by BeAChooser » Mon Mar 11, 2024 2:35 am

Here’s an interesting claim …

https://phys.org/news/2024-03-high-temp ... ready.html
Tests show high-temperature superconducting magnets are ready for fusion

… snip …

The successful test of the magnet, says Hitachi America Professor of Engineering Dennis Whyte, who recently stepped down as director of the PSFC, was "the most important thing, in my opinion, in the last 30 years of fusion research."

Before the Sept. 5 demonstration, the best-available superconducting magnets were powerful enough to potentially achieve fusion energy—but only at sizes and costs that could never be practical or economically viable. Then, when the tests showed the practicality of such a strong magnet at a greatly reduced size, "overnight, it basically changed the cost per watt of a fusion reactor by a factor of almost 40 in one day," Whyte says.

"Now fusion has a chance," Whyte adds. Tokamaks, the most widely used design for experimental fusion devices, "have a chance, in my opinion, of being economical because you've got a quantum change in your ability, with the known confinement physics rules, about being able to greatly reduce the size and the cost of objects that would make fusion possible."
Now think about that statement. He's claiming that only now does tokamak fusion have a chance because the cost per watt predicted for a fusion reactor before this discover was a factor of 40 higher! Yet, 50 years ago they were promising viable commercial fusion power plants in 30 years. And 30 years ago they were promising the same thing. And 10 years ago they were still promising the same thing. So if it’s taken the discovery of new magnets to reduce the cost a factor of fusion power by a factor of 40 just to give fusion “a chance”, doesn’t that mean the people 50, 30 and 10 years ago all must have been lying to the public about the cost of fusion power back then? But as I recall, there was NEVER any suggestion that the cost of fusion per watt was going to be a factor of 40 greater than what they are now claiming ... to just have a chance. So it seems to me that either all previous proponents of Tokamak fusion have lied to us over the years or Whyte is lying now. It has to be one or the other.

Re: Speaking of wasting money …

by BeAChooser » Tue Mar 05, 2024 6:50 pm

BeAChooser wrote: Tue Mar 05, 2024 5:35 am I’m not going to bother countering the simplest and faulty argument
Make that simplistic.

Re: Speaking of wasting money …

by BeAChooser » Tue Mar 05, 2024 5:35 am

Eric Lerner has a new video out, trying to sell his fusion effort …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0b5bKxHTnY

First he puts up a chart comparing the rate of mortality decline and the rate of energy increase since 1960, pointing out that the both follow the same general trend, slowing from about 3.5% per year in 1960 to about -0.5% per year in 2020. In other words, he presents a chart showing how much mortality has been declining per year compared to how much available energy has been growing per year over that timeframe.

The chart is basically an S shape tipped over ... with a steep drop from 1960 to 1980, then a leveling off (at between 0.5-1.0% per year) between 1980 and 2010, then another steep drop from 2010 to 2020. As he puts it, both curves have now “collapsed.” Hence, “Humanity Is In Crisis” and must act.

He says to escape the crisis, we need to triple energy growth and return to the growth of the 1960s. But that’s not the only thing we must do, he says. He claims we can’t do that with fossil fuels to which I say GARBAGE in the near term … the next 50 years or so. There is no urgency to go to fusion on this basis. The current, proven, economically viable reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas are as follows: Gas - 49 years, Oil - 57 years, Coal - 139 years. Proven reserves are a subset of producible reserves.

And except for coal (because we haven’t been looking for more of it recently) those reserves have been steadily growing larger. In fact, from 1980 to 2015, both oil and gas proven reserves have more than doubled, despite increasing consumption. In fact, from 2020 to 2021, US proven reserves of crude oil climbed about 15% and natural gas reserves climbed 30%. And we’ve barely touched the energy available in methane hydrates, shale oil and tar sands.

