Re:The E-Cat has been replicated?
by drjesusphd on Thursday February 25, 2016 @07:12AM
(#11173887)
> But to me it doesn't look appreciably closer to practicality than cold fusion
The figure of merit is Q, the fusion gain per input energy. For cold fusion, this figure is infintessimal; for lasers I think it's about 0.001; Tokamaks have reached Q=0.7. Not to mention, theoretical break-even ("effective Q">1) was achieved in Japan, but they do not have access to Tritium, which is the only reason it wasn't "real" breakeven.
Since your dad was a teenager, fusion efficiency has outpaced Moore's law for microelectronics. Real progress is being made.
Dad is pushing 80. Entire scientific careers have come and gone funded by many billions in public money. My definition of success is fusion powering my toaster. That's the one that was putched all those years ago and when he and then I were kids. Not getting funded or a paper accepted.
Moore's law lives behind a touch screen in my pocket doing useful work...or less useful work such as this comment.
My point isn't that practical fusion power is a scam. But to me it doesn't look appreciably closer to practicality than cold fusion and a whole lot more money has been spent on it [which as a metric of grift is probably among the better ones]. Which is to say that my point is that what constitutes a scam is in the eye of the beholder. We celebrate Charles Babbage.