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Post by naughtyfox on Oct 4, 2019 7:20:54 GMT
funnily enough, I wuz torking to my bruvver about just this today. he is a chartered engineer who has been following the issues that have prevented fusion from becoming a reality. fusion works - it is simple and very powerful - but it only works for a matter of minutes. trouble is that the reaction needs to be contained and no containment material has been found that is not eroded very rapidly by 'sputtering'. he was at a conference at Culham and asked the question and the scientists said it works fine, if only the engineers could design a containment vessel. it works on the surface of the sun - but the sun's gravity acts as the containment, keeping the components in place. the issue has been known for decades, but little or no progress has been made. That reminds me of the story of the brilliant research chemist who perfected a manufacturing process for a universal solvent. He wasn't able to produce or market the stuff because of difficulties with storage containers and it's severely limited shelf life !
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Post by naughtyfox on Oct 4, 2019 7:23:06 GMT
Yep, £220 million is just the teaser rate....but it also smacks of the same flounce that led to 'the government' announcing the UK will build its own GPS system when the the EU said we can't play with theirs. However, it will be money well spent. Culham has a long history of fusion research. Now if they were to definitely scrap HS2 and divert all the money to building a working fusion reactor, that would be a massively better use of all those billions. I'd just build a Stargate system, then you can go to other peoples' planets and steal their oil.
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Post by lollygagger on Oct 4, 2019 7:47:42 GMT
The money is to design the Power STATION, not the reactor, which we will no doubt buy from the Chinese.
This Power Station design will be 20 years out of date by 2040.
£220m down the drain, typical British political distraction drivel - how we love to spend on reports, designs...but not physical useful "stuff". Still, it makes it look to the electorate that the UK is up and at it.
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Post by Jim on Oct 4, 2019 8:30:01 GMT
What a bunch of miseries. If those of your ilk had their way we'd still be getting fire from lightning strikes and walking everywhere. "Ooh Mr Ugg, that roundy thing will kill millions, stop it with your new fangled gubbinses. And why are you rubbing two sticks together?" "Be patient mr Thicko, you'll see. And I'm about to invent boy scouts to do that for me"
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2019 9:07:27 GMT
What a bunch of miseries. If those of your ilk had their way we'd still be getting fire from lightning strikes and walking everywhere. "Ooh Mr Ugg, that roundy thing will kill millions, stop it with your new fangled gubbinses. And why are you rubbing two sticks together?" "Be patient mr Thicko, you'll see. And I'm about to invent boy scouts to do that for me" I suppose there will always be selfish people who couldn’t give a shit about the condition we leave this planet (and country!) to our younger generations. As I’ve said before, there seems to be little correlation between intelligence and doing the right thing. To do the right thing, you need to care about those around you.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2019 9:09:46 GMT
What a bunch of miseries. If those of your ilk had their way we'd still be getting fire from lightning strikes and walking everywhere. "Ooh Mr Ugg, that roundy thing will kill millions, stop it with your new fangled gubbinses. And why are you rubbing two sticks together?" "Be patient mr Thicko, you'll see. And I'm about to invent boy scouts to do that for me" Its true that history is littered with people who said 'nah, it'll never work'. But the fusion reactor malarkey is a wee dadger more complicated than sending a train through a tunnel faster than 30mph.
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Post by kris on Oct 4, 2019 9:39:09 GMT
What a bunch of miseries. If those of your ilk had their way we'd still be getting fire from lightning strikes and walking everywhere. "Ooh Mr Ugg, that roundy thing will kill millions, stop it with your new fangled gubbinses. And why are you rubbing two sticks together?" "Be patient mr Thicko, you'll see. And I'm about to invent boy scouts to do that for me" We would probably be better off.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2019 9:51:56 GMT
What a bunch of miseries. If those of your ilk had their way we'd still be getting fire from lightning strikes and walking everywhere. "Ooh Mr Ugg, that roundy thing will kill millions, stop it with your new fangled gubbinses. And why are you rubbing two sticks together?" "Be patient mr Thicko, you'll see. And I'm about to invent boy scouts to do that for me" We would probably be better off. To be fair, I doubt Jim could work out how to rub two sticks together...
