HawkShack.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwUjwVoWdVA

Reuters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUeq6h4P6iE

China apparently held a fusion reaction for 1006 seconds. Pretty interesting. Fusion is the holy grail of clean, limitless energy that if accomplished will drive everything forward from AI to space exploration.

Fusion energy would mean humans have harnessed the power of the sun for their use. That is quite extraordinary. Then it will allow the creation of tech to utilize fusion as a new power, nearly limitless source of energy.

My best friend has a PhD in chemistry and worked for 30 years in the nuclear field, and he claims that we're a long, long way off from fusion as a viable energy source. Let me run the article past him and see what he says.

River Dog wrote:My best friend has a PhD in chemistry and worked for 30 years in the nuclear field, and he claims that we're a long, long way off from fusion as a viable energy source. Let me run the article past him and see what he says.

Sounds good. See what he thinks. I know they have been working at this for a while and nuclear energy is now back in vogue with the power needs of AI data centers filled with power hog GPUs running large-language models.

We need to build space ships for space exploration. Fusion power to operate systems would probably help that a lot.

River Dog wrote:My best friend has a PhD in chemistry and worked for 30 years in the nuclear field, and he claims that we're a long, long way off from fusion as a viable energy source. Let me run the article past him and see what he says.

Aseahawkfan wrote:Sounds good. See what he thinks. I know they have been working at this for a while and nuclear energy is now back in vogue with the power needs of AI data centers filled with power hog GPUs running large-language models.

We need to build space ships for space exploration. Fusion power to operate systems would probably help that a lot.

The move now is for small scale modular reactors vs. the huge mega projects, reactors small enough to fit on a flatbed truck. One of the benefits would be that you could bring the power generation closer to the areas that are going to use it, cutting down on transmission loss, no more huge power lines strung along our mountainsides, and in CA, less of a chance of a down powerline starting a fire. And here in the Tri Cities area, Amazon has stepped up and financed a project next to the state's only operating nuke:

In October 2024, Amazon led a Series C-1 financing round for X-Energy that raised $500 million. Ken Griffin, the founder and CEO of Citadel and affiliates of Ares Management Corporation, private equity firm NGP, and the University of Michigan, participated as investors alongside Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund in the funding round. Amazon also pledged financial support for a four-unit 320-megawatt project with regional utility Energy Northwest in central Washington, with an option of expanding the project to 12 units, yielding a total capacity of 960 MW.

Amazon’s investment is the most notable yet because the company directly financed the construction of the reactors rather than merely agreeing to buy power from them. For nuclear to play a significant role in America’s future energy landscape, moving beyond pledges and commitments requires substantial private sector investment and a willingness to take on risk. Amazon’s financial backing is a significant step in that direction.

River Dog wrote:The move now is for small scale modular reactors vs. the huge mega projects, reactors small enough to fit on a flatbed truck. One of the benefits would be that you could bring the power generation closer to the areas that are going to use it, cutting down on transmission loss, no more huge power lines strung along our mountainsides, and in CA, less of a chance of a down powerline starting a fire. And here in the Tri Cities area, Amazon has stepped up and financed a project next to the state's only operating nuke:

In October 2024, Amazon led a Series C-1 financing round for X-Energy that raised $500 million. Ken Griffin, the founder and CEO of Citadel and affiliates of Ares Management Corporation, private equity firm NGP, and the University of Michigan, participated as investors alongside Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund in the funding round. Amazon also pledged financial support for a four-unit 320-megawatt project with regional utility Energy Northwest in central Washington, with an option of expanding the project to 12 units, yielding a total capacity of 960 MW.

Amazon’s investment is the most notable yet because the company directly financed the construction of the reactors rather than merely agreeing to buy power from them. For nuclear to play a significant role in America’s future energy landscape, moving beyond pledges and commitments requires substantial private sector investment and a willingness to take on risk. Amazon’s financial backing is a significant step in that direction.

Who will own the power units? There are companies producing smaller fission reactors. They are not yet profitable or generating sales, but the technology is advancing. I've been tracking these companies which are shooting up on hopium right now, but there will be winners when the tech is ready for implementation. Definitely want to be invested in a few of those when nuclear energy is re-established with new and better tech.

River Dog wrote:The move now is for small scale modular reactors vs. the huge mega projects, reactors small enough to fit on a flatbed truck. One of the benefits would be that you could bring the power generation closer to the areas that are going to use it, cutting down on transmission loss, no more huge power lines strung along our mountainsides, and in CA, less of a chance of a down powerline starting a fire. And here in the Tri Cities area, Amazon has stepped up and financed a project next to the state's only operating nuke:

In October 2024, Amazon led a Series C-1 financing round for X-Energy that raised $500 million. Ken Griffin, the founder and CEO of Citadel and affiliates of Ares Management Corporation, private equity firm NGP, and the University of Michigan, participated as investors alongside Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund in the funding round. Amazon also pledged financial support for a four-unit 320-megawatt project with regional utility Energy Northwest in central Washington, with an option of expanding the project to 12 units, yielding a total capacity of 960 MW.

