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Mobile-Ground-2226 t1_j088e1l wrote

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

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.

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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.

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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.

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