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Fusion+ may be on the cards

these things are always 10 years out from commercial development. Usually for several decades they are 10 years out...

Still want my flying car. Especially if it can be powered by Mr. Fusion. :)

But nice find - always cool to see what is happening. Somewhere recently I was reading about a fusion power plant that should actually be working well before the 10 year mark. But sadly cannot recall now where I read it.
 
@coliver, SPARC was just in the NYTimes (and probably other news outlets) at the end of September with the headline "Fusion Reactor 'Very Likely to Work""

Sort of ridiculous science by press release.
 
coliver988 said:
Still want my flying car. Especially if it can be powered by Mr. Fusion. :)
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Well, Moller was going to deliver the flying car around 1995. He is now bankrupt and only has a redesigned Wankel engine to show for 40+ years of hype.

Even viable fusion will not happen in our lifetime.

They SHOULD be putting all this $ into mass producing thorium fission reactors.
Very manageable waste and effectively unlimited fuel.
 
all of these things work great in theory and in the lab, but real world constraints tend to make them fizzle out.

However - it is only by trying and failing that we eventually figure things out. To quote Edison: I've not failed, I've found 10,000 ways that won't work. And I can't recall who said if you have not failed you are not trying hard enough.

Toyota actually sort of has a flying car going now, and I've seen a few ducted fan vehicles that have some promise. And these fusion things will eventually pan out to Mr Fusion. Just not in the timeline established in the movies.

I just remember, in kindergarten, when we went from 1969 to 1970 that this was the future! (yes, even then I liked SF). then 70s to 80s - new decade, new science! a few decade changes later, a millennial change later, and honestly, we're pretty much the same. Just remember that Bladerunner took place last November in the movies. And 2001...*sigh*

Now there are a lot of changes, but nothing (other than the huge impact of computers getting small enough to wear on your wrist - hello Dick Tracy!) is really all that different it seems.

Or I am just getting old - and get off my lawn!
 
coliver988 said:
Now there are a lot of changes, but nothing (other than the huge impact of computers getting small enough to wear on your wrist - hello Dick Tracy!) is really all that different it seems.
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No, you are correct. Only circuit miniaturization has changed. Cell phones are just walkie talkies shrunk down and networked behind the scenes. We still fly in jet planes using jet fuel. Autos are the same basic items. TV has changed to match more computerization. From 1870 - 1970 the tech advancement was HUGE. 1970 - 2020, a crawl. Getting to space is as hard as it was 50 years ago. Earthlings had more human activity in space in the 1960's than we do now. Even though not just the US & Russia are players.
 
Proneutron said:
No, you are correct. Only circuit miniaturization has changed. Cell phones are just walkie talkies shrunk down and networked behind the scenes. We still fly in jet planes using jet fuel. Autos are the same basic items. TV has changed to match more computerization. From 1870 - 1970 the tech advancement was HUGE. 1970 - 2020, a crawl. Getting to space is as hard as it was 50 years ago. Earthlings had more human activity in space in the 1960's than we do now. Even though not just the US & Russia are players.
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Space is easier now -- we land and re-use the boosters so it's a lot less expensive.

And we've had more "human activity in space" than during the 1960s, ever since the 1970s. This includes Mir, Salyut (the ones that worked), Skylab(s), and the International Space Station, plus all of the Space Shuttle flights. There was that embarrassing gap between 2011 and this year on the US end of things, though...

True, we didn't go past LEO, but we've had more people in orbit, and more in orbit at once, than at any point in the 1960s.

Jet planes still use highly-refined kerosene because it has high energy density and is relatively inexpensive and easy to handle compared to the alternatives. The main problem with aeronautical technology is that we've run into physical limits -- drag (and noise) issues near Mach 1 and metallurgical constraints somewhere above M3.2. In theory, M5-6 is possible with known exotic materials, but honestly the atmosphere is the wrong place to be when going that fast.

Cell phones aren't just walkie-talkies. They're walkie-talkies with an automated repeater network (1960s tech, yes) and data transmission capability (early 1980s), and portable computers (late 1980s). Battery technology advances enabled them to shrink from suitcase-sized (1970s) radiotelephones to brick-sized (80s-90s) to a size limited by the physical interface (touchscreen button, and display, size limits). That said, pretty much everything (except the camera) that I can do on my current phone I could do with my Handspring Treo 270 back in 2002. Today there's a better display, infinitely more storage, likewise the processor, and so on -- but I could still send emails, browse the internet (in a limited form), edit document files, do spreadsheets, play games, and listen to music back then too.

