48 seconds. I predict a glut of helium. balloons for everyone

  • Gigan@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I’d love to see an operating fusion reactor in my lifetime. Real sci-fi technology

    • virku@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Currently reading news and communicating with people around the world from the privacy of my toilet using my hand terminal. It can also understand what I am saying and excecute my spoken commands (to some extent at least). That’s some Sci fi shit right there. Pun intended

      • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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        7 months ago

        I had this thought recently watching a video about the Apple Vision Pro. If I saw some corpo in Cyberpjnk 2077 using that exact device, I wouldn’t bat an eyelash.

        Do I want one? No. Is it from the future? Yes.

      • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        It’s seriously insane growing up on star trek and then seeing it come to life.

        Still holding out for flying cars.

        And warp drive!

        • Soggy@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I don’t want flying cars because I don’t want 95% of the people around me to be driving regular cars. Can’t even use a turn signal and now they have carte blanche to drive over houses and shit?

          The answer is mass transit. Mag-rail, not personal aviation.

    • mlg@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      really hoping ITER pulls it off or they make a new breakthrough design.

    • barsoap@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Probably going to happen. Proxima Fusion is eyeing early 2030s for a commercial prototype and those aren’t venture capital techbros, it’s a Max Planck institute spin-out. About as hard science as you can get. Wendelstein 7X has shown that the approach works, the thing exceeded all expectations (that is: It behaves exactly as computer models said it would) and scales up without nasty surprises (much unlike tokamaks) so they’re done with the tech fundamentals now it’s about engineering something cost competitive, think requirements such as replacement parts the reactor will regularly need not exceeding electricity market prices.

    • BestBouclettes@jlai.lu
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      7 months ago

      Even if it’s not commercially available in the next 10 years or so, an actual sustained fusion reaction would change the world overnight. It’s crazy how close we’re getting…

    • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
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      7 months ago

      I am quite positive I’ll see reliable, sustained fusion reactions in my lifetime.

      I’m also pretty positive it’ll be useless as an energy source. Still could be useful for other things though.

        • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
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          7 months ago

          I don’t think we’ll get to the point where the energy that comes out will be higher enough than the energy put in to justify its use compared to other energy sources.

          • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            I don’t think we’ll get to the point where the energy that comes out will be higher enough than the energy put in to justify its use compared to other energy sources.

            They also used to say Man will never fly.

            Technically, just give it time. Politically, that’s a whole other matter.

            • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
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              7 months ago

              They also used to say Man will never fly.

              Sure… I’m not saying fusion will never happen (it already does of course) or even that it’ll never be net positive for energy.

              Just that, for energy it’s looking to be worse than most other options.

              So I’m not saying man will never fly, I’m saying something closer to flying cars won’t happen. It’s not that we couldn’t do it, just that the alternatives are better.

              • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                just that the alternatives are better.

                I’m not sure how you can judge that, against something that doesn’t exist yet.

                • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
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                  7 months ago

                  I’m not sure how you can judge that, against something that doesn’t exist yet.

                  Simply based on past and current trends. The advancement curve on fusion would need to really step it up and if we say that it can, then we also need to accept the same is possible for the alternatives which means fusion still lags behind.

                  Fusion would need to be extra special somehow, and from what’s happened so far, it seems less special than the rest if anything.

                  Naturally this is all speculative of course, and being wrong on this is great either way as one way or another we will continue to get better at getting energy.