Amazon’s investment is the most notable yet because the company directly financed the construction of the reactors rather than merely agreeing to buy power from them. For nuclear to play a significant role in America’s future energy landscape, moving beyond pledges and commitments requires substantial private sector investment and a willingness to take on risk. Amazon’s financial backing is a significant step in that direction.

Aseahawkfan wrote:Who will own the power units? There are companies producing smaller fission reactors. They are not yet profitable or generating sales, but the technology is advancing. I've been tracking these companies which are shooting up on hopium right now, but there will be winners when the tech is ready for implementation. Definitely want to be invested in a few of those when nuclear energy is re-established with new and better tech.

My assumption would be that public utilities would be the ones owning them. I can't see a business such as my former employer buying them outright as it creates a problem if a facility gets shut down via an economic downturn, strike, etc. We used to have a co-generation agreement with utilities in NE Oregon to use the excess steam in a coal/gas fired plant that was next door to ours, so maybe a similar agreement might make sense for these modular reactors.

My friend responded, said it looked promising and that he'd get back with me.

1006 seconds is 16 minutes 45 seconds. That's a huge jump from the few seconds and it sounds like they are just a few hurdles away from a sustained reaction - or at least much closer than a year or so ago.
That's if the articles are accurate.

I received a response from my friend on the subject, probably more than I bargained for and most of which is over my head:

OK. Here's the deal as I see it.

There's no doubt that this was, is, a large achievement. The longest confinement time that I'm aware of prior to this was a second or even less. But confinement time has to be increased to days or weeks. And you have to get more power out of the reactor than it takes to run it, an event known as "ignition" which was mentioned (with about one word) in this article but not discussed at all.

Having granted the researchers a huge achievement, I remain convinced that affordable electricity from fusion is never gonna happen. Here's why:

This, or any device they come up with, is a hugely complex machine. Compare that with current nuclear reactors. Initially, people though nuclear reactors were so simple that they would be able to generate electricity so cheaply that you'd almost have to pay people to use it. Well, you see how that went.

Assuming we eventually figure out how to increase confinement time to days or weeks, The power produced has to exceed the power needed to run it by a large margin, and there has to be a way to "harvest " that power. You must, for example, surround the reactor with chambers or pipes filled with water that the reactor can turn into steam to drive a turbine to generate electricity.

Fusion is often cited as being free of the radiation produced by nuclear reactors and free of the radioactive waste products generated by nuclear reactors. Well, not quite. While running, they'll be generating lots of radiation that people will have to be protected from. And the radiation will be so intense that it will degrade the materials the reactor is made of. It's true that they won't generate the long-lived fission products that nuclear reactors do. But they will cause the materials surrounding the plasma to become radioactive. The level of radioactivity and time the materials will remain radioactive is much less than with a nuclear reactor, but it's not zero.
  
Bottom line for me is that affordable electricity from fusion is never gonna happen. However, I am in favor of continuing research on this at some modest level. I might be wrong.

Since my friend made some specific references to 'the article', I'd better note that it wasn't the same one that ASF linked. Here's the article I sent my friend and from which he commented on:

https://www.popularmechanics.com/scienc ... ast-china/

River Dog wrote:I received a response from my friend on the subject, probably more than I bargained for and most of which is over my head:

OK. Here's the deal as I see it.

There's no doubt that this was, is, a large achievement. The longest confinement time that I'm aware of prior to this was a second or even less. But confinement time has to be increased to days or weeks. And you have to get more power out of the reactor than it takes to run it, an event known as "ignition" which was mentioned (with about one word) in this article but not discussed at all.

Having granted the researchers a huge achievement, I remain convinced that affordable electricity from fusion is never gonna happen. Here's why:

This, or any device they come up with, is a hugely complex machine. Compare that with current nuclear reactors. Initially, people though nuclear reactors were so simple that they would be able to generate electricity so cheaply that you'd almost have to pay people to use it. Well, you see how that went.

Assuming we eventually figure out how to increase confinement time to days or weeks, The power produced has to exceed the power needed to run it by a large margin, and there has to be a way to "harvest " that power. You must, for example, surround the reactor with chambers or pipes filled with water that the reactor can turn into steam to drive a turbine to generate electricity.

Fusion is often cited as being free of the radiation produced by nuclear reactors and free of the radioactive waste products generated by nuclear reactors. Well, not quite. While running, they'll be generating lots of radiation that people will have to be protected from. And the radiation will be so intense that it will degrade the materials the reactor is made of. It's true that they won't generate the long-lived fission products that nuclear reactors do. But they will cause the materials surrounding the plasma to become radioactive. The level of radioactivity and time the materials will remain radioactive is much less than with a nuclear reactor, but it's not zero.
  
