OT: fusion is getting SOOOO close -> then comes fusion engines!!! ::P muhuhahah(no j

Taera · #1 November 26th, 2003, 05:34 AM

read it again, its just another step towards it, not a breakthrough. still, good news

Kamog · #2 November 26th, 2003, 06:14 AM

Well, even with fusion reactors, energy probably won't be free. Those reactors will most likely be expensive to build and maintain, and the power companies have to make their money, too. I would imagine that people thought we'll have free energy when fission reactors were invented 60 or so years ago?

Cirvol · #3 November 26th, 2003, 07:08 AM

bah, i know it aint gonna be 'free'

but, eventually...

(and i really think is a significant breakthru...

if you recall, we had fusion going a couple of years ago... but it was too expensive energy wise to keep it going... this seems like a breakthru in the final hurdle (or set of hurdles) towards self sustaining fusion reactions

dogscoff · #4 November 26th, 2003, 12:53 PM

Quote:

whats to stop us from doing anything? - {edit out list of utopian applications for limitless energy}

Greed, that's what. Don't get me wrong, the world needs fusion, but if/when it comes it will simply become something else for the powers that be to hoard for themselves.

We already have the capacity to eliminate starvation from this world, and probably most disease, drought and countless other sufferings as well, but we lack the will. There is too much invested in the status quo. New technology is a good thing, but it will never save the world. Only a fundamental change in the world's power structures and/or human nature can do that.

And just imagine the weapons that could be built by a nation wielding a limitless energy source. They'd make today's nukes look like firecrackers

Cirvol · #5 November 27th, 2003, 02:58 AM

which is why fiction is so important...

without altruistic star-treks' and other cool sci-fi type fiction, people would not even see how good a thing sharing is

hopefully, with enough penetration of these ideas into the young minds of the next generation of 'powers to be', we'll have a shot at it without the massive poor % of the world rising up in a huge revolution

its a good thing that 'modern' countries today can still remember what happens when too few people control too much wealth

(*hums* les miz tune)

EvilGenius4ABetterTomorro · #6 November 26th, 2003, 07:14 PM

10 years to Alpha Centauri? I get the window seat! On second thought that also means 10 years back. Or i could stay there. I doubt it has any habitable planets. Isn't Alpha Centauri a binary system? I don't swing that way!
Yeah fusions gonna happen eventually. Gonna make that spinning butterd toast/cat array thing look like a dog and pony show.
I also don't thing fusion bombs are going to be any more powerful than what already happens with a Hydrogen Bomb. Didn't they use to call those fission/fusion/fission devices?

Me Loonn · #7 November 26th, 2003, 07:56 PM

Well, the alpha centauri is a tertiary system.

Alpha Centauri A is the main star (type G2) of this tertiary system, similar to our sun (also type G2) thought abit larger.
The other two are an orange dwarf Alpha Centauri B (type K1) and a small red dwarf, Alpha Centauri C (type M5) aka 'Proxima Centauri'.

More info from here homepage.sunrise.ch/homepage/schatzer/Alpha-Centauri.html

[ November 26, 2003, 18:04: Message edited by: Me Loonn ]