• spacesatan@leminal.space
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      4 hours ago

      If China’s economic ascendancy happened 50 years sooner we would probably already have it. Democracies are allergic to massive capital investments that take decades to pay off.

      Obviously the graph is very out of date, US funding is around 800 million annually and China’s is double that.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      Practical power production through nuclear fusion still requires significant developments for it to be realised at scale, though several startups are already planning to deliver it within the next few years.

      US-based Helion Energy secured the world’s first purchase agreement for nuclear fusion energy in 2023, promising to provide 50MW of fusion power to Microsoft by 2028.

      I mean, time will tell. But that seems a bit sooner than 2100.

      • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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        10 hours ago

        Lol any year now!

        https://www.solarenspace.com/

        ha hahahahaahaaaa… oh boy… you techno utopians are funny. Maybe build a Space Elevator out of 3D printed AI Bitcoins and run a fusion reactor at the Lagrange point? Privately! On the Moon! To colonize Mars and mine the asteroids! Become a multi star species!

        OK, time will tell. How about I save you the wait: nothing will happen. At all.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          you techno utopians are funny.

          I remember hearing this about solar power ten years ago. And electric cars. And cloud computing, even.

          It was never going to be economically viable. Always ten years away from viability. Not competitive with whatever the industry leader was at the time.

          Really putting all your chips on “nothing ever changes”

          • Squizzy@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            To be fair there was and is huge push back against EVs, the US is setting itself back a couple centuries just to not admit it is viable.

          • Cowbee_Admirer@reddthat.com
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            7 hours ago

            I remember hearing this about solar power ten years ago

            Ten years ago Swanson’s law for solar photovoltaics was well established, not comparable.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              5 hours ago

              “It’s only sunny during the day” is a line uttered ad nauseum by people who didn’t see lithium batteries falling through the same price drop.

    • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      Unlike this captain positivity’s social life, fusion is making some sizable strides forward in short order.

      I design diagnostics going into systems like these, there’s a lot of positive news coming our way.

      Helion’s gonna have some problems though.