Bottom line for me is that affordable electricity from fusion is never gonna happen. However, I am in favor of continuing research on this at some modest level. I might be wrong.

Since my friend made some specific references to 'the article', I'd better note that it wasn't the same one that ASF linked. Here's the article I sent my friend and from which he commented on:

https://www.popularmechanics.com/scienc ... ast-china/

That wasn't an overly complex response. I personally think it's going to happen. Not sure when, but fusion, long distance space travel and colonization, and gene modification are all going to happen unless humanity goes extinct before it does. That's the danger as they will never stop trying and keep making incremental and sometimes huge leaps towards doing it with 8 billion and growing people able to produce the necessary intellectual capacity necessary to accomplish these feats on top of increase intellectual tools like AI and quantum computing. We humans have just started our journey towards improved technology.

Robots will vastly improve our ability to work with radioactive materials as they will be able to work wthi them with no danger. The Age of Robots is coming. It's going to be amazing.

Aseahawkfan wrote:That wasn't an overly complex response. I personally think it's going to happen. Not sure when, but fusion, long distance space travel and colonization, and gene modification are all going to happen unless humanity goes extinct before it does. That's the danger as they will never stop trying and keep making incremental and sometimes huge leaps towards doing it with 8 billion and growing people able to produce the necessary intellectual capacity necessary to accomplish these feats on top of increase intellectual tools like AI and quantum computing. We humans have just started our journey towards improved technology.

Robots will vastly improve our ability to work with radioactive materials as they will be able to work wthi them with no danger. The Age of Robots is coming. It's going to be amazing.

No, it wasn't an overly complexed response. Nevertheless, some of the stuff he was talking about is over my head.

Nuclear technology just doesn't move that fast. People still have a huge paranoia about anything nuclear. It's a highly regulated industry with a very lengthy permitting process. I'm hoping that in the coming years, these modular reactors can become commercialized, and that the public accepts them and moves away from this fascination they have with solar and wind. But even that is going to take many years.

Fusion is still just a dream. It's decades away from any kind of useful application. I think it will eventually happen as it makes too much sense not to come to fruition someday, but not in my lifetime.

River Dog wrote:No, it wasn't an overly complexed response. Nevertheless, some of the stuff he was talking about is over my head.

Nuclear technology just doesn't move that fast. People still have a huge paranoia about anything nuclear. It's a highly regulated industry with a very lengthy permitting process. I'm hoping that in the coming years, these modular reactors can become commercialized, and that the public accepts them and moves away from this fascination they have with solar and wind. But even that is going to take many years.

Fusion is still just a dream. It's decades away from any kind of useful application. I think it will eventually happen as it makes too much sense not to come to fruition someday, but not in my lifetime.

You may be surprised. Technology tends to jump in leaps and bounds after years of stagnation when some need requires it. Right now AI needs more power to work. The heat generated by GPUs and quantum computer is immense because they are pushing so much power so fast to operate. That's why companies like Amazon are willing to pay for nuclear power to create these advanced data centers. Wind and solar have their place, but they require battery storage, are not under our control, and don't generate enough on demand power to power these new processors that will be in these data centers.

You know the old saying, "Necessity is the mother of invention." Right now, we need far more power to power AI and all that it will bring. You are watching just the start of AI, robots, and EVs. All of it requires way more power faster than wind and solar can provide it. Thus all these big tech companies are investing billions in nuclear across the world. That generally advances technology faster than normal processes, much like a pandemic will cause an advancement in vaccine tech with mRNA vaccines.

Problems need solutions. We have more money and more high level minds pushing this technology to advance it to solve problems that are bottlenecks to AI, EV adoption, and more powerful computers which can push us even further forward. We gotta have more power. Nuclear seems to be the way forward until we see something else.

It's not just the environment driving this, but the basic need for vastly more power and sooner rather than later. The data centers we have now are huge power hogs with the cooling and electricity to run everything 24-7-365 with triple layer redundancy so nothing goes offline. The AI data centers will require even more power than our current data centers by quite a margin. It's gotta happen and it's gotta happen fast.

Government is onboard because the AI race is the new nuclear weapon race. He who has the best AI first rules the world and if you want to stay competitive, you have to have AI that at least matches your competitor. It is a new arms race.

I wish I could live another hundred plus years to see this advance. I have been waiting for advanced robots since I saw robots in TV and movies when young. It would be absolutely awesome to have a domestic, AI driven robot that takes care of all the domestic chores or can cook anything you program it to cook while you spend your time on other endeavors.

River Dog wrote:No, it wasn't an overly complexed response. Nevertheless, some of the stuff he was talking about is over my head.

