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points by jmyeet 3 days ago | 0 comments

I've heard every counterargument a million times at this point. And they fall into one of two buckets:

1. Stars do it. Yes. But stars also have size and gravity, something no nuclear plant will ever have; and

2. "People once said X was impossible" ie the Galileo Gambit. Just because Galileo was mocked for his heliocentric model but was later proven right does not mean everything is possible.

Thing is, I'm not even talking about physics. I'm talking about engineering. Something not only has to be possible but it has to be technically viable and sufficiently cheap. Put it this way: would you pay $60 billion for a 1GW power reactor with a lifespan of 30 years and an annual maintenance cost of $2B? Even if the fuel was completely free the wholesale cost per MWh would be ~$600. Nobody would build that.

Fusion research has been going on for decades and the best we've done thus far is fire a laser for about a second to induce a fusion reaction and also spend billions building magnets to try and contain a turbulent fluid at 100 million degrees, which, again, will do nothing about the neutrons that will destroy that vessel.

The joke is that fusion is always 50 years away and always will be. If you're an optimist it's always 30 years away and always will be.

[–] kulahan 2 days ago

I’m just glad we finally, today for some reason, have the ability to determine what will and won’t ever be possible with physics. It’s also crazy to me that we know fusion so thoroughly we cannot reliably perform it but we know it’s possible to do but we also know it’s impossible to do for extended periods.

You should inform nuclear physicists and engineers of your new-to-mankind knowledge.

Did you know we once argued over whether or not to close the patent office because “everything had already been invented”? This isn’t the Galileo concept, it’s recognizing we’ve only been doing global hard science as a species for like 50 years.