Furthermore, understand that the alarmists have been predicting we’d run out of fossil fuels in the next 50 years for over 50 years. As this article (https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen ... 36aed72bbe) points out, “Peak oil, a hypothetical point when global oil production maximizes and enters an irreversible decline, has been the holy grail of resource economics for decades: prized and just as elusive. … snip … When this author was about 10 (more than 50 years ago), his father, an oil and gas Ph.D. geologist, told him that we will run out of oil, as all major fields have been already discovered.”

Yet, we still haven’t yet reached Peak Oil. According to the article, “Norwegian state-owned oil company Equinor and energy researcher Rystad Energy predict a peak around 2028 owing to low investments in oil supply and increasingly efficient competition from renewable energy projects.” But that’s not an oil in ground supply problem … that’s us not spending the money to find and produce it, and the influence of competition with other currently available energy sources. And the article says “A recent OPEC outlook report estimated steadily increasing demand, which would result in peak oil in approximately 2040”, even farther in the future. And “according to BP,” British Petroleum, “peak oil [will] not hit until 2050 based on known oil resources with the application of today’s technology.” But by then known oil reserves will have grown some more and today’s technology will be yesterdays.

So to claim there’s an urgency to shift to fusion based on diminishing fossil fuel reserves is a dishonest argument, no different than claiming there’s an urgency based on CO2 induced global warming. Or an urgency to find out what Dark Matter is given there's not use for DM right now.

Lerner next claims that 7 million people a year are dying from pollution due to fossil fuels. He doesn’t supply a source for this, but claims that global deaths per trillion kWh from Coal, Gas, Oil and Biomass (burning wood) is 164,000 per year. Well, this source (https://ourworldindata.org/energy-produ ... onsumption) states that the current energy produced from those sources is 145 TWh. Since a trillion is a tera, it seems to me that we have to divide 145 trillion by (164,000 times 1000) to find the total number of deaths from pollution per year. I get about 900,000 a year.

Now, of course, leftist sources like the professors at Harvard recently claimed that 8 million people die a year from fossil fuel pollution (see https://seas.harvard.edu/news/2021/02/d ... ly-thought) but I’m not sure I believe their methodology. For one thing, their goal is not truth but to justify draconian actions to prevent the lie of CO2 induce global warming (aka climate change).

Other mainstream (leftist) sources (https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ple-a-year) claim that 8 million people are dying worldwide from air pollution, about 5 million of which are linked to fossil fuel use. This figure comes from the Cop28 climate summit, making it automatically suspect as well.

But then there’s this study from 2021 (https://source.wustl.edu/2021/06/new-re ... ombustion/), which concludes that about one million deaths were attributable to the burning of fossil fuels in 2017 worldwide. Half of those deaths were attributed to use of coal.

And this mainstream article from 2022 (https://fortune.com/2022/10/26/fossil-f ... dy-lancet/) cites a study whose co-author, Dr Renee Salas, is a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, that finds the air pollution from burning coal, oil and gas causes about 1.2 million deaths a year worldwide. It says “the 1.2 million figure is based on ‘immense scientific evidence,’ Harvard’s Salas said.” Now isn’t it remarkable that just two years later Harvard is now claiming 8 million deaths a year?

You see why I don’t trust Lerner's number of supposed deaths from fossil fuels?

But ok, say we get fusion and IF it replaces all these fossil fuel sources around the world, it will save a million or more lives a year. BUT … the transition to fusion has to be done carefully (in other words, don’t cut off use of fossil fuels too early … or not just millions may die each year, but far, far more than that. Because the world right now, is still largely dependent on fossil fuels to provide heat, light, transportation, food, etc. And right now the powers that be are unwisely eliminating fossil fuel production of energy long before fusion will be available, replacing it with MUCH, MUCH more expensive energy, which as far as those without means is concerned, is not replacing it at all. Maybe the increases in mortality world wide are largely due to that now?

