Re:General Fusion to build demonstration plant in UK
by jabl on Thursday June 17, 2021 @03:48PM
(#27543806)
> the supply of fission materials is quite limited when you’re looking into interstellar travel etc
Yeah, sure, if we're gonna get a big spaceship to even a small fraction of light speed, that would require absolutely stupendous amounts of energy.
But lets worry about that after we avoid cooking ourselves with GHG emissions? We might or might not have enough fission fuel for large-scale interstellar travel, but certainly more than enough to get rid of fossil fuels.
> fission has a lot of very expensive requirements like 24/7/365 security
So will fusion, unfortunately, unless someone figures out aneutronic fusion, which is a much longer shot than D-T fusion most efforts are concentrating on.
I'm all for spending a lot more on fusion R&D though; the potential win is just so enormously large that it makes sense to bet some amount of resources on it, just in case it works out.
Yeah, sure, if we're gonna get a big spaceship to even a small fraction of light speed, that would require absolutely stupendous amounts of energy.
But lets worry about that after we avoid cooking ourselves with GHG emissions? We might or might not have enough fission fuel for large-scale interstellar travel, but certainly more than enough to get rid of fossil fuels.
> fission has a lot of very expensive requirements like 24/7/365 security
So will fusion, unfortunately, unless someone figures out aneutronic fusion, which is a much longer shot than D-T fusion most efforts are concentrating on.
I'm all for spending a lot more on fusion R&D though; the potential win is just so enormously large that it makes sense to bet some amount of resources on it, just in case it works out.