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2019 10:18:29 GMT
What a bunch of miseries. If those of your ilk had their way we'd still be getting fire from lightning strikes and walking everywhere. "Ooh Mr Ugg, that roundy thing will kill millions, stop it with your new fangled gubbinses. And why are you rubbing two sticks together?" "Be patient mr Thicko, you'll see. And I'm about to invent boy scouts to do that for me" We would probably be better off. Definitely.
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Post by lollygagger on Oct 4, 2019 10:29:50 GMT
What a bunch of miseries. If those of your ilk had their way we'd still be getting fire from lightning strikes and walking everywhere. "Ooh Mr Ugg, that roundy thing will kill millions, stop it with your new fangled gubbinses. And why are you rubbing two sticks together?" "Be patient mr Thicko, you'll see. And I'm about to invent boy scouts to do that for me" If you think British engineering is the pinnacle and spending £220M designing a place to put something nobody can build yet, that will be out of date anyway is money well spent, you're deluded, but then we already knew that.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2019 12:28:58 GMT
I'm surprised at the level of anti-tech sentiment there is around here. The arrow of time moves in one direction only! Similarly the march of progress tends to be uni-directional as well. Various political movements have tried to reverse it - the Khmer Rouge, the Taliban, etc, but I hear things didn't end well. Don't forget Mr Kaczynski, whose 'manifesto' makes strangely compelling reading if you are in a bad mood.
Fusion technology promises a great deal but has so far delivered nothing. The notion that Britain will lead the way seems sadly laughable. I suspect it is nothing more than a cynical promise ahead of political uncertainty that will lead nowhere.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2019 13:06:13 GMT
I'm surprised at the level of anti-tech sentiment there is around here. The arrow of time moves in one direction only! Similarly the march of progress tends to be uni-directional as well. Various political movements have tried to reverse it - the Khmer Rouge, the Taliban, etc, but I hear things didn't end well. Don't forget Mr Kaczynski, whose 'manifesto' makes strangely compelling reading if you are in a bad mood. Fusion technology promises a great deal but has so far delivered nothing. The notion that Britain will lead the way seems sadly laughable. I suspect it is nothing more than a cynical promise ahead of political uncertainty that will lead nowhere. The way we are heading, nature will reverse it whether we like it or not. Lack of sentiment (along with greed) is what is destroying life on this planet, anyone who isn’t stuck in the bubble of denial can see it.
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Post by naughtyfox on Oct 4, 2019 13:14:48 GMT
The arrow of time moves in one direction only! Similarly the march of progress tends to be uni-directional as well. You can time travel back to the 13th Century if you go to Birmingham or Luton.
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Post by Jim on Oct 4, 2019 13:55:27 GMT
We would probably be better off. To be fair, I doubt Jim could work out how to rub two sticks together... Cheeky twunt. I'll have you know I'm not just a clown. More mechanically minded than many here. I'd use a bow and stick with 2 blocks. Where would we lot be if the first stone wasn't sharpened, the first log hollowed out. kris would have nowhere to store his shit for a start. "Bubble of Denial", are you referring to the other channel? 😂 I certainly don't live there, just pop in now and again to give them the benefit of my clownwittery. You can't keep me all to yourselves.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2019 14:12:46 GMT
To be fair, I doubt Jim could work out how to rub two sticks together... Cheeky twunt. I'll have you know I'm not just a clown. More mechanically minded than many here. I'd use a bow and stick with 2 blocks. Where would we lot be if the first stone wasn't sharpened, the first log hollowed out. kris would have nowhere to store his shit for a start. "Bubble of Denial", are you referring to the other channel? 😂 I certainly don't live there, just pop in now and again to give them the benefit of my clownwittery. You can't keep me all to yourselves. Aww...
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