In any case, Lerner then gets to his third reason we need fusion now. That the cost of fossil fuels is a major drag on the world’s economy …. “$5 trillion per year, equal to half the global manufacturing output.” But this is another bogus claim and excuse. First, in 2024, numerous sources state that global manufacturing output is over $15 trillion per year, not $10 trillion. So it’s only a third of the world’s economy.

Second, the cost of fossil fuel has been artificially raised (more than doubled in the past two decades as a result of bogus AGWalarmist legislation and regulations, whose purpose is to drive people away from fossil fuels to further the AGWalarmist agenda and to increase control over the public. At the same time, the substitute fuels that the AGWalarmists encouraged have all been massively subsidized by the government, thus hiding their true cost. Where those true costs are finally being factored in … as in the EV market, for example … the substitutes are failing to stand on their own, costing companies billions.

Third, this source (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -this-year) states that in 2022 energy costs are set to reach 13% of Global GDP. Viewed from that perspective (since many of the world’s biggest economies are service, not manufacturing, economies), that doesn’t seem too exorbitant a percent. And that number includes not just fossil fuels but all sources of energy. By considering only manufacturing, Lerner is biasing conclusions.

And then Lerner gets to the biggest bugaboo of all … AGWalarmism. I’m not going to bother countering the simplest and faulty argument he gives since it’s been debunked a thousand ways from Sunday by numerous experts … and because EVERY prediction made by AGWalarmists over the years has failed … as miserably as the predictions of mainstream astrophysicists. It’s sad to see Lerner buy into a lie like that just to help sell his fusion efforts. He’s fear mongering and I don’t like it, even if I do agree with much of what he’s argued about cosmology over the years.

Re: Speaking of wasting money …

by BeAChooser » Fri Mar 01, 2024 6:51 pm

Yet another player in this race makes it’s name known …

https://www.power-technology.com/news/t ... e/?cf-view
Type One Energy Group has announced plans to build a prototype stellarator nuclear fusion reactor at the TVA’s Bull Run Fossil Plant site in Clinton, Tennessee. The company could start construction of the fusion reactor, known as Infinity One, as early as 2025.
After all, perhaps there’s money to be made? And what’s Type One’s amazing idea? A stellarator. They’ve been around for decades although the technology is a lot less mature than that of tokamaks. They are a very complicated piece of engineering … in fact some experts has stated that “stellarators are too complicated.” The largest one in existence is Germany’s Wendelstein 7-X, first completed in 2015 (took about 15 years to build) and it's still undergoing costly upgrades. So far, that experiment has cost well over a BILLION dollars to build and run over the years. And achieved what? I will say this, however. Stellarators are at least helix shaped. Wonder where they got the idea to do that? ;)

Now Type One Energy claims it “will build the world’s most advanced stellarator at TVA’s Bull Run Fossil Plant. This prototype, Infinity One, will not only confirm the design and operation of our subsequent Fusion Pilot Plant, but will also become an excellent platform for a potential long-term national fusion research facility.” No miracles needed, they say (https://typeoneenergy.com/our-technology/). LOL!

Well one miracle they’re going to need is how to produce the tritium that stellarators need to function … just like tokamaks. How do you fit a breeding blanket into the tight, twisted confines of a stellarator? Even the tokamak folks don’t have this comfortably figured out yet and they’ve been working on it for a long time. The bottom line is that it’s premature to be talking about building a demo power plant with a stellarator. It’s the same sort of promises that ITER made … and look where that’s got them ... people looking into using stellarators instead. Just saying …

Re: Speaking of wasting money …

by BeAChooser » Tue Feb 27, 2024 10:46 pm

Here is a lesson in how they'll waste YOUR money and the REAL agenda of our government … CONTROL:

https://www.eenews.net/articles/intelle ... n-program/
The moonshot U.S. program to accelerate fusion energy has struggled to get started, held up by disputes over the federal government’s control of scientific discoveries by startup companies, according to several people familiar with negotiations.

