Are we about to achieve Fusion Power?

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In the UK our energy firms are profiteering as much as they can. It is as if they know the age of supplying fossil fuel energy is almost up and so are making as much money as they can out of it.

Now it seems Fusion power is just around the corner.

MSN Fusion Power Breakthrough

I wonder if our politicians and energy companies have known this for some time and so have been charging high prices for gas and electricity before we switch to limitless energy.

"Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
Betteridge's law of headlines

Many of them are funding the research, because they know eventually the resources are not endless, and so unless they want to be stuck holding the bag their looking for alternatives as well. just they want to squeeze you for as much as they can get out of it before its gone, so they can afford updating the system later as well as fill their greedy pockets while they can.

I believe it was the first time reliably reported that we were able to gain more energy from an artificial fusion reaction than what went into making it. Nevertheless, there are still some issues:

1.) This needs to be reproduced, lots of times.

2.) We're still nowhere near ignition (i.e. creating a self-sustaining artificial fusion reaction that uses some of the energy produced to maintain the reaction).

Once we've achieved ignition and been able to reproduce it, with a significant margin of energy produced that can be used for other purposes, we should be close to commercial fusion power.

Actually, we haven't even achieved more energy put out than put in, not by a long shot:

http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2013 ... -%E2%80%A6

14 kJ put out is a lot less than 1.8 MJ put in.

The news reporting elsewhere seems to have been misleading.

Maybe the headline is too optimistic but it's a good thing scientists are going forward. Even if we are a long way off. And we have to remember that often great leaps can be made unexpectedly.

Working practical controlled man-made fusion is 30 years in the future where it has been since 1953. In 2043 working practical controlled man made fusion power will still be 30 years in the future.

ruveyn

A fusion power source must be maintained over long intervals of time and most produce enough power on demand to keep the wheels of industry turning.

This latest wundergeschichte shows that we can produce fusion power with more output than was put in for intervals of time that are totally useless for the needs of industry (this is true regardless of the cost). So far we are no nearing to practical controlled fusion than we we 30 years go. You will notice that this announcement was made and hyped just a few months before the annual renewal of the budget for producing practical fusion power. Hmmm....

ruveyn

ruveyn,

Actually, the source makes clear we are closer than where we were.

Fusion power will always be a couple of decades into the future, like manned missions to Mars, flying cars, or efficient treatment of cancer.

Well, maybe if the funding wasn't being wasted on Tokamaks...

Polywell fusion FTW!

and true AI, don't forget that.

Indeed. Star Wars wouldn't be the same without it, though. Unlike Jar-Jar, C-3PO and R2-D2 served their purpose as comic relieves well.

in regards to the former, that IS in the process of happening.

http://www.mars-one.com/

we would probably be a lot farther to completing more of these 'super projects' if the nations of the world weren't incessantly throwing an aladdin's cave of wealth into maintaining the global military complex.

It's been in the process of happening since 1969.

The political will isn't there in the government sector because the cold war is over. This is a private sector initiative.

I have mixed views about it. Finally we will have boot prints on the red planet but on the other hand its being reduced to a commercialised, profit over science reality TV circus.

There is also a significantly greater chance that the explorers will die en route.