Lifted in toto from Marginal Revolution:
Is fusion power going to work out?
Chris F. Masse sends me many links on this topic, and I am willing to give it a hearing. Here is a new summary article:HT: Alphaville
“We could produce net electricity right now, but the costs would be huge,” says Cowley. “The barrier is finding a material than can withstand the neutron bombardment inside the tokamak. We could also just say damn to the cost of the electricity required to demonstrate this. But we don’t want to do something that cannot be shown to be commercially viable. What’s the point?”…on Earth, scientists have to try and replicate a star’s intense gravitational pressure with an artificial magnetic field that requires huge amounts of electricity to create – so much that the National Grid must tell Culham when it is OK for them to run a shot. (Namely, not in the middle of Coronation Street or a big football match.)