Intellectual property rights have been at the center of months of talks between the Department of Energy and eight fusion technology companies vying for multimillion-dollar federal grants. DOE selected the participants in its “milestone” program last May on the condition that a company meet engineering and scientific benchmarks on the way to designing a pilot fusion reactor.

But after nine months, no technology investment agreements have been announced, and the Biden administration is approaching two years since it rolled out its vision for developing fusion power.
As usual, when the government gets involved in something, it takes longer and costs more to produce ANYTHING of real value.
Backed by rare bipartisan support in Congress, the administration aims to accelerate progress toward building one or more pilot reactors in the 2030s. The goal is to show that the technical challenges of delivering fusion power at a commercial scale can be overcome.
Remember, the excuse for all of this is AGWalarmism, a bogus worry pushed by the UNIPARTY to further their agenda of CONTROL.
Sources close to the program said a delay of months isn’t significant since commercial fusion power is likely decades away. But they said it’s notable that DOE and fusion-tech companies are struggling to find common ground on the government’s right to own or share rights to fusion breakthroughs, and that could affect future development.
In other words, they are fighting over who gets the CONTROL and naturally the current government doesn't want to give that up.
A DOE spokesperson declined to discuss the agency’s position on federal rights to fusion discoveries. But leaders in the nascent fusion industry say the ability to own intellectual property and benefit from any commercial success is critical.
Yes, it’s critical … if you want to live in a free, capitalist, market driven society. But that doesn’t appear to be the goal of those running the government right now. Their goal is simply CONTROL.
Protecting U.S.-funded fusion secrets is part of the challenge. Congress is putting pressure is on the department to lead the way in fusion development. Both the Energy Act of 2020 and the CHIPS and Sciences Act of 2022 stressed the priority. Further, members of Congress say they fear that China could win the race to dominate the science and technology through its own well-funded push to build a large-scale fusion prototype by 2035.
This excuse is a joke given the fact that those currently in control of the government GAVE AWAY what a bi-partisan committee in Congress (the Cox Committee) called the “Crown Jewels” of American technology back in the late 1990s. The only reason there is a technology race going on with China at all is that they gave the Communist Chinese what had formerly been restricted super computer, manufacturing, space and nuclear technologies. So don’t believe a thing these same people worry about now. They aren’t really worried about it.
Fusion reactor research initially was based on collaboration, not competition. … snip … That cooperative spirit had shifted by 2020 as U.S.-China competition for technological supremacy became a top priority for the Trump administration and leaders of both parties in Congress.
Again, don’t be deceived. Only one party seeks technological supremacy, the Trump Party. The UNIPARTY does not since it gave away our Crown Jewels to the Communist Chinese … and STILL is doing so, if you look closely at what is happening.
Government support for fusion developers falls far behind the private sector’s contribution. The association counted 43 active fusion companies, 25 of them in the U.S., which have raised nearly $6 billion in private funding from individuals, venture capital groups and state-backed funds.

