Comment by jrowen
17 hours ago
I think it's the "consecutive" that makes it funny. This thing that entire continents have been working on together for decades was operational for 20 consecutive minutes?!?
It's dark comedy because the progress of fusion just feels so agonizingly slow, that even a very optimistic prediction for 10 years from now sounds like such small and functionally useless progress.
And there's no shade toward any of the entities involved, it's a hard problem, but it's still funny.
Nah, it's huge, you just have to remember the best result so far: the JET DTE-3 record that produced the energy to boil 60 tea kettles in a whopping 5 seconds pulse.
I know, the fact that "consecutive" is actually significant in this context is part of the joke. Just try to read it from the perspective of someone that isn't steeped in the details (and expectations) of the slog of fusion. Relative to any kind of aspirational "flying cars" or "wacky ideas" future predictions, it sounds very underwhelming.
If you can run ITER for 20 minutes you've essentially proved the Tokamak concept is viable for commercial use.
No you don't. Commercial use means it makes economical sense. When you have to spend more on maintainance (and recycling/dumping contaminated wall material amd somehow get the fuel) then you never can hope to make any profit.
A running ITER with positive energy output for 20 minutes just proofs that the concept can actually work. From there to commercial use would still be a long way, if it ever can compete at all, except in niches, like deep space.
(I rather would bet on the Stelleratar design)