Quote (card_sultan @ Sep 8 2015 12:29pm)

I think the "sun on earth" is only an analogy, probably because they are both based on fusion energy. The "nuclear" aspect of it should really be dropped because of that word's association with radioactivity, and producing millenium +++ half lives of things that do damage so severe even down to the DNA structure. Not to mention that typical nuclear fission has created million of tons of industrial waste so toxic no one has figured out where to put it in 50 years.

Also The China Syndrome (great film) which was great in exposing problems to ideology in nuclear fission plants is not even comparable to Spider Man 2 which only portrayed fusion energy in such a simplistic comical way so that a small child might even understand it, which is about the intellectual understanding of the general public.

It's actually totally safe and they have been doing successful experiments with it for 40 years. The plasma is completely self contained and controlled and only last for a few second and there is no chance of it escaping.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power#cite_note-ReferenceA-15

Accident potential
There is no possibility of a catastrophic accident in a fusion reactor resulting in major release of radioactivity to the environment or injury to non-staff, unlike modern fission reactors. The primary reason is that the requirements for nuclear fusion differ greatly from nuclear fission: fusion requires extremely precise and controlled temperature, pressure, and magnetic field parameters for any net energy to be produced, and a far smaller amount of fuel. If the reactor suffered damage or lost even a small degree of required control, fusion reactions and heat generation would rapidly cease.

Quote (Thor123422 @ Sep 8 2015 01:41pm)

Never expect the progress to meet the estimates on a new field like this. It's always best to be pessimistic, so consider that twelve years the absolute minimum.

Quote (Bathtubbers @ Sep 8 2015 04:13pm)

cool beans man i live by the quarry, we should hang out and throw things down there

Quote (card_sultan @ Sep 8 2015 01:06pm)

It's not a "new" field though - the ideas for it are have been around since pre WW2 and they already have 30 working fusion reactors in Universities based on the Tokamak model and its goals is to show and demonstrate fusion as a viable and sustainable source of energy, not that it works, we already know it does and that it's completely safe and 1000x more so than fission reaction.

The site itself and construction is a very minor concern only requiring proper management to work with all 35 countries involved and to coordinate the effort so that these ideas are available to all countries.

Quote (Thor123422 @ Sep 11 2015 03:42am)

It is new, we only achieved fusion a few years ago for the first time and have yet to have a net gain in energy ( don't believe all you read, they play accounting tricks for hype and funding). It's still very new.

Quote (card_sultan @ Sep 11 2015 11:56am)

cough, cough.

Quote (Thor123422 @ Sep 12 2015 11:12am)

Ummm yeah? Look it up yourself....

Quote (card_sultan @ Sep 12 2015 06:44pm)

Usually when you claim something in the science forum, you usually provide a link - So I'll just assume you didn't watch the videos and got your information from the science based Spider Man 2.

Quote (Neptunus @ Sep 12 2015 03:49pm)

What field do you study or work in?