Nuclear Fusion As An Energy Source.

[Atheist]

Do any ABers think that nuclear fusion as a viable source of clean energy is achievable within the next, say, 20 years?

[sunny-dave]

It would be good if the current advances can lead to a viable commercial product - but fusion power has always been "twenty years into the future" - and may well stay there.

[JimF]

The "twenty years in the future" also applies to other promised innovations, specifically quantum computing.

Fusion, though, would essentially render all other sources of energy obsolete and would be essentially infinite.

[DTCwordfan]

how to 'can the flash in the pan' - possible perhaps. certainly last week was a breakthrough....

[Atheist]

DTC, it's certainly a slow slog, but not inherently unachievable, I'm sure. I just hope we manage to do it in time.

[Canary42]

I remember all the fuss in the Press about Zeta in the late Fifties. Then later on we learnt about the downside at places like Windscale, Six Mile Island, and Chernobyl.

I wonder if there's a downside to fusion.

[Atheist]

Canary; it's not the same in terms of fallout (i.e. the 'exhaust fumes') but the high temperatures do sound scary.
But, I do suspect that we are under surveillance by other life-forms and they presumably would have managed to solve the issues that we have, so I hope that we can do the same.

[Old_Geezer]

I think that these days breakthroughs can happen at any time. But moving from the prototype to an approved commercially working version would likely take decades in itself.

[Hopkirk]

I learnt about fusion in physics at school and it was about 10 to 20 years away. I'm now in my sixties and it is about 10 to 20 years away.

[jim360]

What we learn from Hopkirk's post is that people are bad at predicting how fast things will take to become viable. Nevertheless, viable fusion tech today is much closer than it was a decade ago. It's better not to guess *how* close, but if the funding and resources are made available, then it will happen. It's an engineering challenge at this point, rather than a question of whether it's even possible.

[Hopkirk]

I suspect it is like self driving cars.
They will sort out nearly every problem, but those last few will prove impossible.

[beso]

Although the exhaust itself is not radioactive, one of the persistent problems with fusion is the neutron bombardment of the structure containing it.

Most structural materials become both radioactive and brittle from the high speed neutrons produced in the reaction.

[beso]

JimF //The "twenty years in the future" also applies to other promised innovations, specifically quantum computing.//

Quantum computers already exist. You can hire cloud based ones.