Governments’ backing totals just $271 million.
I say GOOD. Keep the government out of this because there is no surer way to waste OUR money on it. If it’s privately funded, at least those who put up the money will reap the rewards for doing so. Or take the losses.
Going from demonstration reactors to utility-scale fusion plants that can produce reliable and affordable electricity requires more scientific breakthroughs and engineering solutions on an Olympian scale.
The phrase “Olympian scale” is an admission that they are not nearly as close to commericial fusion as their many press announcements claim.
The cost of a utility-scale fusion pilot plant could exceed $5 billion, industry leaders say.
So figure $10 billion is the real cost per plant, if they’re even possible at all.
Longview Fusion, for example, is led by Edward Moses and Valerie Roberts, both former leaders of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s ignition facility. Equipped with a bank of powerful lasers designed to test nuclear weapons, the lab made headlines in December by producing the first fusion reaction that generated more electricity than the reaction consumed.
You know this is all hype the moment they mention the LLNL experiment because that technology isn’t even applicable. It was a gimmick to keep the money flowing to LLNL whose primary job is building nuclear weapons.
The reaction was triggered when laser beams struck a tiny target containing the hydrogen isotope fuel in a test that took an entire day to accomplish. Moses and Roberts explained that to make this process commercial, their reactor will have to repeat the ignition process continuously 15 times a second.
They are masters of understatement, when it suits the agenda. It will take a lot more than just that!
Key to that success is the scientific and engineering knowledge and patents they possess that will help them simplify and automate the process, dramatically lowering costs, they said. Their goal is electricity from fusion in 10 years at $50 per megawatt-hour.
Talk about an empty pipe dream. Here’s a more realistic estimate of what fusion electricity will cost (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 1523000964 ) … “We find energy costs for early designs may be more than $150/MWh.” Another article from 2021 (https://www.nucnet.org/news/capital-cos ... -10-4-2021 ) says “capital costs for the development of a new generation of nuclear fusion reactors are high at around £100/MWh [$127/MWh] but a substantial programme of standard build could bring them down to a viable target of £60-£70/MWh [$76-89 MWh']".

And here’s the biggest kicker of all …
“Fusion has to be relevant and arrive on time to impact the energy transition,” he added. “If there isn’t a first-of-a-kind pilot up and running by at least by the mid- to late 2030s, there’s a risk it will miss the boat.”
The boat for what? The non-existent climate crisis?

AGWalarmism, AI and Fusion join hands in the scam ...

by BeAChooser » Mon Feb 26, 2024 6:05 pm

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nucl ... 00756.html
AI solves nuclear fusion puzzle for near-limitless clean energy
This is mainstream media keeping the mainstream's GRIFT alive.
A team from Princeton University in the US figured out a way to use an AI model to predict and prevent instabilities with plasma during fusion reactions.

... snip ...

The latest success means another significant obstacle has been passed, with the AI capable of recognising plasma instabilities 300 milliseconds before they happen – enough time to make modifications to keep the plasma under control.
Oh, really?
“By learning from past experiments, rather than incorporating information from physics-based models, the AI COULD develop a final control policy that supported a stable, high-powered plasma regime in real time, at a real reactor,” said research leader Egemen Kolemen, who works as a physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory where the breakthrough was made.
Notice the word "COULD"?

In other words, they haven't actually solved this. It's just more of the HYPE that grows on trees in the modern world.

And notice that the promoters of AGWalarmism, fusion and AI have now all banded together to convince folks to keep shelling out unheard of amounts of tax dollars to their causes. AI and fusion are needed to solve the bogus global warming problem. AI promoters say that they need fusion if they are going to be able to power their AI. And now the fusion promoters are claiming AI will finally allow them to do what 50 years of EXTREMELY expensive research hasn't achieved.

But it's all promises, promises, promises based on a foundation of lies. So don't believe it till you actually see it. And understand this ... before you see it they will spend uncountable more billions of your hard earned money on their agendas without asking if you want what they're building or not. And their real agendas are about CONTROl, folks. Controlling YOU. Mark my words.

Now for a bit of satire ...

by BeAChooser » Wed Feb 21, 2024 9:42 pm

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/02/20/ ... nvest-now/
Monckton Announces a Sustainable-Energy Startup: Invest Now!
:lol:

Re: Speaking of wasting money …

by BeAChooser » Thu Feb 08, 2024 2:30 am

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... n-as-2040/
A commercial nuclear fusion reactor will potentially be operating in Britain as soon as the early 2040s, according to an engineer overseeing the UK’s latest scheme to realise the dream of limitless clean power.
“Scheme” is a good way to putting it.
Mr Methven said: “Our new STEP project will ensure the UK retains its global lead in fusion research. At best we could have a viable technology by the early 2040s and a commercial plant could follow quite quickly after that.”
So the title says "WILL". The first paragraph says "WILL POTENTIALLY". Then the 4th paragraph says "AT BEST" with "A COMMERICAL PLANT COULD FOLLOW QUITE QUICKLY AFTER THAT. As you can see, the longer the article goes on, the less positive the prediction seems.

