Human effects on global warming.

[Kempley05]

I know.

But that doesn’t change the fact that no one has ever made a fusion reactor that produces more energy than it takes in. Do some research into JET.

 

[NoPoke]

Moza the sun has gravity on its side. Lots of gravity. Trying to produce sustainable fusion rather than just a very big bang from a realistically sized device has thus far eluded us. The prospect of constructing 30TW of fusion plant inside the next 50 years seems much less likely than being contacted by aliens. A long time ago i worked on a 2GW generator for use in power stations. Its a very big piece of kit. We would need 10,000 of these alone, just to make up the energy gap. Each 2GW generator takes months to build and test. Yet we need to make one of these every day for the next 25 years to have enough capacity to meet demand.

 

[ZAKtheGeek]

And to Kempley about fusion, fusion is what the sun does, and it hasn't ran out of energy for a very very very long time. And it will keep on going for a very very very long time. Fusion will also solve the energy problem, fission won't.

The sun has (read: is) a massive fusion fuel source. It also doesn't need local conditions not to be completely unlivable.

 

[drrty byl]

Who are you guys going to purchase carbon offsets from for the flights to and returning from US nationals? Worlds? Me, I'll be walking to both..

 

[Articjedi]

Moza the sun has gravity on its side. Lots of gravity. Trying to produce sustainable fusion rather than just a very big bang from a realistically sized device has thus far eluded us. The prospect of constructing 30TW of fusion plant inside the next 50 years seems much less likely than being contacted by aliens. A long time ago i worked on a 2GW generator for use in power stations. Its a very big piece of kit. We would need 10,000 of these alone, just to make up the energy gap. Each 2GW generator takes months to build and test. Yet we need to make one of these every day for the next 25 years to have enough capacity to meet demand.

Aren't there radioactivity problems with the technology too? I know they aren't as bad as fission reactors, but I heard somewhere that a block of protective material 10 meters deep becomes massively radioactive after a successful fusion reaction, not much different from a fission reactor.

I used to think fusion was the way of the future too, but there are just too many issues with the technology. It's not like engineers and scientists can just make these things work at a drop of a hat, there's a lot of time and money involved to develop these technologies. The biggest problem we're going to have in the future is meeting our demands for energy, as more countries hit first world status and people are able to afford more luxuries. Affordable energy just doesn't exist right now, not with unrenewable reserves draining and other forms of energy either too expensive or too environmentally damaging. There are bigger issues than simply global warming that are going to hit, and I'm suprised that no one has tried anything about the issue.

 

[NoPoke]

Yep. fusion is as dirty as fission. All those very high energy particles/photons flying around create a lot of mess. Fusion shouldn't generate as much waste or waste that has an enormous half life, but it is anything but a clean process. In many ways the containment problems faced by fusion are much much worse than those for much simpler fision reactors. Everything about a fusion plant is just so much hotter.

 

[Cyrus]

Obviously global warming is taking place...if you don't believe it, then you're clueless. The question you SHOULD be asking is...how much of it are we responsible for? Technically we're still in the (latter stages of an) ice age, so a lot of natural global warming is taking place. Just be aware of that.

Drrty's got this post mastered...my tournament record PROVES that Steelix ex's energy consumption is inferior to my infernape's (especially when you flip all heads on Meteor Punch...)!