Nuclear technology just doesn't move that fast. People still have a huge paranoia about anything nuclear. It's a highly regulated industry with a very lengthy permitting process. I'm hoping that in the coming years, these modular reactors can become commercialized, and that the public accepts them and moves away from this fascination they have with solar and wind. But even that is going to take many years.

Fusion is still just a dream. It's decades away from any kind of useful application. I think it will eventually happen as it makes too much sense not to come to fruition someday, but not in my lifetime.

Aseahawkfan wrote:You may be surprised. Technology tends to jump in leaps and bounds after years of stagnation when some need requires it. Right now AI needs more power to work. The heat generated by GPUs and quantum computer is immense because they are pushing so much power so fast to operate. That's why companies like Amazon are willing to pay for nuclear power to create these advanced data centers. Wind and solar have their place, but they require battery storage, are not under our control, and don't generate enough on demand power to power these new processors that will be in these data centers.

You know the old saying, "Necessity is the mother of invention." Right now, we need far more power to power AI and all that it will bring. You are watching just the start of AI, robots, and EVs. All of it requires way more power faster than wind and solar can provide it. Thus all these big tech companies are investing billions in nuclear across the world. That generally advances technology faster than normal processes, much like a pandemic will cause an advancement in vaccine tech with mRNA vaccines.

Problems need solutions. We have more money and more high level minds pushing this technology to advance it to solve problems that are bottlenecks to AI, EV adoption, and more powerful computers which can push us even further forward. We gotta have more power. Nuclear seems to be the way forward until we see something else.

It's not just the environment driving this, but the basic need for vastly more power and sooner rather than later. The data centers we have now are huge power hogs with the cooling and electricity to run everything 24-7-365 with triple layer redundancy so nothing goes offline. The AI data centers will require even more power than our current data centers by quite a margin. It's gotta happen and it's gotta happen fast.

Government is onboard because the AI race is the new nuclear weapon race. He who has the best AI first rules the world and if you want to stay competitive, you have to have AI that at least matches your competitor. It is a new arms race.

I wish I could live another hundred plus years to see this advance. I have been waiting for advanced robots since I saw robots in TV and movies when young. It would be absolutely awesome to have a domestic, AI driven robot that takes care of all the domestic chores or can cook anything you program it to cook while you spend your time on other endeavors.

Here's what my friend said: As has been said by someone, I don't know who: Fusion is 10 years in the future and always will be. I would bet that electricity from fusion won't happen in your grandkids lifetime. But I won't be around to collect so I guess there's no way to resolve that.

You're right, necessity is the mother of invention. Remember how we ended up with nuclear technology in the first place: There was a war going on, and the federal government pumped many billions of dollars into a massive R&D program called the Manhattan Project the likes of which will never be seen again...unless we have another war.

I agree that it's not just about the environment, that we are going to have to significantly increase our electrical capacity. There is a viable solution that utilizes off the shelf nuclear technology and doesn't require a huge R&D effort or government intervention. But even that is going to be a hard sell as the left is preoccupied with wind and solar, neither of which are either reliable or has enough capacity to meet our needs especially if they get their way and tear down the dams. The right still wants to "drill baby drill" as Trump put it and is still in denial that we have a major energy crisis on the horizon. I can't see either private industry or the government investing huge dollars in researching a production fusion reactor to get it to the point where it's a viable source of energy.

As my friend said, we won't be around long enough to settle this argument.

Money Never Sleeps…..l

and whats the US doing????? Except maybe relishing its number 2 status in the world now and falling under the Orange Turd.

Spohawk5092 wrote:and whats the US doing????? Except maybe relishing its number 2 status in the world now and falling under the Orange Turd.

The US hasn't done much as far as fusion research goes, and I'm good with that. It's a pipe dream that's decades away from any practical use, so there's no need for a full court press. The focus needs to be on technologies that we can have online within the next 10 years.

There's a lot going on with regards to the next generation of nuclear reactors. Here's one that's being financed by none other than Bill Gates:

Bill Gates's nuclear company has begun work on a multi-billion dollar project in Wyoming that he said would revolutionize the energy industry.

TerraPower, founded and chaired by Gates, began construction Monday on an advanced nuclear project in Kemmerer.

Scheduled to become operational in 2030, the sodium-cooled reactor will pick up the slack from the town's retiring coal mine, the Associated Press reported.

"The ground we broke in Kemmerer will soon be the bedrock of America's energy future. Today, we took the biggest step yet toward safe, abundant, zero-carbon energy," said Gates, who has frequently advocated for nuclear alternatives to fossil fuels.

https://www.newsweek.com/bill-gates-com ... 20Kemmerer.

River Dog wrote:Here's what my friend said: As has been said by someone, I don't know who: Fusion is 10 years in the future and always will be. I would bet that electricity from fusion won't happen in your grandkids lifetime. But I won't be around to collect so I guess there's no way to resolve that.

