from Hacker News

Humanity is on the cusp of practically limitless energy via nuclear fusion

by Nilef on 7/19/21, 10:55 PM with 21 comments

• by Nilef on 7/19/21, 11:15 PM

  Super interesting thread, I've always heard lots of doom and gloom about this on Hn threads but seems that there's been a pivotal step forward in the field with these new superconductors

  Can only imagine what the world would look like with a limitless energy source like this.

  Anyone see any reason not to be highly optimistic about this development?

• by cs702 on 7/19/21, 11:28 PM

  If this is true, then humanity is also on the cusp of being able to eliminate the impact on climate from burning fossil fuels in one generation!

  :-)

• by bcrl on 7/21/21, 11:23 PM

  My nephew and I were pondering the following question: what will the real world downsides of fusion be after it has been widely deployed for a few decades? Every time humans have developed a new technology, we have failed to foresee some of the inevitable downsides (in hindsight) of that new technology that only arise and become known after it is widely deployed. I'm curious if I'll be around long enough to see what the answer turns out to be.

• by darepublic on 7/20/21, 9:54 AM

  so can we be gifted a small fusion reactor from the government and then go home-steading in small, portable fusion powered eco friendly homes.

• by sunstone on 7/20/21, 10:33 AM

  Yes, it's called 'the sun'.

• by a3n on 7/19/21, 11:37 PM

  Limitless power corrupts without limit.