

Should Google Go Nuclear? Clean, cheap, nuclear power (no, really) - alex_c
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606

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mkn
Wild. I just read today that the navy is funding EMC2 so that they can further
their fusion research.

I also watched, just today, this vid:
[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1518007279479871760...](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1518007279479871760&ei=KrwKSZq8N4TyqAPJsaiIDg&q=Lerner+fusion&hl=en)
, in which Eric Lerner talks about dense plasma focus fusion. He makes the
point, towards the end, that DPF fusion is about (literally) a million times
closer to obtaining fusion than even the Polywell scheme. The core of these
DPF devices are about as big as your hand.

I'm not putting down the Polywell scheme. I just thought the link to Lerner's
talk was interesting as well. (It's also 64+ minutes long.)

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theantidote
Here is the treehugger side of me, not the pragmatic side: where do we dispose
of the waste? At the end of the day there's still waste created.

Here's some pragmatism: Why spend any money investing in a new short term
solution when we could spend the same amount on renewable energy that never
runs out such as wind, solar, tidal and for the most part hydrogen? In another
few hundred years we will start running low on uranium (edit: Wikipedia says
it can be reprocessed and used an estimated thousands of years). I think if
we're going to transition from oil and coal we shouldn't just go to a new
stop-gap solution. The next energy source needs to be renewable so we never
run into the same problem again.

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natrius
Thousands of years from now, we will be far more technologically advanced.
When we run out of uranium, it will be orders of magnitude simpler to develop
alternatives on the off chance that we haven't yet. I don't think finiteness
of nuclear is a practical concern. When our energy needs exceed what our Dyson
sphere can provide, we'll need an alternative to solar as well.

As for the waste issue... shoot it into the sun? I don't know what the
tradeoffs are between renewables and nuclear, but if nuclear is far more
feasible at the moment as I suspect, it seems pretty reasonable to go for it.
I'm pretty sure we'll have a good solution to the waste issue within the next
century or two.

(tl;dw, so I don't know if the video mentions any of this.)

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DaniFong
"As for the waste issue... shoot it into the sun?"

Ah, if the rocket explodes, which does happen, waste everywhere!

Also, strangely, it takes quite a lot of energy to get to the sun (you might
think one could just 'fall into it', but you have to fight against the earth's
orbital velocity!)

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natrius
This is exactly why they don't put the fate of humanity in my hands.

Finding a way to deal with nuclear waste just doesn't seem like an
insurmountable problem to me. In the meantime, reprocessing the waste and
storing the remaining waste somewhere safe seems like a prudent enough plan.
If we can't find a way to get rid of it by the time we start running out of
space, we stop using nuclear energy. We'll be far better prepared to switch
over to solar et al at that point, assuming that nuclear is currently
significantly more cost-effective than the alternatives.

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comatose_kid
Robert Bussard passed away last year of cancer at the age of 79. Check out his
wikipedia page: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Bussard>

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rw
Very old. We all wish the Polywell would be funded, but who will shell out the
cash?

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DaniFong
According to wikipedia it was funded by this nonprofit, soliciting tax-
deductable donations. <http://emc2fusion.org/>

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fallentimes
Yes - Nuclear should be much more prevalent than it is.

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ars
tl;dw (Too long didn't watch.)

But yes: they should.

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comatose_kid
I watched it all last night - between the blurry slides and my dim memory of
electromagnetics, much of it was over my head. But it was thought provoking,
and a good example of a small team of bright adventurous people building
something without waiting for 'permission'.