You're right, necessity is the mother of invention. Remember how we ended up with nuclear technology in the first place: There was a war going on, and the federal government pumped many billions of dollars into a massive R&D program called the Manhattan Project the likes of which will never be seen again...unless we have another war.

I agree that it's not just about the environment, that we are going to have to significantly increase our electrical capacity. There is a viable solution that utilizes off the shelf nuclear technology and doesn't require a huge R&D effort or government intervention. But even that is going to be a hard sell as the left is preoccupied with wind and solar, neither of which are either reliable or has enough capacity to meet our needs especially if they get their way and tear down the dams. The right still wants to "drill baby drill" as Trump put it and is still in denial that we have a major energy crisis on the horizon. I can't see either private industry or the government investing huge dollars in researching a production fusion reactor to get it to the point where it's a viable source of energy.

As my friend said, we won't be around long enough to settle this argument.

This is likely true, but you never know.

There are billions of dollars of investment going into power development in nuclear now in America, Europe, Japan, and China.

I"m not sure why you think the Manhatten Project is unique given the amount of private money now available for investments of this kind. Private industry with government fueled AI development, gene editing, EV adoption, quantum computing, vaccine advancements, the internet, The Human Genome project, and so much more. There is more private and public partnerships pouring billions into R&D, more than at any point in history. Companies are bigger, more global, and more well funded with global connections to schools, labs, universities, research centers, than ever before. That's why you're seeing private industry pushing the space race forward rather than governments.

It's a different world than when The Manhattan Project occurred, much, much bigger, wealthier, more efficient, with more minds on a global level advancing science and technology.

Spohawk5092 wrote:and whats the US doing????? Except maybe relishing its number 2 status in the world now and falling under the Orange Turd.

Trump with associated private capital is pushing 500 billion into building AI data centers.

Local government with private industry as Riverdog posted is moving to advance nuclear technology including smaller scale fission reactors that can be deployed closer to the source of the power need, which will provide them immense power while not putting an excess stress on the grid.

During Trump 1.0 the mRNA vaccine development and data collected has improved vaccine development. Trump had a meeting with Bill Gates about advancing vaccine development in the 3rd world.

There's quite a bit going on, which is why I watch the business news over the mainstream news where Trump lives rent free in the minds of Democrats and they only focus on what he does they don't like while not focusing on what he does to improve business and invest in American development, which is quite a bit which is why he's good for the economy. A lot of business people domestically and globally want to work with Trump.

I know you mainly follow media sources that focus on Trump the Villain rather than focus on Trump's business initiatives.

There is a lot more than that going on in nuclear. I'm not going to list all the companies, but the business news has been abuzz about the return of nuclear. A lot of nuclear stocks are shooting up from the big power companies investing in nuclear to smaller companies focused on portable reactor tech.

The U.S. has not stopped research on fusion, not at all. There are global efforts to push forward fusion. It's a competition both the United States and China are pursuing with lots of global help.

https://www.powermag.com/u-s-in-a-race-with-china-to-develop-commercial-fusion-power-technology/

This is another reason why I don't pay attention to the mainstream news. Mainstream news would have you believe we're in this big tiff with Europe, but business news clearly shows European, American, and Asian business leaders are working together and politicians are supporting them out of the public eye.

But the political media gains ratings by selling the American public that they are fighting, while behind the scenes they are collaborating with billions invested together in tons of projects and companies.

Then again that's why the American public is not what I care to listen to. They are a lost, manipulated bunch more interested in thinking Trump's the Villain, Republicans and Democrats hate each other, and worrying about stuff wealthy people could care less about as they build the world around them, plan to go space, and are building robots, AI, and making advancements for the future. Back to the days of Rome, the public gets bread and circuses or in the modern day fast food and streaming television, while the wealthy build the world and take the riches.

I'd rather be one of the people paying attention to how to increase my wealth than spending my day worrying about what Trump said that offended some group or what idiot social issue the Republicans and Democrats are arguing over or the current concern of the common man: if Elon Musk did a Nazi salute when Elon is clearly gaslighting and baiting the mainstream media to keep them focused on unimportant matters like what he says or some idiot gesture while he moves to buy Tik Tok or is building his AI data center in Texas utilizing Dell as the architect who is employing a smaller company known as TSSI for liquid cooling rack builds and procurement which has skyrocketed from .25 cents a share to 16.50 a share for huge stock gains. Not sure how much growth TSSI has left, but that company increased build capacity by three times their previous size to keep up with demand for AI server racks with advanced cooling because these new Nvidia Blackwell chips are a massive source of heat that requires special cooling and rack builds for the data center build outs which are occurring globally including America.

Lots of interesting stuff going on. Trump is very business friendly. I keep up with what he's doing with business and where the government money, tax cuts, and credits will be spent as that is where the money will be made.