The article also admit that Britain has given up on ITER and then quotes Methven admitting that their “scheme” will cost an unknown “billions of pounds”, lamenting that “it’s very hard to do accurate cost estimates of unique projects stretching over decades like this one.” But in the end he guesses “TENS of billions of pounds.” Which probably means as much as ITER has already spent?

And finally Methven says it’s all because of climate change … in other words, IT'S BASED ON A LIE. Just saying …

Re: Speaking of wasting money …

by BeAChooser » Tue Feb 06, 2024 11:35 pm

https://news.yahoo.com/fusion-facility- ... 13700.html
Fusion Facility Generates Twice the Power Put Into It
First, the title of this article is a LIE. The amount of energy needed to run this experiment is FAR MORE than the amount of energy produced.

Second, this is old news … just a confirmation of what they already told us. It’s being hyped again just to keep the National Ignition Facility and all those who depend on it for their livelihood in the news and seemingly relevant.

Third, laser fusion is not a viable way of producing commercial fusion. This is nothing but a dog and pony show to justify the massive amount of money being spent at the NIF, whose purpose is to build better nuclear weapons, not power America.

Re: Speaking of wasting money …

by BeAChooser » Wed Jan 31, 2024 7:26 pm

Here's an article (https://physicsworld.com/a/ambrogio-fas ... ion-plant/) that points out that when ITER was started, the plan was to build it, do experiments, then use what was learned from those experiments to build a demonstration fusion power plant. It was tacit admission that they didn’t know enough about plasma and the fusion process to move direction to the goal of power plants.

Scores of billions of dollars has been spent on ITER so far and more will be spent. The projected costs have risen dramatically and the project has been significantly delayed by errors. Even so, up till now, Europe was willing to wait until ITER is operational before designing and building a demonstration reactor that produces electricity. That was again a tacit admission that they didn’t know enough to do so.

But now, because of the hysteria surrounding global warming, even Europe seems to have decided that ITER, though too big to fail (so work and spending will continue on it), will be completed too late to save us from global warming. Even they feel they can’t wait till the research that ITER was supposed to do is complete before building a demonstration power plant.

So the new head of Europe’s effort, Ambrogio Fasoli, just announced that “If we want to develop DEMO by the middle of the century, we have to proceed as much as possible parallel to ITER, rather than following the current sequential approach that fully depends on ITER milestones.” He still says that “ITER is a crucial project for fusion research” but then claims that “we have already learned so much from the project that we don’t need to wait to apply these lessons elsewhere.” I call that disingenuous.

He claims that “We can prepare a design that can accommodate possible different arrangements of the plasma” and that simulations and data from JET will be enough to build a workable demonstration plant. I call that sheer hopium, especially since the article then acknowledges that “Fasoli says that Europe should now work on ‘solutions’ that are HIGH RISK.” It says “[t]his approach would be similar to the way that private fusion firms are operating with ‘a sense of urgency’. But understand this ... the only reason they are doing that is because of the lie of global warming.

And how big is that lie? How costly is that lie going to be? Even without considering the waste of premature fusion spending, Epoch Times (https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/t ... icj23jo%3D) just put out a great article that shows the premise behind the Climate Change urgency is a huge lie and that cost of that lie will soon be in the TENS of trillions of dollars EVERY YEAR!