Battery tech has probably done more for cell phones than electronics, though. If your phone used 1980s-era Nickel-Cadmium cells instead of Lithium-ion, the batteries alone would weigh about a pound (0.5 kg) -- think in terms of 8 C-size cells.
 
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Grav_Moped said:
Space is easier now -- we land and re-use the boosters so it's a lot less expensive.
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Actually there are no verified numbers on that. Only promises but no verified costs based on accounting of real missions. As for the rest of the stuff, you are just verifying what I said. Existing tech + circuit miniaturization effects. I don't care how many people we sling into LEO to play inside a pressurised tin can. That was all doable in the 60's. And people aren't travelling hypersonic because we don't have the tech level to make it COST EFFECTIVE so there is no market. Has nothing to do with noise. The fish in the Pacific aren't going to complain.
 
tjoneslo said:
Why fusion power always 20 years away:
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That's false because the money is cumulative so constant funding doesn't equate to "never". Plus leveraging knowledge gained from other countries doing research over time time. Also for those numbers to be correct would require people who KNOW how to create viable fusion, know where we stand at the beginning and how long to develop that tech that they know will produce the product. No one exists who did or does know that. Hence meaningless numbers. They might as well do one of thsoe graphs for teleportation, Replicators, etc.
 
Proneutron said:
That's false because the money is cumulative so constant funding doesn't equate to "never". Plus leveraging knowledge gained from other countries doing research over time time. Also for those numbers to be correct would require people who KNOW how to create viable fusion, know where we stand at the beginning and how long to develop that tech that they know will produce the product. No one exists who did or does know that. Hence meaningless numbers. They might as well do one of thsoe graphs for teleportation, Replicators, etc.
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The point of the graph is that building a Fusion reactor, even one that doesn't work, costs 10s of millions of dollars. And you build one to figure out why it doesn't work, so you can build another one (at 10s of millions of dollars) to figure out why that one doesn't work.

And if the investments were available, continuously, to build and test the reactors, we could have had a working fusion reactor in 20 or 30 years. But instead there are a few groups scraping together money to build one at a time, every so often. And now it's 50 years later. And we're closer. But no one knows how much closer.
 
tjoneslo said:
The point of the graph is that building a Fusion reactor,
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My point is that the graph as devised is meaningless babble and thus doesn't show the reason for no fusion power now. It says in finite funding results in fusion never but MUCH LESS total funding done over a short period of time = fusion in the 90's. Understand the insanity of the assertion? I was simply pointing out facts.
 
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Proneutron said:
No, you are correct. Only circuit miniaturization has changed. Cell phones are just walkie talkies shrunk down and networked behind the scenes. We still fly in jet planes using jet fuel. Autos are the same basic items. TV has changed to match more computerization. From 1870 - 1970 the tech advancement was HUGE. 1970 - 2020, a crawl. Getting to space is as hard as it was 50 years ago. Earthlings had more human activity in space in the 1960's than we do now. Even though not just the US & Russia are players.
Click to expand...

in thinking about this, it could be that because the computer tech progressed so fast, and then it brought along the whole entertainment explosion (cable TV to internet access to even more, so we go from 500 channels and nothing good to a near infinite number of channels and still nothing good!) that most people are just happy being entertained and as previously mentioned, there is no real financial incentive for a lot of the things we dreamed about in the middle of last century. And carrying this line of thought, while interesting, would really derail this thread even more (as well as potentially go into dark places :()

However - I believe there are 2 companies (NASA not exactly a company, but Boom is and they are up to a 1 person test plane now) dealing with supersonic flight for commercial use. And re-usable tin cans in space, as mentioned, do provide a cheaper method for LEO and that will hopefully move us back into space and space industry. So I still remain optimistic that we will one day have fusion, cheap space flight, all those things I've read & still read about. Just not likely in my lifetime (though I supposed I could win a lottery ticket for a LEO trip :))

And I liked that chart as it does make some sense about the consistency of funding. Sadly funding of that sort usually requires long-term political support (and stopping there for what should be obvious reasons). But to go against Edison, I hope it does not take 10,000 failures till we get to usable fusion!