Aseahawkfan wrote:There is a lot more than that going on in nuclear. I'm not going to list all the companies, but the business news has been abuzz about the return of nuclear. A lot of nuclear stocks are shooting up from the big power companies investing in nuclear to smaller companies focused on portable reactor tech.

The U.S. has not stopped research on fusion, not at all. There are global efforts to push forward fusion. It's a competition both the United States and China are pursuing with lots of global help.

https://www.powermag.com/u-s-in-a-race-with-china-to-develop-commercial-fusion-power-technology/

This is another reason why I don't pay attention to the mainstream news. Mainstream news would have you believe we're in this big tiff with Europe, but business news clearly shows European, American, and Asian business leaders are working together and politicians are supporting them out of the public eye.

But the political media gains ratings by selling the American public that they are fighting, while behind the scenes they are collaborating with billions invested together in tons of projects and companies.

Then again that's why the American public is not what I care to listen to. They are a lost, manipulated bunch more interested in thinking Trump's the Villain, Republicans and Democrats hate each other, and worrying about stuff wealthy people could care less about as they build the world around them, plan to go space, and are building robots, AI, and making advancements for the future. Back to the days of Rome, the public gets bread and circuses or in the modern day fast food and streaming television, while the wealthy build the world and take the riches.

I'd rather be one of the people paying attention to how to increase my wealth than spending my day worrying about what Trump said that offended some group or what idiot social issue the Republicans and Democrats are arguing over or the current concern of the common man: if Elon Musk did a Nazi salute when Elon is clearly gaslighting and baiting the mainstream media to keep them focused on unimportant matters like what he says or some idiot gesture while he moves to buy Tik Tok or is building his AI data center in Texas utilizing Dell as the architect who is employing a smaller company known as TSSI for liquid cooling rack builds and procurement which has skyrocketed from .25 cents a share to 16.50 a share for huge stock gains. Not sure how much growth TSSI has left, but that company increased build capacity by three times their previous size to keep up with demand for AI server racks with advanced cooling because these new Nvidia Blackwell chips are a massive source of heat that requires special cooling and rack builds for the data center build outs which are occurring globally including America.

Lots of interesting stuff going on. Trump is very business friendly. I keep up with what he's doing with business and where the government money, tax cuts, and credits will be spent as that is where the money will be made.

Oh, and I realize that Gates's company isn't the only ones getting into the nuclear field. The one out here is funded by Amazon.

And yes, we are researching fusion technology, but not anywhere near the scale it's going to take to get it to the point where it's a viable technology in the near future. IMO the government needs to get behind this new tech, cut some of the regulations and red tape. It needs to be manufactured cheap enough to where it's cost competitive with other modes of electrical production.

And I agree with you about the lack of attention that the American public has paid this technology. That becomes very apparent when you go in and read some of the comments in those YouTube links. My friend commented how there are so many people that don't know what they're talking about.

I also agree with you about the Dems wringing their hands about Trump, Musk, et al. I don't like Trump any more than anyone else, but they need to get over it.

River Dog wrote:Oh, and I realize that Gates's company isn't the only ones getting into the nuclear field. The one out here is funded by Amazon.

And yes, we are researching fusion technology, but not anywhere near the scale it's going to take to get it to the point where it's a viable technology in the near future. IMO the government needs to get behind this new tech, cut some of the regulations and red tape. It needs to be manufactured cheap enough to where it's cost competitive with other modes of electrical production.

And I agree with you about the lack of attention that the American public has paid this technology. That becomes very apparent when you go in and read some of the comments in those YouTube links. My friend commented how there are so many people that don't know what they're talking about.

I also agree with you about the Dems wringing their hands about Trump, Musk, et al. I don't like Trump any more than anyone else, but they need to get over it.

Yep. I got money to make. I made money under Trump 1 and and Biden 1 and now I will make money under Trump 2.

Pelosi for all her pretending about hating Trump and crying invested in an AI company named Tempus AI, stock ticker TEM. Dems would be better off following Pelosi's stock picks as well as other Dems than listening to what comes out of their mouth or their ridiculous economic polices that drove the inflation they hate right now.

One of the few good things that Trump has done since taking office is that he's put a hold, at least temporarily, on an unpopular wind energy project in Idaho that Biden was hell bent to shove down the throats of local residents, including historians, in a red state that wasn't going to vote Democratic anyway and that didn't want it and would primarily be for the benefit of true blue California, fighting words for Idahoans:

As the Deseret News reported in July 2023, environmentalists questioned the role public lands should play in transitioning to clean energy. Such a wind energy farm, on leased sprawls of untouched, publicly owned land, would affect local farmers and ranchers, as well as the Minidoka National Historic Site, a relocation site where more than 13,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. It received criticism from Idaho’s local, state and federal politicians, too. A point of contention is that the produced energy would primarily benefit California rather than local communities in Idaho.

