This is a decent fusion energy state of the art overview

[lapfog_1]

Fusion has been "quiet" for a few years now... sort of.

The narrator claims (with some support) that fusion energy (commercial) is maybe 12 to 17 years away... and now has private sector money pushing it.

We are in a race between changing the planet to unsustainable for humans and development of cheap non polluting energy (the planet will be fine, even with climate change... with new species evolving to replace the current extinction event, it's just that it won't be fine for people).

Fission isn't the answer and hasn't been... the byproducts are truly nasty and the mining of the fuel source is destructive as well.

I won't even discuss "clean coal" or other fossil fuels.

Solar and Wind and others will continue to make progress but the energy density from the production source is one of the big issues with both solar and wind. That and the energy produced is, at best, unreliable which requires some sort of energy storage facility. There is a lot of research and private dollars chasing this physics problem as well... but so far storing a lot of energy for on demand usage remains out of reach for grid scale. Not to mention that the current high density energy storage systems also use materials and battery structures that are neither cheap nor safe.

So it's a race between climate change ( and we will still need efforts to reduce green house gases in the atmosphere ) and commercial fusion power. Just my opinion...

[hunter]

1. Oh Lord have Mercy I hope not!

Imagine fusion powered mining machines the size of small cities destroying everything in their path as they poop out iPhones and electric cars and concrete...

Imagine huge fusion powered container ships stuffed with a cornucopia of disposable consumer goods.

Fusion powered humanity would eat the entire planet.

The nice thing about our 21st century fossil fueled high energy industrial consumer economy is that the infection will be self-limiting. In a million years or so nothing is left of humanity but a peculiar layer of trash in the geological record. Diverse ecosystems will be reestablishing themselves.

On a smaller scale of concern, fusion power isn't significantly cleaner than fission. In most proposed fusion reactors 80% of the energy is released as high energy neutrons which tend to turn anything they touch into a hot radioactive mess.

Personally, I think the only good reason to oppose fission power plants is that they work. A fission powered high energy industrial consumer economy is possible, most especially with fuel cycles that include "depleted" uranium, thorium, weapons plutonium, and the lightly used nuclear fuel misnamed "waste" from existing nuclear power plants.

The fundamental problem of our current world economy isn't any lack of "clean" sources of energy, it's that this thing we now call economic "productivity" is actually a measure of the damage we are doing to whatever is left of the earth's natural environment and our own human spirit.

If I'm ever cursed with the knowledge of clean cheap commercially viable fusion energy I'll keep it to myself, thank you. I wouldn't want to be remembered as a destroyer of worlds.

[Igel]

2. I was excited about fusion energy when I was in middle school.

At the time, they said it was only 30 years away.

That was 1972.

In 1980 it was also only 30 years away.

And in 1990 it was only 30 years away.

It's good to know that in 2018, 46 years after 1970s, it's only 12-17 years away.

Perhaps in 2050 it'll only be 5 years away.

They've made progress, to be sure, but their track record as technological prophets leaves something to be desired. Like, um, accuracy.

[lapfog_1]

3. I don't think they really appreciated the technological challenges

of creating a "star in a jar"

Fission was simply much easier to commercialize... all you need was to put enough radioactive material together and fissionable to sustain a "ping pong ball in a room of mouse traps with ping pong balls" to make a commercially viable power production.

Fusion is much much more difficult.

and as was mentioned in the video... yes, fusion was the power source that has always been 30 years away... no matter when in the last 60 or 70 years you asked the question. That said, they have been solving the problems of both sustained fusion and power out > power in (needed for anything other than a research reactor).

Burning fossil fuels is simply no longer sustainable, we must stop. We aren't going back to the dark ages (unless we ride the planet over the edge of no return an suffer a population collapse that kills 90 to 99 percent of humans). And for that, we will need a new energy source. And, as NNadir has pointed out with post after post (some of which I disagree with), we aren't going to do it with renewables.

So it's either fusion or something else nobody has thought of... and the chances we will suddenly think of a solution of an energy creating technology like matter-antimatter reaction and commercialize it in the next decade or so is absolutely zero... imho.

The planet is burning up... the poles are, in fact, melting, Forests close to one half of the size of the state of Rhode Island are burning in California right now... and that doesn't include the rest of the west or Europe or Siberia or... the list goes on.

I don't even know if we have 15 more years left before the environment flips to a new stable point... and the risk that we can no longer grow enough food to feed more than 20% of the planet.

And while there are many people who think "good, lets get rid of 6 billion out of our 7 billion"... my reaction is the same "you first and do you want your relatives to go with you?"

[hunter]

4. The other option is a low energy, non-consumer, high technology society.

A place where 99% of the people don't need or want cars, and have plenty of free time to explore this world at 50 kilometers per hour or less.

A place where women are empowered and everyone practices birth control.

A place where no one is hungry or homeless.

A place where everyone is literate and numerate.

A place where anyone can grow effective pharmaceuticals in their own garden.

Etc.

We don't need more energy, we need more thoughtfulness, we need to think about what truly makes us as humans happy.