Wait, but fusion is working. They’re seeing net positive output. It’s still quite small at the moment, but moderate gains continue to be made in the field.
We already have a perfectly good nuclear fusion reactor about 93,000,000 miles from our planet. We just need to make better use of its output.
Well seeing how you almost need the output of a Dyson swarm to make a Dyson swarm, cool glowy rock power and explodey gas power can and will work just as good. Especially for places that are far away from the ideal conditions to exploit solar energy terrestrially. Where I’m at we have to use literal piles of garbage to be able to get high enough above the trees to achieve sustainable output.
This isn’t properly calculated though. They only count the actual laser energy inside the reacttvs output. They don’t account for the huge amount of energy thatch’s needed to run the lasers in the first place or the rest of the facility. It’s nowhere near putting out more energy than it consumes and it’s also a reactor for nuclear weapons testing so they don’t really try to produce energy anyway.
You’re not wrong. It’s still an important step for the field though. Having a net positive within the reaction itself could theoretically mean eventually the energy from the reaction can help sustain the reaction after the initial higher activation energy. But with the poor state of science journalism the result was reported with extreme hyperbole.
hehe funny graphs
Haven’t we already confirmed ignition and just entered the “how do we sustain this at scale?” phase of the development?
So the thing you’ve heard about wasn’t the first “ignition” (almost certainly the wrong word, it’s not a flame) it was just the first fusion reaction that output more energy than was directly input. This is confusing to readers because there was actually a ton more energy required, but the lasers that directly impacted the material had less energy than was released, but total energy needed was much higher than was created. Also, that test was, as far as I’m aware, more suitable for a weapon style design, not a reactors that can sustain itself and create electricity. It was basically a capsule shot by a bunch of lasers, not in a reactor.
Haven’t we already confirmed ignition?
Not that I know of. You can obviously just neglect most energy costs when considering “ignition” and the proclaim you’ve achieved ignition. These may legitimately be significant advances but it doesn’t mean we’re ready to start thinking about actually sustaining fusion energy at scale.
Nuclear threats against enemy countries have been overused so much by Ruzzia being a tough-guy and more recently by Iran and Israel that they are now meaningless. When America legalized gay marriage in 2015, Iran shat a brick and fantasized about nuking us, but no nukes flew. Iran and Israel routinely threaten each other with each of their 3 warheads, but no nukes have flown. Ukraine started buying tanks, ordering F-16s and attacking Crimea, but no nukes flew. NATO recruited Finland which Ruzzia said was an attack on them, but again, no nukes flew. Ruzzia started directing its legions of keyboard warriors to salivate over Alaska, but no nukes flew. An Israeli politician fantasized about the country committing hara-kiri by nuking Gaza, but no nukes flew. Whenever someone fears that WW3 will start, I remind them of that fact.