Fusion Power on the way - at last ?

That doesn't address any of the hurdles I mentioned.

Your guess is as good as anyone'sThere's as much evidence that we will have fusion power in a decade as there is that we won't have fusion for many decades or centuries: none.And there is also no evidence that we can replace fossil fuels with wind, solar or hydro. We don't even know if these alternatives are real options in every instance where replacement might be considered.What do we know?We know that fossil fuels work everywhere.We know that fusion would work everywhere.

Can't anyone in this thread separate out the points of an argument instead of blurring everything into big confused mess?That quote was a reply to New Cat's Eye regarding a graph posted in Message 17 about the safety of current energy production methods.Your post is complete gibberish and full of irrelevancy.

So you think we should avoid using steam to generate electricity on the ground because we cannot use it in space? Generating energy in space is pretty low on the list of issues we absolutely must solve. We can get around the solar system burning carbon. Who gives a #$! about carbon emissions in space? Being 'clear to Jon' isn't much of an argument.

Can you put a fusion reactor in your car?Cars can utilize the output of any source that can generate electricity because we can use electricity to charge batteries and capacitors.

hhhhhhEdited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

triplicateEdited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Does it really matter why you said it? Fusion would still not be the answer for situations where we cannot trust people to operate a steam plant. Just about all of the other options would much simpler to operate than a fusion reactor.

Where did I ever make that argument?

That's the conclusion that results from the dumb arguments you did make.I asked you for the reason why we need to get rid of steam which is used to generate energy from multiple sources on earth, and which will probably be used even with fusion.The only real answers you've given so far is that steam cannot be used in space or that it's old fashioned. Both of those answers are BS.You've also made some complaints about other power sources not fitting in vehicles. Well you aren't going to put a fusion reactor in a car either.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Of course.But solar, hydro, and wind don't offer us a substantial amount more energy than we can get from fossil fuels. In one of the articles I linked to, an estimation was given that solar power requires about two times the amount of land area as coal power. Another link mentioned that coal is on the low end in terms of land area used (Message 13).As you know, land on our little planet is limited, and energy-generation technologies that require exponentially larger amounts of land to generate energy than the land we are already using (and the impact is greater when energy demands increase, which they will as population increases) simply don't stand up as feasible alternatives.When you add to that the fact that many of these technologies will require land that is most suited to other important things (like transporting goods or growing food), the practicality of replacing fossil-fuel energy with solar or wind or whatever else is is hard to see.Can you give me some numbers to demonstrate the potential for solar or wind to replace fossil fuels?

None of this stuff is related.You are taking several different lines of discussion and trying to meld them as though they were ever meant to go together. And, of course, this doesn't work, because I never proposed any relationship between the safety of coal and the safety of fusion. I never said we need to give up steam because we cannot use it in space (we shouldn't give up steam unless we have a usable alternative; turning off the steam and sitting in the dark just because steam doesn't work in space is a stupid idea).Anyway, I'm not interested in cleaning up your sloppy mess. If you can't keep different lines of argumentation separate, whether intentionally or because you're stupid, then there's little point in trying to discuss anything else with you.Uncross your wires and then we can talk.

That statement does not make the case you are claiming. Particularly if the coal land use includes the coal mine. Wind power can in some cases use zero land area. Solar power on roof tops uses otherwise unusable land area. Isn't this something I should have expected you to do?

Of course it matters why I said it. The discussion about safety had nothing to do with fusion.The attempt to link the two is your doing - not mine.So any deficiency in the logic of that link is a reflection on your poor attempt of straw-man building, and not a reflection on any argument I actually made.You're just being a weasel.

I don't recall if those numbers include the mines or not. But regardless, coal mines do not remain coal mines forever.ABE: I see now that the numbers do include the mines. So even counting the mines, coal-generation uses significantly less land area (and can use land least-desirable for any other purposes) than solar. /ABEOn the other hand, solar and wind generation requires permanent use of the land involved. You think it is a comparable (or better) alternative. Prove it.It's no one's job to prove similarities between things that on the surface have nothing in common with one another except the person making the claim that they are comparable.Edited by Jon, : No reason given.