Comment by pdabbadabba
5 months ago
Why is that the correct interpretation? It seems like another would be: "This is a ~33% improvement over a record set only three seeks ago. Innovation is rapidly accelerating to a point where plasma can be contained indefinitely."
> Nevertheless, given the infrastructure needed to produce this energy on a large scale, it is unlikely that fusion technology will make a significant contribution to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. For this, several technological sticking points need to be overcome, and the economic feasibility of this form of energy production must still be demonstrated.
It's very cool, but the article itself paints a long time line. Indefinite containment is just one part of the puzzle.
Being a viable form of electricity and becoming a significant contributor to mitigating climate change by a specific date are two different things. Geothermal is a viable form of electricity for example even if it is less than 1% of power produced.
And we are on the verge of AGI any week now. And Full Self Driving.
Point taken, of course. But the fact that emerging technologies (or technologies that people wish would emerge) are often overhyped is not exactly an argument that "commercially viable fusion electricity still remains a looooong way off."
And, FWIW, I think it's far from clear at this point that progress towards AGI has been overhyped. It's true that we're not there yet, but how many serious people were actually predicting we'd get there in early 2025? If anything, that one seems like it could be coming up on us faster that many had expected. But, of course, nobody really knows — certainly not me.
Actually...same with FSD, now that I'm thinking about your comment a bit more critically. There are a few people out there who keep selling a snake-oil version of the technology. But, if you tune them out, my sense is that we've actually made pretty substantial progress on that problem too. After all, there are cities in the U.S. today where you can get picked up in a driverless taxi!
Are you trying to be sarcastic? There are cities where you can book a car to drive itself to you and then fully autonomously drive you to your destination.
I don't think that qualifies as "full" self driving.
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Nothing ever happens
I think if the "burns" are long enough, it will be sufficient to extract net energy...
actually...
All that depends on how much burn heat we can get from those ~30mins burns... :)