Science

You know instead of the artificial sun we could use the real one no? I still think fusion is a good investment on the skill tree but not for consumer energy. Also can someone explain why we use solar panels instead of mirrors that heat up water and spin turbines? Almost every other method of producing energy uses that and from my understanding its more efficient and probably cheaper.

Good job scientists!

I'm studying Physics at the moment and Prof. gave us a printout of a textbook last week stating that the internal of the sun generates approximately 150 W / m³ on average. That's about as much as a compost pile, so, not very much. The sun only generates enormous amounts of power because it's so huge. In other words, reproducing fusion on Earth might actually not be very efficient.

I feel like little fusion has kind of missed the boat. It's been "just a few decades away" since I was in school, and that's a good while ago now.

We can already get limitless clean energy from the real sun.

0 theoretical hope for fusion energy to ever provide electricity under 30c/kwh. These are hot plasma experiments, which could be used to produce mass HHO from water vapour at just 2200C-3000C, even if endothermic. Can get energy from concentrated solar mirrors or just PV solar if plasma is used. Cooling magnets is a huge energy drain. HHO provide the highest turbine energy gain, though a net gain pathway is just slightly more in reach than fusion.

Meanwhile in America

Meh, net gain is the point, long cycles well be useful for production. Useful, eventually. Cart before the horse, otherwise.

Forget artificial suns, let me tell you right now how to make an artificial moon:

1. Be a robot.
2. Pull down pants.
3. Bend over.
4. Point robo-crack towards recipient
5. Artificial Moon.

Someone needs to bash these scicomm journalists over the head until they stop using the words "artificial sun"