Pursuit of the fusion dream is a research nightmare

Many decades and over a trillion dollars have been spent trying and achieve viable fusion for generating electricity. Thus far, even with the newest advances, there is no net-gain of usable energy. 

It’s like building a giant bonfire each morning to heat a cup of water for tea. When you publish an article like this, you should also make specific mention of how much outside energy is needed to produce a split-second tiny flash of fusion. I’d venture the ratio is about 1,000 to 1. There are more viable ways of producing electricity. Concentrated solar is top of the list, but there are other viable alternatives. 

Fusion is like using a blowtorch to light a cigarette, when a candle would do.

The article says US company “EMC2 is presently seeking [an additional] $30 million in commercial funding.” That’s how fusion research works. Every so often they seek giant amounts of funding and then once in awhile they get a development. The cycle has gone on for decades, and still no researcher is close to getting a net gain of usable heat production for power generation.

There are smart people who claim a car can be run on water, because water is composed of the combustible gases oxygen (O) and hydrogen (H). It sounds intriguing, but the energy needed to separate O from H is more than the energy provided by the liberated O and H to power the car. 

It’s similar with fusion. It takes more outside energy to create the fusion reaction than what can be harnessed in the end. 

Yet banks and governments will keep shovelling billions of dollars into the quest, and the only people smiling will be the researchers.

Ken Albertsen