We live in VERY foolish times, folks. Just saying …

Re: Speaking of wasting money …

by BeAChooser » Sat Jan 27, 2024 7:36 pm

Hinkley Point C was supposed to be a groundbreaking fission power plant project (largest in the world) involving both the UK and France, but it’s running into trouble. In 2007, project leaders said that by Christmas in 2017, turkeys would be cooked using electricity from the power plant. In 2016 when it was finally given approval, its cost was estimated to be 18 billion pounds. They are now admitting that the cost of the plant will be over 35 billion pounds ($44 billion dollars) in 2015 dollars (meaning its real cost is now about $57 billion dollars). And it won’t be finished until 2031. The leadership assure the public that the project is “well past the halfway mark” and “many risks are now behind us”.

Here’s my question. If the mainstream can’t even build an relatively simple and quite ordinary nuclear power plant (which we know a lot about doing) without huge cost overruns and delays, why should anyone believe they’re already humongous cost estimates and rosy schedule predictions for commercial fusion power plants … a technology that hasn’t even been born yet? People who do are fools.

Re: Speaking of wasting money …

by BeAChooser » Tue Jan 16, 2024 4:47 am

https://www.space.com/when-will-we-achieve-fusion-power
We've been 'close' to achieving fusion power for 50 years. When will it actually happen?
Good question! Here’s the author’s answer …
I can't say for certain when, if ever, we'll achieve sustainable fusion power. But here are my odds, constructed entirely unscientifically: a 10% chance in the next 20 years, a 50% chance in the next century, a 30% chance within the next 100 years after that, and a 10% chance of it never happening.
The rational he gives is that “Fusion power is what I like to call a generational, or  century-level, challenge.”

Well, folks … that doesn’t seem very promising to me. Yet, leftist controlled governments around the world have plans to spend literally TRILLIONS of dollars developing and building commercial fusion reactors in the next 30-50 years because they say the threat of global warming is that serious. So I'd ask the author ... is that just going to be money wasted by government … on a scale never seen before?

Now Paul Sutter, the author of this article, is an astrophysicist/science communicator for whom I have little respect (read these: http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum3/phpB ... tter#p6332 and http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum3/phpB ... tter#p8807 ). He believes in all sorts of gnomes.

He laments that “fusion research has been relegated to the same priority as most other lines of research, which means it will take roughly a century to come to fruition.” I hardly think that the 100 BILLION dollars or so that’s been spent on fusion research since the 50s is evidence of the same priority as other lines of research. And currently fusion is not a low priority at all. Every major country is spending billions to achieve it.

And then, surprisingly, Sutter says, “But that's OK. We'll take our time with this, we'll get it right, and it will be worth it.” Take our time? That’s a very odd thing for someone who is a declared, hardcore, AGWalarmist (read this: https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/26/opinions ... index.html) to say. Me thinks he speaks with forked tongue.

Re: Speaking of wasting money …

by BeAChooser » Sun Jan 07, 2024 7:27 pm

I’m watching this one with interest …

https://news.webindia123.com/news/Artic ... 56361.html
Helion considered a frontrunner in the race to develop cost-effective commercial fusion power, plans to be the first company globally to achieve the significant milestone of producing electricity from its prototype Polaris reactor by mid-2024.

This involves demonstrating a sustained, net-energy fusion reaction, where the energy generated exceeds the energy required to initiate the reaction--a critical goal for any fusion energy developer.
The reason is as I said earlier … Helion’s approach is in line with the notions of EU. Their device doesn’t try to maintain a stable fusion reaction like a tokamak or stellarator. And it doesn’t remove the heat from the plasma with a heat exchanger and turbines to convert steam to electricity. Instead, pulsed magnetic fields accelerate plasma into a burn chamber where the plasma fuses. The plasma expands, then magnetic coils in the walls of the reactor generate electricity from this moving plasma. The process is then repeated over and over and over, much like a diesel engine operates. If they can they deliver on the 2024 promise, it will be stunning!

Re: Speaking of wasting money …

by BeAChooser » Sat Dec 23, 2023 7:15 am

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/nucl ... 68625.html
Nuclear fusion enters ‘new era’ after major breakthrough for near-limitless clean energy

... snip ...

