Further steps to fusion being made this year - could this be the answer?

Question

A report - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7117774/Worlds-most-powerful-laser-to-trigger-fusion-reaction-this-year.html - notes that further steps will be taken this year towards nuclear fusion and essentially limitless clean energy.

Although it will be years before such technology becomes workable and then put into practice, does this offer the real possibility of limitless clean energy for the future?

And will Jevons paradox cease to be a problem if it does (if it ever was a problem)?
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Answer 1

Fusion is the ultimate answer, but I have doubts that a machine of this type will be it. Not because it can't achieve net gain (I believe it can), but because the fuel pellets the NIF machine uses are impractical (deuterium and tritium, surrounded by uranium and gold -- and this is supposed to be cheap?). If I had to bet, I would put my money on a less complex design, such as the Dense Plasma Focus at LPP.

http://www.focusfusion.org



The Jevons paradox will remain in place regardless. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, as it increases the value of civilization. See, for example, this very interesting paper on the impact of the Jevons paradox on the physics of civilization as a whole, and specifically on how that relates to climate change:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/9476j57g1t07vhn2/fulltext.pdf

Answer 2

Fusion could be a real solution but I wouldn't expect much for about 40 years. Somehow I think the warmists / environmentalists will find something they don't like about it and try to ban it like they have everything else.



Edit: I am not sure what Andrew is referring to with the copper. If the technology were perfected so that it could be used in smaller reacters much like present nuclear reactors, his comments wouldn't make any sense to me. Just because most of Africa, for example, doesn't have air conditioning now, is there some crime against humanity that they might have it in a hundred years?

Answer 3

Could be, but it isn't on the table right now.

Andrew makes a revealing point - he wants the people of the World to remain limited by muscle and animal power. That is called subsistence, barely surviving in absolute poverty, without any of the necessities of civilisation. I recommend he tries living the way he wants us to live for say 6 months, and see if he changes his mind before he dies. No way would be survive 6 months in a grass hut in Ghana trying to scratch together enough food to survive each day.

To suggest that the people of Africa are happy being poor and wouldn't know what to do with cheap electricity is stunning in it's contempt for other human beings.

Answer 4

Your presumption that electricity generated by fusion will solve the world's energy is staggering in both its stupidity and arrogance.



1. Stupidity: Most people of the world use only their own or their animal's muscles for all their power needs. An abundance of electricity will do them no good whatsoever, no infrastructure to be able to use such power exists, to create it would require massive exploitation of the earth's resources, indeed is there enough copper in the world to "cable up" the nine-tenths of the planet which does not at the moment use electricity.



2. Arrogance: really the other side of the same coin. Not everyone lives in an air-conditioned house, again most of the world wouldn't know electricity if it came and bit them on the bum.

Answer 5

Possibly. But fusion is always "50 years away". And "limitless" nuclear power has been a longstanding promise since the 1950s, unfulfilled so far.



It's worth working on, it's not worth putting all our faith in.

Answer 6

When fusion works it will be great.



I won't be holding my breath for practical fusion power anytime soon.



We'll be hearing about positive steps toward it for a long time!