Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Robo-Connery OP t1_j06qymk wrote

Reply to comment by theoatmealarsonist in National Ignition Facility (NIF) announces net positive energy fusion experiment by Robo-Connery

Some of them are blowing hot air for investment reasons, some of them are just flat out scams. The remainder are simply doing very simple jobs and acting like they are reinventing the universe.

I've seen some propositions that rely on things like magnetic bottles for confinement rather than tokamak designs and they just will not ever work, we moved on from those designs 60 years ago for good reason.

More players in the game means more progress too so I'm not bothered by their presence - as long as it doesn't reduce funding for the mainstream experiments by virtue of having to necessarily criticise them in order to justify their own work.

3

Mobile-Ground-2226 t1_j088e1l wrote

But if more players are in the arena doing things that are just scams or marketing (the tech bros "out-innovating" the problem) doesn't it discredit the entire field for a while after the inevitable flop and cause a reactionary effect to funding? I saw this happen in biofuels with the algae and cellulosic fuels, it only recently started to recover, and probably mostly thanks to high oil prices and CA LCFS incentives.

1

Robo-Connery OP t1_j08d4r0 wrote

Maybe. Fusion is sometimes seen as a bit of a joke already because while experts are very realistic amongst each other at some point in the dissemination of results the headlines become inaccurate and exaggeratory.

3

Mobile-Ground-2226 t1_j08njys wrote

Yeah, but a lot of the investment crowd is discovering it for the first time. I did a summer internship at D3-D back in the '90's and people were making the 25 years away joke back then, so I'm glad there are people like you who will chat with us laypersons about ground truth.

2