It's this type of arrogance that has caused such a rift between the left and the right. Our Democratic governor here in WA ignored the wishes of 75-80% of the locals in my area, some of which include Native Americans and environmentalists, that didn't want a huge wind project that has proposed over 100 square miles with 240 wind turbines taller than the Space Needle. To give you an idea of how much area 240 square miles encompasses, the City of Seattle occupies just 140 square miles, Tacoma just 60 square miles.

That's one of the problems with our winner-take-all electoral system. If you live in a state that is solidly blue or red, politicians don't have to pay any attention to the issues that affect you directly. They don't have to even set foot in your state.

That's an increasing problem with first past the post electoral systems. There isn't always a lot of consensus and it breeds dissent which over time creates divisions.

Back to the Fusion issue, it seems to me that if a lot of people and governments are spending huge amounts of money on something it probably has some measure of a possible good outcome. That's not to say we will see it come to pass in our life time, but at this point it's the holy grail of energy and with China achieving continued reaction for almost 17 minutes there might be some hope for the nearer future.

NorthHawk wrote:That's an increasing problem with first past the post electoral systems. There isn't always a lot of consensus and it breeds dissent which over time creates divisions.

Back to the Fusion issue, it seems to me that if a lot of people and governments are spending huge amounts of money on something it probably has some measure of a possible good outcome. That's not to say we will see it come to pass in our life time, but at this point it's the holy grail of energy and with China achieving continued reaction for almost 17 minutes there might be some hope for the nearer future.

I don't like the idea of abolishing the electoral system entirely as it gives too much power to the cities, and this incident that I've noted is one example of such an abuse of power. But I do favor some changes, like getting rid of the winner-take-all formula for distributing electoral votes. Give each congressional district, representing roughly 750,000 people, one electoral vote and give the winner of the statewide popular vote the remaining two. There are a lot more competitive Congressional districts than there are competitive states, so it would force candidates to campaign across a wider swath of the country rather than crafting their message to appeal to a handful of swing states. A couple states, Nebraska and Maine, have already adapted this formula.

With regard to the thread topic: My buddy, who knows more about this nuclear stuff than all of us put together, is very pessimistic about the prospects of fusion reactors becoming viable and cost efficient to the point where they could be a major part of our electrical grid, and I tend to lean on him in forming my own opinion. I agree with pursuing research into it at some level, but there's a lot of other problems out there that are more deserving of the limited amount of research dollars that are available.

That's what's exciting about the next generation of fission reactors, that private industry, seeing an opportunity to make money, has thrown their money into R&D. The biggest hold-up now is the regulatory process of approving permits. It's based on a different type of reactor design.

River Dog wrote:I don't like the idea of abolishing the electoral system entirely as it gives too much power to the cities, and this incident that I've noted is one example of such an abuse of power. But I do favor some changes, like getting rid of the winner-take-all formula for distributing electoral votes. Give each congressional district, representing roughly 750,000 people, one electoral vote and give the winner of the statewide popular vote the remaining two. There are a lot more competitive Congressional districts than there are competitive states, so it would force candidates to campaign across a wider swath of the country rather than crafting their message to appeal to a handful of swing states. A couple states, Nebraska and Maine, have already adapted this formula.

With regard to the thread topic: My buddy, who knows more about this nuclear stuff than all of us put together, is very pessimistic about the prospects of fusion reactors becoming viable and cost efficient to the point where they could be a major part of our electrical grid, and I tend to lean on him in forming my own opinion. I agree with pursuing research into it at some level, but there's a lot of other problems out there that are more deserving of the limited amount of research dollars that are available.

That's what's exciting about the next generation of fission reactors, that private industry, seeing an opportunity to make money, has thrown their money into R&D. The biggest hold-up now is the regulatory process of approving permits. It's based on a different type of reactor design.

I'm not as skeptical as your friend. I've learned to not doubt humanity's ability to do things once thought impossible. Humans have been doing the impossible for hundreds of years now. To me it's a matter of when, not if. Fusion is going to happen. I have zero doubt it will. I just couldn't tell you when.

And fission reactors are the more investable opportunity right now. So on that I do agree. The new portable reactor tech coming out is pretty incredible, not just for data centers and current planetary use, but for space travel and planetary colonization as well. I really want to live long enough to see a human land on Mars. The Mars Rover was one of the most spectacular accomplishments in human history. The pictures that came back from Mars are fascinating. This is just the beginning of planetary exploration. Humans are never going to stop until they are able to move to other planets. So it's going to happen someday or we'll be dead. Those are the only two outcomes. That's how I see fusion. It's going to happen someday or we'll be dead. We will also be able to completely control our genetics at some point as well. This stuff is going to happen.

