TaaL: I think a star is a great way of using fusion. Keep it up. I’m typing this on a fusion - powered system right now: a solar panel with no conversion to potential energy involved. Seems to perform well in the daytime, which works for me.
I suppose it could be argued that, to the extent fusion-bomb-
owning nations intimidate one another into giving away their resources, in some ways you have a man-made- fusion economy, but that’s a stretch since if you USE them, your systems will then no longer work! They’re mor e of a “meme” in that sense... but a meme that no longer scares people very much, and probably should. Like living beneath an old dam, pretty much all current humans have learned to highly discount the quite finite probabilities of warhead-fusion happening as an emergent result of your caveman-brain heuristics, and instead consider such concerns just a quaint relic of the ‘60’s. There may well be a way to harness fusion on a planet. If so, my race hasn’t found it yet. And that “yet” is probably the key: if there is a way to do it, it’s unlikely to be found “in the nick of time” to be scaled up just as your oil diminishes. Rather, it’s research that might properly be pursued by a long - lived civilization, such as yours should aspire to be. And frankly, at pr esent, humans probably shouldn’t be trusted with unlimited nearly free energy. Sorry, but there it is. Even before the major effects of CO2 and ocean acidification have begun to seriously bite, you have used your “extended phenotype” of fossil -fueled power to bring about what could easily become only the 6 th planetary mass extinction in the last half- billion years. If something granted you “free energy” before you learn good sense, you’d strip your world beyond healing in pursuit of novelty and stimulation. You’ve got plenty of energy coming from a perfectly good star, and are evolved to deal well with day, night, and clouds. Why not settle in for the long term? The Bottom Line: There is, at present, no reason to think that fusion reactors are going to solve any of our upcoming energy problems.
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