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badalberts t1_j09kky1 wrote

In the articles that I’ve read, they always give the figures as megajoules: ….achieving a yield of more than 1.3 megajoules (MJ). Sounds really impressive. But if you convert to kWh it’s not so exciting - 0.36 kWh. If that were electricity, it worth about 4 cents!

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Ender16 t1_j0a5l2n wrote

Your not wrong, but your misrepresenting how good of a thing this is.

It would be like me being all smug years ago saying, "Yeah that solar power thing sure is cool, you can run a whole calculator with it."

And yet here we are in 2022 with solar power being a serious competing energy source for the grid.

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badalberts t1_j0b5qi1 wrote

Perhaps. but I’m still skeptical. Forgot to mention that they also blew up a diamond doing it. It’ll be great if it’s a viable source of energy and all. Just don’t think I’ll hold my breath

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Ok-disaster2022 t1_j0b2x0s wrote

People like to thinks it's technology that's a problem when it's simply economics. Renewables are doing well today because they're subsidized, and grids have to buy renewable energy first. Fossil fuel production is also excessively subsidized and governmentally encouraged.

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johnpseudo t1_j0bgyrq wrote

Renewables are cheaper than any of the alternatives, even if we were to remove their subsidies. (1, 2)

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OptimalConcept143 t1_j09maaj wrote

What's impressive is that they are creating as much energy as the ignition process uses. That's a major hurdle to overcome because up until now it has always taken more energy to run than you get out. It's the last step before making more energy than you need to run it.

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sweller3 t1_j09yds5 wrote

If rhe results are verified -- that the breakeven threshold has been passed -- the last step is actually building a commercial reactor that economically harvests the energy produced. The technology does us no good if it costs too much to build and maintain.

Every 10 years since the 50's the scientists have made breakthroughs and predicted a viable fusion reactor within a decade, so pardon my skepticism...

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Clarky1979 t1_j0a3d7e wrote

I've always heard 20-30 years, every decade, for the last 40 years.

This is a significant development though, net gain is a big step.

Scalability is still the massive hurdle to overcome.

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