I am thinking robotics technology will advance first and we'll see a robot manned mission to take a ship to Mars or another planet with human beings held in hibernation until they reach the planet. Then the robots will wake them up to begin colonization. That may be the more possible approach to colonization in the near term given robot technology may advance faster than our ability to easily travel the distances necessary for planetary colonization.

This is why I'd love to live another hundred years or more. If idiots like Putin don't blow things up, then we're going to see one amazing world in another hundred years or so. I am not in the camp of fuddy duddy's missing the good old days like many of my friends. I love the modern day. I find all the technology fascinating. I love it. If we humans from the modern day went back in time, we would seem as gods to our ancestors. The technology we look at as commonplace would be considered miracles in the ancient days. Can you imagine an operational smartphone in ancient Egypt fueled by some satellite network able to talk globally and see what's going on around the world? Not even in the greatest miracles in all the holy books was such a thing possible. Yet we consider that a mundane, modern day device everyone with a little money has access to.

I also find it funny that capitalism may be what saves humanity from obsolescence, not socialism or communism as Marx predicted. Why? Because the one thing robots likely won't do is consume products. You can program a robot to consume, sure, but they wouldn't actually use the stuff they bought. Whereas humans consume goods and services and this is a unique trait of human beings animals can't do and robots won't need to do. It may save humanity from being replaced by robots. Marx didn't predict the rise of the robots which will replace the proletariat and make consumption the primary systemic need humans carry out to keep resource use a necessity and thus keep entrepreneurs capitalized so they can use that capital to improve upon technology.

Aseahawkfan wrote:I'm not as skeptical as your friend. I've learned to not doubt humanity's ability to do things once thought impossible. Humans have been doing the impossible for hundreds of years now. To me it's a matter of when, not if. Fusion is going to happen. I have zero doubt it will. I just couldn't tell you when.

And fission reactors are the more investable opportunity right now. So on that I do agree. The new portable reactor tech coming out is pretty incredible, not just for data centers and current planetary use, but for space travel and planetary colonization as well. I really want to live long enough to see a human land on Mars. The Mars Rover was one of the most spectacular accomplishments in human history. The pictures that came back from Mars are fascinating. This is just the beginning of planetary exploration. Humans are never going to stop until they are able to move to other planets. So it's going to happen someday or we'll be dead. Those are the only two outcomes. That's how I see fusion. It's going to happen someday or we'll be dead. We will also be able to completely control our genetics at some point as well. This stuff is going to happen.

I am thinking robotics technology will advance first and we'll see a robot manned mission to take a ship to Mars or another planet with human beings held in hibernation until they reach the planet. Then the robots will wake them up to begin colonization. That may be the more possible approach to colonization in the near term given robot technology may advance faster than our ability to easily travel the distances necessary for planetary colonization.

This is why I'd love to live another hundred years or more. If idiots like Putin don't blow things up, then we're going to see one amazing world in another hundred years or so. I am not in the camp of fuddy duddy's missing the good old days like many of my friends. I love the modern day. I find all the technology fascinating. I love it. If we humans from the modern day went back in time, we would seem as gods to our ancestors. The technology we look at as commonplace would be considered miracles in the ancient days. Can you imagine an operational smartphone in ancient Egypt fueled by some satellite network able to talk globally and see what's going on around the world? Not even in the greatest miracles in all the holy books was such a thing possible. Yet we consider that a mundane, modern day device everyone with a little money has access to.

I also find it funny that capitalism may be what saves humanity from obsolescence, not socialism or communism as Marx predicted. Why? Because the one thing robots likely won't do is consume products. You can program a robot to consume, sure, but they wouldn't actually use the stuff they bought. Whereas humans consume goods and services and this is a unique trait of human beings animals can't do and robots won't need to do. It may save humanity from being replaced by robots. Marx didn't predict the rise of the robots which will replace the proletariat and make consumption the primary systemic need humans carry out to keep resource use a necessity and thus keep entrepreneurs capitalized so they can use that capital to improve upon technology.

Your comments that reflect your optimism about the future of space travel caused me to reflect what the consensus about the future of space travel was after Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon. Everyone expected that we'd be on Mars in the 80's, Jupiter before the turn of the century.

In the 1960s, the future of space travel seemed far brighter. According to Sky at Night Magazine, Wernher von Braun — the German rocket scientist who led America's Apollo Program — was optimistic about manned space exploration. For von Braun, the Apollo Program was only supposed to be the beginning; he personally planned out a subsequent Mars mission scheduled to occur in the 1980s. Von Braun wasn't the only one; another NASA proposal considered conducting a manned flyby of the planet Venus in the mid-1970s. At that rate, humans could have visited more distant planets like Jupiter by the end of the century.

Read More: https://www.grunge.com/310874/this-is-w ... t-on-mars/

You're dreaming. It's not going to happen.