We're all saved!

[ctallchris]

ge0rge said:

whether it will go ahead and be as life changing as some of you say will be another matter.

It is going ahead. The question is whether it will be economically viable. One of the difficulties is that you get a real economy of scale when the size of operations increase suddenly everything becomes much cheaper the only problem is it's really hard to secure the billions and billions of pounds for funding (similar to the funding CERN receives) for an experiment which will probably work. accountants and lawyers really don't like the whole "probably bit". To be honest fusion power has been running to a pretty regular schedule for the last 30 or so years. The plan has been commercial nuclear fusion by 2050.

Despite the prospects for laser ignition i personally cannot see it becoming a commercial prospect as quickly as tokomak reactors mostly because the limiting factors surrounding tokomak reactors surround research in materials (most of which has now been completed) and they are now past the initial experimental reactor stage (spire) and are now costructing a trial reactor in which they will address the difficulties seen in sustaining long term fusion reactions in order to aid the design and construction of commercial reactors.