(and finally, thought it interesting as I never thought it through: the fusion process generates heat & we use that for old-school steam turbines basically. I just thought magic fusion straight to electricity. now I know, and better understand the discussions around Traveller fusion plants and heat dispersion. So thanks everyone!)
 
With air travel it would be if someone can figure how to get a passenger plane transsonic at a reasonable cost, both construction and operating.

It comes down to how fast you want or need to be somewhere.

Other than that, kinda stuck at eighty percent mach cruising.

Business jet/private narrow body going point to point, with short take off and landing, probably are an attractive niche, and then get co-opted for military applications.
 
Proneutron said:
My point is that the graph as devised is meaningless babble and thus doesn't show the reason for no fusion power now. It says in finite funding results in fusion never but MUCH LESS total funding done over a short period of time = fusion in the 90's. Understand the insanity of the assertion? I was simply pointing out facts.
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You ignore the unpleasant fact that not all of that funding actually goes to the actual research & experimentation.

The "overhead" costs of facilities to do the research/experimentation in, costs of equipment (computers, etc, etc), and so on are pretty similar per month/year whether you are doing the "max effort" or the "minimum effort".

This means that there is little if any left over for the people needed to do the research and so on with the minimum funding level, even totaling several decade's worth of funding - while there is a lot left over after the basic overhead every year with the high funding levels!

That is the reason for that "1978 funding level" line - that represents the level of funding that "keeps the lights on" but does not allow any actual work to be done.

The actual funding that has been available hasn't even done that - the facilities & equipment were sold (or never bought in the first place), and the only work being done is by borrowing people & equipment from other, better-funded work, in order to do a little theoretical fusion work "on the side".
 
Proneutron said:
Actually there are no verified numbers on that. Only promises but no verified costs based on accounting of real missions.
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Unless the refurbishment cost is close to the manufacturing cost, there must be significant savings (if it's higher, they wouldn't bother!) Whether that gets passed on to customers or claimed as profit is a separate matter.
As for the rest of the stuff, you are just verifying what I said. Existing tech + circuit miniaturization effects.
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Improved batteries weren't existing tech in the 1960s (Sony's first commercial LiPo cells hit the market in 1991). Data networking over radio (by contrast with automated switching in the repeater network) wasn't existing tech in the 1960s.
I don't care how many people we sling into LEO to play inside a pressurised tin can. That was all doable in the 60's.
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Of course it was doable in the 1960s -- at great expense, which is why we stopped doing it. For example, they cancelled the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program. We're doing it now with significantly lower space program budgets (amortization of development costs helped).
And people aren't travelling hypersonic because we don't have the tech level to make it COST EFFECTIVE so there is no market. Has nothing to do with noise. The fish in the Pacific aren't going to complain.
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Part of making it cost effective is having a large enough market among airlines to make building the aircraft a profitable endeavor. The inability to use overland routes severely restricts the potential market. Concorde basically operated JFK-LHR and JFK-CDG, with few other destinations. Add a few airports in East and Southeast Asia from LAX, SFO, and SEA and that's probably it.

There were only 14 production aircraft in the series (and six developmental ones), divided between Air France and British Airways. Original orders were for 74 aircraft; these never materialized. The BA aircraft were nominally profitable after the British government absorbed the development costs; France did not do that and their Concorde operations were never profitable.

By contrast, there are nearly 1000 Boeing 787s in use today, plus their Airbus equivalents.

In order to be cost effective, a supersonic airliner would need to be able to both command a time-sensitivity premium and increase miles per day productivity enough to outweigh its higher operating costs. The latter may be possible. The former? With modern teleconferencing (and COVID, but that's temporary) the trans-oceanic travel market will probably shrink. Additionally, the availability of satellite internet means that travelers aren't "out of the loop" while in transit, which reduces the value of shorter travel time.
 
BlackBat242 said:
You ignore the unpleasant fact that not all of that funding actually goes to the actual research & experimentation.
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No, I didn't. Do you think you are a mind reader now? I've forgotten more about gov projects & waste than you will ever know. How many times have YOU been summoned before the Ways & Means committee to testify about such expenditures in order to justify tax reductions? I think less than I have.
 
So, this process uses Erbium an element I had never heard of until now. How similar is this to Palladium?

Google-fu check: success, Erbium is a Lanthanide, Palladium is a Transition metal. Both have similar electron structures ([Xe]6s24f) vrs. [Kr]4d) if I am reading this right, the outer shell has four electrons
 
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