Now this is the real AI killer application, if you can actually run the data centers without having to try to spin up your own coal plants to do it.
And they’ll be cheaper too. The US is cooked by its own energy strategy.
DeathMetal007 on
I’m not seeing where Beijing has a lock on fusion. They are surely building commercial power plant scale facilities, but the end-to-end research papers and the accompanying supply chain buildings aren’t in the article. I think there’s still a way to go.
Destinyciello on
What’s with dictators and their love for **Wunderwaffe**
Whether it’s Hitler, Putin, Xi. They all fall in love with some mythical super toy that is going to make their opponents fear and cower.
Why not produce actual weapons? Like US did with the nuke. Or produce a real technology like US has done with AI and Taiwan has done with chips. You know that country you guys refuse to acknowledge is a country. I guess when you can’t do that you have to fall back on Wunderwaffe.
Is a perpetual motion machine and a time machine also on the menu for China?
janethefish on
I see NYT has discovered the sun!
Artificial Fusion could power our civilization many times over. Much like solar.
Which means this really comes down to **economics.** What produces more power per dollar?
Solar started out not particularly feasible, but the cost has been dropping exponentially for a while now. To put it in fusion terms, solar power has reached the economic break even. And that’s competing with fossil fuels that don’t need to account for pollution.
Fusion has not yet reached the engineering break even point. In other words when all the energy is accounted for more electricity goes in than out. Then there is the economic break even in which money can be generated.
This does not mean basic research is bad. Keep funding basic research. Fusion research is progressing. Slowly.
However we already have a larger source of energy: solar. It is already economical and would be even better with a carbon fee.
4 Comments
Now this is the real AI killer application, if you can actually run the data centers without having to try to spin up your own coal plants to do it.
And they’ll be cheaper too. The US is cooked by its own energy strategy.
I’m not seeing where Beijing has a lock on fusion. They are surely building commercial power plant scale facilities, but the end-to-end research papers and the accompanying supply chain buildings aren’t in the article. I think there’s still a way to go.
What’s with dictators and their love for **Wunderwaffe**
Whether it’s Hitler, Putin, Xi. They all fall in love with some mythical super toy that is going to make their opponents fear and cower.
Why not produce actual weapons? Like US did with the nuke. Or produce a real technology like US has done with AI and Taiwan has done with chips. You know that country you guys refuse to acknowledge is a country. I guess when you can’t do that you have to fall back on Wunderwaffe.
Is a perpetual motion machine and a time machine also on the menu for China?
I see NYT has discovered the sun!
Artificial Fusion could power our civilization many times over. Much like solar.
Which means this really comes down to **economics.** What produces more power per dollar?
Solar started out not particularly feasible, but the cost has been dropping exponentially for a while now. To put it in fusion terms, solar power has reached the economic break even. And that’s competing with fossil fuels that don’t need to account for pollution.
Fusion has not yet reached the engineering break even point. In other words when all the energy is accounted for more electricity goes in than out. Then there is the economic break even in which money can be generated.
This does not mean basic research is bad. Keep funding basic research. Fusion research is progressing. Slowly.
However we already have a larger source of energy: solar. It is already economical and would be even better with a carbon fee.