The lab used the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to fire 192 laser beams at a frozen pellet of isotopes held within a diamond capsule suspended in a gold cylinder.
Like I said, the MSM is really hyping this news. Diamond and gold? Be sure to invest in futures! :D

But notice that nowhere in the article do they tell you the cost of the facility and each test. (I told you that earlier (it's a LOT!). They admit they only created enough energy to boil a kettle, but are hopeful that "scaling up this proof-of-concept could herald a 'new era' of energy." Never mind how hard that will be ... or how long it will take. Apparently, Nature and the Independent are not interested in giving the reader a balanced perspective on this issue. No, they are only interested in selling you on the idea of spending BILLIONS and BILLIONS more ... of your money ... to pursue this chimera. And of course they toss in the bogus Climate Change ogre to scare you into willingly parting with you money. Oh ... and did they mention in the article that each pellet of fuel they use costs more than a million dollar? To boil a teakettle of water? No ... because that doesn't serve their agenda.

Re: Speaking of wasting money …

by BeAChooser » Thu Dec 21, 2023 8:10 am

The mainstream media is again busy making the public believe the controlled commercial fusion is near at hand. They’ve already published loads of articles about LLNL’s latest annoucement ... that for the first time, they created a fusion reaction that produced more energy than it consumed. But gee, didn’t they already announce that months ago to great fanfare? Why yes they did with the head of the DOE basking in the limelight … pointing to a glorious future with fusion pumping out oodles of electricity ... before they found they couldn't reproduce the result. But ok, I’ll grant that this time, after spending billions and billions of dollars on this over decade, they actually did figure out how to repeatedly zap tiny, tiny capsules of fuel and release more energy than imparted to the capsule by 192 very expensive lasers. So here we are being bombarded again by MSM article carrying promises of fusion power plants on the horizon now. A new era is at hand!

But ... how to get there using laser fusion? You see, they may be hyping this as leading to commercial fusion but the purpose of LLNL is to build weapons. In fact, this (https://www.llnl.gov/article/49576/igni ... ip-mission ) admits as much, saying that “the primary mission and driving goal behind the experiment that day [Dec 5th) was ]stockpile stewardship science." "A big part of our science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program is making sure we have experimental access to methods for weapons testing that allow us to test our calculations, check our simulations, develop our intuition, and test the understanding we have from the nuclear tests we did during the underground testing era,” said Mark Herrmann, program director for Weapon Physics and Design at LLNL. … snip … “From the stockpile stewardship perspective, reaching ignition is a real testament to the enabling capabilities that help us assure the safety, reliability and resilience of our nuclear arsenal,” Berzak Hopkins said. “And from an energy standpoint, this demonstration of proof-of-principle is groundbreaking. Coupling those two together, it's an inspirational moment, as it opens the door for an entirely new experimental capability that will now be enabled at NIF.”

But at least some people see the truth. This article (https://www.wired.com/story/the-real-fu ... ades-away/ ) cites Mark Cappelli, a physicist at Stanford University. The article says “he cautions that those pinning hopes on fusion as an abundant, carbon-free, and waste-free power source in the near future may be left waiting. The difference, he says, is in how scientists define breakeven. Today, the NIF researchers said they got as much energy out as their laser fired at the experiment—a massive, long-awaited achievement. But the problem is that the energy in those lasers represents a tiny fraction of the total power involved in firing up the lasers. By that measure, NIF is getting way less than it’s putting in. ‘That type of breakeven is way, way, way, way down the road,’ Cappelli says. ‘That’s decades down the road. Maybe even a half-century down the road.’" The article also quotes Mark Jacobson, an energy researcher at Stanford. He concurs. “Despite today’s announcement, fusion is neither commercial nor close to commercial, so it is still vaporware.”

But don’t worry, folks, the powers that be will keep spending billions and billions of YOUR money promising that commercial fusion power plants are only years away. Just like they keep doing in pursuit of another chimera ... dark matter.

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