Skunkworks portable fusion porject

[artvscommerce]

why would you want to iron your waffles?

 

[ElFenix]

If "free", they'd simply make the heat source (forced air or water) heated via heating elements. The elements replace the oil. Heat exchange occurs. And the world slips into hell as we hit 8 billion people while destoying the oil, hydro, LNG, solar, wind and tidal industries in one fell swoop.

What hapens when you get 7 billion people without jobs thanks to advances (robots) and free energy (fusion)? Alot of idol hands, poverty and crime. So, I am basically saying that eventually we willhave to become socialists. So all you republicans can go eat a turd.

Billy idol?

 

[Jeff7]

MIT's also saying that they could have an energy-positive design within a decade.

 

[JTsyo]

Isn't that some kind of horrible irony for our species?

"Scientists and engineers have found ways of eliminating an immense majority of the laborious, dangerous, menial jobs of the distant past. People can now be free to pursue other callings.
Incidentally, these technological advances could be the most devastating things to ever happen to the global economy. We apologize for creating the necessary conditions for a human utopia."




Now here's a thought:
Fusion means clean and abundant energy, which could translate to an improved food supply. It could also make desalination cheaper.

So we could have more food, more water, and more energy in general.

What happens to a group of bacteria, or most life on Earth, when you provide them with an abundance of resources? Population explosion.
Look what happened to the human population after the invention of things like aquaducts and agriculture. Stable food and water supply = population explosion.
It's hard to fight instincts that were hundreds of millions of years in the making.

Standing-room only, but at least you'll always be able to charge your cellphone, or cheaply power an electric waffle iron.

That doesn't hold true for humanity now though. Areas where resource are scarce having large population growth while the first world is seeing a decline in their population.

 

[sdifox]

How about getting stationary to work first then worry about portability?

 

[Jeff7]

That doesn't hold true for humanity now though. Areas where resource are scarce having large population growth while the first world is seeing a decline in their population.

Most of the world's population lives in what we would define as poverty though.
The trends that you stated would seem to exacerbate that problem.

How about getting stationary to work first then worry about portability?

Maybe making them smaller ends up being easier? Or maybe at least lower the startup costs if it becomes viable.
Rather than having to commit to a huge reactor project, you can instead make a smaller module.


I'd love to see some fusion-powered aircraft. Electric engines, and you could probably fuel the thing for life with a very small amount of deuterium. Next step: Full-size quadcopters.

 

[Blitzvogel]

I'd love to see some fusion-powered aircraft. Electric engines, and you could probably fuel the thing for life with a very small amount of deuterium. Next step: Full-size quadcopters.

I would think that a Fusion powered aircraft wouldn't bother turning steam into electricity, when it can use all that heat and energy to rapidly expand gases into a very powerful exhaust a la nuclear jet engines with a generator operating off of that.

 

[Jeff7]

I would think that a Fusion powered aircraft wouldn't bother turning steam into electricity, when it can use all that heat and energy to rapidly expand gases into a very powerful exhaust a la nuclear jet engines with a generator operating off of that.

Also possible.


Another fusion project I read about somewhere was proposing to pulse plasma past pickup wires, and directly induce current in those wires, bypassing the whole water-to-steam-to-turbine process. I don't know if it ever went anywhere though.

 

[unokitty]

...
I'd love to see some fusion-powered aircraft. Electric engines, and you could probably fuel the thing for life with a very small amount of deuterium. Next step: Full-size quadcopters.

Convair X-6

The first modified B-36 was called the Nuclear Test Aircraft (NTA), a B-36H-20-CF (Serial Number 51-5712) that had been damaged in a tornado at Carswell AFB on September 1, 1952. This plane was redesignated the XB-36H, then the NB-36H and was modified to carry a 3 megawatt, air-cooled nuclear reactor in its bomb bay. The reactor, named the Aircraft Shield Test Reactor (ASTR), was operational but did not power the plane...

The NTA completed 47 test flights and 215 hours of flight time (during 89 of which the reactor was operated) between September 17, 1955, and March 1957[2] over New Mexico and Texas.[1] This was the only known airborne reactor experiment by the U.S. with an operational nuclear reactor on board. The NB-36H was scrapped at Fort Worth in 1958 when the Nuclear Aircraft Program was abandoned.

Fission rather than fusion. But still seems relevant.

Uno

 

[sdifox]

Most of the world's population lives in what we would define as poverty though.
The trends that you stated would seem to exacerbate that problem.



Maybe making them smaller ends up being easier? Or maybe at least lower the startup costs if it becomes viable.
Rather than having to commit to a huge reactor project, you can instead make a smaller module.


I'd love to see some fusion-powered aircraft. Electric engines, and you could probably fuel the thing for life with a very small amount of deuterium. Next step: Full-size quadcopters.

Making anything mobile is a lot harder than making it fixed installation.

 

[John Connor]

Wait till they use these portable fusion device in terminators.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Wait till they use these portable fusion device in terminators.

Miniaturization is still a process. I will have my battlemech before you have your terminator. :awe: