On Monday, 19 November 2018 04:47:05 UTC-5, Martin Brown wrote:
On 18/11/2018 03:54, RichA wrote:
On Saturday, 17 November 2018 09:17:50 UTC-5, Chris L Peterson
wrote:
On Fri, 16 Nov 2018 18:21:19 -0800 (PST), RichA
wrote:

On Friday, 16 November 2018 09:57:39 UTC-5, Chris L Peterson
wrote:
On Thu, 15 Nov 2018 22:28:17 -0800 (PST), RichA
wrote:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46219656

What's "rubbish" about it? It's a legitimate news story about
something that some businesses are claiming they can do. That's
what good reporting looks like.

Parroting, with no criticality. Lets say they find out that much
smaller designs (which is what the article dealt with) made
sustained fusion possible. They shut down the NIF and ITER,
billions wasted. Now how, given the difficulty of just confining
the plasma, are they going to siphon off power from it? Will it
consist in just wicking away heat to convert to electricity, as
they do now with fission reactors? Fusion is still inevitably
50-100 years in the future, best case. Worst case, it never
happens. Reality; fission reactors are here and perfected. The
fuel they use, the cost is one the least costly components of the
plant, unlike with oil, gas. There is no upside to replacing
huge, efficient fission plants with some kind of speculative
fusion power.

It's just a news story about a business. Not about fusion. In the
business section, not the science section.

First paragraph:

"We're just five years away from harnessing almost unlimited power
from "miniature suns", some start-ups say: nuclear fusion reactors
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

These are the weasel words. It isn't any different in principle from any
other start-up promising amazing returns if you invest in their bubble.

that could provide abundant, cheap and clean energy."

^^^^^

Again note the wording carefully. It promises a lot and will in all
probability deliver absolutely nothing. There is another very effective
free energy scam been doing the rounds that has taken in some agencies
that I would have expected to be smart enough not to fall for it.

https://www.popsci.com/science/artic...ssis-black-box

LENR aka eCat whose CEO is a known con-man called Rossi - you couldn't
make it up but someone was daft enough to pay good money for a license.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/...thout-success/


--
Regards,
Martin Brown

It isn't really much different than the stuff I read on science sites like phys.org. The number of prognostications of near immediate promises of wonderful things to come on that site that actually turned into anything is very small.