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Metalytiq OP t1_j06n9b8 wrote

Data Source: "A Brief History of U.S. Funding of Fusion Energy", Rachel Margraf, March 27, 2021 (http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2021/ph241/margraf1/)

U.S. Department of Energy - Fusion Energy Services Program Narrative, June 6, 2021 (https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2021-06/04%20FES%20Program%20Narrative%206_16_21.pdf)

Tool: Tableau

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Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that US scientists for the first time successfully produced more energy from a nuclear fusion experiment than the laser energy used to power it. This is a major scientific breakthrough that will lead to a new source of clean, carbon zero energy. This achievement is the result of decades of hard work from scientists all over the world and several billions of dollars. The U.S. government has been funding fusion energy programs since 1954, enacting hundreds of millions of dollars every year to reach a goal of net zero energy. This chart follows the year over year funding from the U.S. government to fusion energy programs, along with the contributions made to the international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject (ITER).

It has taken 68 years and $18.8 billion ($35.8 billion when adjusted for inflation) to reach this historic milestone that will be sure to change the world as we know it.

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[deleted] t1_j06onf9 wrote

>This is a major scientific breakthrough that will lead to a new source of clean, carbon zero energy.

That's a pretty damn speculative argument passed off as fact. We are still nowhere close to an actual power plant. It's also wildly immaculate to imply the experiment in question produce more energy than it consumed because in reality it consumed 100x as much as it produced.

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LeviathanPC t1_j080plz wrote

Ya OP didn't word that well. IIRC the laser put around 2MJ on target and the resulting fusion yield about 3MJ, so if NIFs laser was more efficient than what OP said would be accurate. But in actuality it took the NIF laser something like 200-300MJ for that shot. But when you consider that NIF is getting relatively old and that it's a research center so efficency wasn't at the forefront of design it's not unreasonable to see where this could hopefully lead.

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[deleted] t1_j086dhe wrote

Your lasers would need to be 100x as efficient and your reaction 100x more powerful to be a useful energy return..

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LeviathanPC t1_j08848l wrote

But is that impossible, I don't think so. I'm not going to say we're 10 years away from it being viable because we've been 10 years away for the past 50 years. But look at how fast every other technology evolves, this is literally the beginning for where it all starts coming together. I'd bet people alive today will see fusion energy become a reality.

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[deleted] t1_j08bmmz wrote

>But look at how fast every other technology evolves

See, that right there is the fundamental error all of you guys are making. That's not how progress works at all. Most of the time progress is painstakingly slow and its actually slower now than almost any time since the start of the industrial revolution. When a new technological front opens up you do indeed get rapid progress, but after 15 years or so progress slows to a crawl again. At the rate fusion research is going it will take 100+ years to actually reach a point it could reach a real net gain end to end. And even if it does so what? The cost in terms of steel, concrete, etc is going to be astronomically high regardless.

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urmomaisjabbathehutt t1_j07f226 wrote

I an amazed, 2021 nasa budget if the internet doesn't lie to me was 25b

Imho the money spent in both space and fusion is worthy but this gives an idea of how little is 35b adjusted for inflation spent in fusion spanning 68 years compared to another endeavours

one wonders what fusion would achieve if they did a Manhattan project of it or sacrifice money as they did like at the beginning of the space exploration and moon landings

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Eldan985 t1_j0767i9 wrote

Carbon neutral is a very difficult word. Think of, for example, how much concrete you need for nuclear plants, and presumably for fusion plants too, once we have them.

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