Originally posted by ArtificialGlory
I’d be absolutely overjoyed if we had a working fusion reactor prototype that actually produced substantial net energy within 5 years. But even that sounds optimistic at this point.
Talked a few times with Dr. Montgomery from the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He said the biggest limiting factor is not how hard it is to "make a breakthrough" and have magical energy producing nuclear fusion. It's just a money issue.
That's really it. When you have a backlog of 1000s of tests to do but each test is very expensive, and each test helps you march forward towards a viable solution, it's going to take a while without the personnel, facilities, and money.
This is literally a problem you can throw money at and it will be resolved. Throw $100 billion annually at this and you'll see a viable, "to-market" solution in 10 years or less. But no one country is willing to thrown down that much money to make it happen.
I say end all of our foreign wars, close down all foreign bases, use $100 billion of that for energy research, and use $100 billion of that for NASA. Balance the budget with the remaining $100 billion saved.
Originally posted by Bentley
I'm all for fusion energy. If someone in France hears me saying this allow they'll butcher me though 👆
I believe I've posted on KMC about this before. Thorium reactors are a legit solution that just throwing money at it would also bring a viable product to market, too. Nevermind, this is the only thing I said about Thorium:
Originally posted by dadudemon
Probably the stupidest name that could have been thought of by a 5 year old is Thorium. Named after Thor cause some scientist dude thought Thor was awesome.