Less a breakthrough, more “science is slow and incremental and big advances rarely happen all at once”; Japan have bought their JT-60SA Tokamak fusion reactor back online after spending the last few years upgrading it - it’s nowhere near able to produce electricity, but will provide important data that will be used to guide the experiments that will be performed at IETR, the much larger Tokamak that the EU is building that is much closer to being a viable power generator.
I don’t think this is not getting attention, I’ve had to defend this project on three different platforms from morons that think money spent on nuclear fusion is waste and should go to only renewables. Then one guy spent 7 comment long chain arguing why biochar is the best options and solar and wind can suck ass.
Idk, “people who argue about different energy generation methods on the internet” isn’t exactly a representative sample of the general population.
I like talking about ITER because it’s a really clear example of how, most of the time, big discoveries and innovations don’t just magically happen cos one genius sat down and came up with a thing - with a few exceptions, science hasn’t worked like that for most of the last century - innovations happen because of the accumulation of effort by hundreds of people over years.
Viable fusion energy has been “about 10 years away” since the 70s, and that’s not because noone has been working on it, it’s because it’s hard, and it’s more work than one group could achieve in a whole career. It takes serious sustained investment on the scale that only governments can stomach - imagine if Musk had poured his billions into fusion research rather than lighting it on fire to try and make people like him - and there is very little chance that that investment will ever directly turn a profit, but indirectly the gains to be made for societies are gigantic.
Less a breakthrough, more “science is slow and incremental and big advances rarely happen all at once”; Japan have bought their JT-60SA Tokamak fusion reactor back online after spending the last few years upgrading it - it’s nowhere near able to produce electricity, but will provide important data that will be used to guide the experiments that will be performed at IETR, the much larger Tokamak that the EU is building that is much closer to being a viable power generator.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/04/jt_60sa_tokamak_online/
I don’t think this is not getting attention, I’ve had to defend this project on three different platforms from morons that think money spent on nuclear fusion is waste and should go to only renewables. Then one guy spent 7 comment long chain arguing why biochar is the best options and solar and wind can suck ass.
Idk, “people who argue about different energy generation methods on the internet” isn’t exactly a representative sample of the general population.
I like talking about ITER because it’s a really clear example of how, most of the time, big discoveries and innovations don’t just magically happen cos one genius sat down and came up with a thing - with a few exceptions, science hasn’t worked like that for most of the last century - innovations happen because of the accumulation of effort by hundreds of people over years.
Viable fusion energy has been “about 10 years away” since the 70s, and that’s not because noone has been working on it, it’s because it’s hard, and it’s more work than one group could achieve in a whole career. It takes serious sustained investment on the scale that only governments can stomach - imagine if Musk had poured his billions into fusion research rather than lighting it on fire to try and make people like him - and there is very little chance that that investment will ever directly turn a profit, but indirectly the gains to be made for societies are gigantic.