Someone on twitter linked this:Positive Mainstream Reviews of Dense Plasma Focus Fusion and IEC Fusion
If the scientists in question aren’t being insanely optimistic, then there is a darn good chance we could have some seriously inexpensive and abundant electrical production fairly soon (within a generation or so). The energy production would rely on fusion using boron11 and hydrogen as the source materials, both of which we could easily and relatively cheaply produce ourselves in the necessary quantities to supply all the electricity we need. Also, there are no radioactive materials left over, just high-energy helium molecules which would be used as a heat source for, most likely, a steam turbine. My only quibble is that they don’t account for the increased demand for boron which would follow this, and that boron might become more valuable simply because it would be an energy source.
Who wouldn’t be in favor of cheap energy for the masses? My guess would be the Democrats. I expect them to block this in any way they can, because it would ruin their whole “greenhouse gas” lever they are using to try to control people’s behavior. If they really cared about CO2 as anything other than a lever, they would be pushing for us to build more nuclear power plants. They don’t, however. Global warming is a trick to make people behave in a certain way, and nothing more than that. An energy source that completely bypasses any argument about global warming is evil because of that.
Anyway, I’m hopeful. However, I still think we should be building fission plants now because any new technology will take decades to develop, and we need independent energy now, not 20 years from now. If this fusion process really does pan out, we can replace all the fusion plants as they finish their service life and no longer be generating all that nasty waste material.
What I don’t want is for people to look at this and say, “Great, we can wait on the fission plants because this fusion technology will save us.” That is not good because fusion always seems to be 20 years down the road, and that timeline gets shifted every 5 years or so. We can be smart and use what works now, because no matter what we do we can always shift to the new technology when it becomes available. That’s how we always did it before government regulation stopped the process, and it’s time the government stepped out of the way again so we can move forward.