SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Energy From Fusion In 'A Couple Years,' CEO Says, Commercialization In Five
TAE Technologies will bring a fusion-reactor technology to commercialization in the next five years, its CEO announced recently at the University of California, Irvine.
"The notion that you hear fusion is another 20 years away, 30 years away, 50 years away—it's not true," said Michl Binderbauer, CEO of the company formerly known as Tri Alpha Energy. "We're talking commercialization coming in the next five years for this technology."
[...] For more than 20 years TAE has been pursuing a reactor that would fuse hydrogen and boron at extremely high temperatures, releasing excess energy much as the sun does when it fuses hydrogen atoms. Lately the California company has been testing the heat capacity of its process in a machine it named Norman after the late UC Irvine physicist Norman Rostoker.
Its next device, dubbed Copernicus, is designed to demonstrate an energy gain. It will involve deuterium-tritium fusion, the aim of most competitors, but a milestone on TAE's path to a hotter, but safer, hydrogen-boron reaction.
Binderbauer expects to pass the D-T fusion milestone soon. "What we're really going to see in the next couple years is actually the ability to actually make net energy, and that's going to happen in the machine we call Copernicus," he said in a "fireside chat" at UC Irvine.
Also at NextBigFuture.
Related: Lockheed Martin's Patent for a Fusion Reactor the Size of a Shipping Container
How 'Miniature Suns' Could Provide Cheap, Clean Energy
(Score: 4, Funny) by Kalas on Thursday January 17 2019, @01:15AM (10 children)
In my couple decades now of reading about it it's always been 20 to 50 years away from being commercially viable but now it's down to just 5? What progress! I look forward to reading here that it's only 1 year away when that article is published in 2060. Soylentnews will probably be the only website still accessible without having to insert a Javascript-powered butt plug that plays audio ads every 90 seconds.
(Score: 5, Funny) by takyon on Thursday January 17 2019, @01:16AM (6 children)
You're going to love the new fusion-powered buttplugs.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @02:13AM (3 children)
Even more so when that plug is rammed down your throat and you choke to death on it.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by takyon on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:00AM (2 children)
Ah, if it isn't our Internet Tough Guy anon. Gotta get your daily quota of death threats posted.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @08:15AM (1 child)
Could have been the general you and thus only a commetary on the current state of the web rather than a horse's head nailed to your front door.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @11:16AM
Wow, sounds like takyon really dodged a bullet. He could have had that horse's head rammed down his head rather than the buttplug.
All kidding aside, did the horse choke to death on that buttplug?
(Score: 2) by Kalas on Thursday January 17 2019, @03:15AM (1 child)
Oh great. First the profiteers metaphorically fuck me with ads and tracking that disrespects the user, then they literally fuck me with ad-laden buttplugs, THEN they go on to fuck me at the cellular level with prostate cancer from the required fusion buttplugs.
The ad companies and data miners might call that the "trifecta" but I see it as the "trifuckta."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @03:12PM
oh there's good news; the atomic butt plug actually can also irradiate the cancer it caused! You get to have mutant cancer, but at least it's treatable via ignoring the problem. A side effect is that your anus turns big and green and hulk like and you don't remember what happens while it takes control of your body. Just don't get angry near any locations where a big musclar man with a butt plug might get into trouble.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @01:42AM
Looks like we're at "I've solved the interesting research problems. The rest is business, which is easy, right? [xkcd.com]"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 17 2019, @04:35PM (1 child)
Since the 1970's I've heard that Fusion is only 20 years away. And it still is.
Oh, and general AI too, but that seems more likely at this point than:
* fusion
* man on mars
* male contraceptive
I will gladly give you fusion in 5 years for a hamburger today.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2019, @05:23PM
That one already exists. It's called condom.