Fusion research and PR spin

[CloudWatcher]

I'm a fan of fusion research, but their PR claims are dangerously close to outright lies. The many assertions of being close to 'more energy out than in' does not include the total energy of the system, but only of the plasma directly involved in the fusion reaction. We're nowhere close to getting enough "energy out" to make a power plant.

Sabine Hossenfelder has a new video on the subject, well worth the time.

[exboyfil]

1. Dr. Hossenfelder has some excellent videos

She has reinforced what I have thought about fusion for a very long time. It is a science project that might give us a better understanding of fusion and solar evolution, but it is not a practical solution to our technological issues. It is far off and does not justify the current spend. There are more mature technologies that we know how to do that are closer. The problem is that it is sold as a near term solution to obtain funding ($65B in the case of ITER).

[CloudWatcher]

2. Dr. Hossenfelder fan club

Dr. Hossenfelder is a rare combination of someone that actually knows the physics and is willing to speak truth-to-power. She's also not a big fan of building a next-generation CERN with their currently overstated promises of what it should/could/might find.

Personally I'd like to see science budgets dramatically increased, but also hold them accountable to telling the truth when they go up for funding.

[cstanleytech]

4. No offense meant but I hope you do not mind if I hope that you and others that think

it will never work are proven to be just as wrong as the people that thought men would never learn to fly.
Granted fusion does not seem to be heading in that direction but i kind of wish it would as it would be a nice alternative to have on hand for providing power.

[NNadir]

7. She did not say "it will never work." What she said...

...is that it is very far from practicality as a power plant.

I've been attending PPPL (Princeton Plasma Physics Lab) lectures for many years, well over a decade, in the Science on Saturday series, which in most years features two or three talks by PPPL scientists or Princeton Physicists on the possibility of fusion energy.

Thus I understand completely what she is saying, and agree with her comments about where we are. I also agree that the research is a worthy enterprise, but we are a long way, a very long way, from a practical power plant connected to the grid.

We already have practical fission devices, which are cleaner and more sustainable than any other form of currently available energy.

Fusion energy will not be available in any time frame to address climate change. Fission is available and has been, without a doubt, the most powerful tool in use in reducing the rising intensity of climatic destruction. It has not been allowed to arrest climatic destruction because of appeals to fear and ignorance similar to the appeals to fear and ignorance that has prevented the elimination of Covid-19.

[airplaneman]

3. Nuclear fusion and affordable nuclear fusion power are two very different worlds

I don't believe affordable nuclear fusion power is in our cards.
-Airplane

[Duppers]

6. Exactly! Mission statement from CERN...

says nothing about fusion power but is about discovery:

"Our mission is to: provide a unique range of particle accelerator facilities that enable research at the forefront of human knowledge. perform world-class research in fundamental physics." And "to crack some of the mysteries of nature at the most fundamental level.”

[PoliticAverse]

5. Former fusion scientist on why we won't have fusion power by 2040

[hunter]

8. That big fusion reactor in the sky gets similar PR spin.

It's all good... for the fossil fuel industry.

[Igel]

9. In this case the article

makes a disappointing claim.

We hear about how we're closer and closer to getting out at least the energy we put into fusion.

She points out that ignores a whole lot of energy that we commit to making the entire thing work, and that the "the energy we put into fusion" in all the claims is a minute portion of the actual energy consumed.

Disinformation is more about what's left out than what's included.