Comments by "Digital Nomad" (@digitalnomad9985) on "Fusion Energy Is Coming. No, Really. | Answers With Joe" video.

  1. Tell that to the Venezuelans. They had a profitable oil industry till it got nationalized, now they are starving and the oil industry is in the red. A private power plant has to undersell the competition. A government power plant can outlaw the competition (say on "environmental" grounds) and be as inefficient as they like.
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  2. +JackDespero "Those private companies are not going to do anything with that, they are only gathering money and spending it in things that have been done already. The latest publications of the MIT endevour are things that have been done in other machines of the same since in the 1990s. Just give more money to fusion and you will see a huge speed up." This is the exact opposite of the way the world works. The private companies are, as always, investing because they hope to make money from the finished product at the other end. They are in other words TRYING TO SUCCEED (though there is no guarantee they will). Those running the government programs have no such incentive, and get their best job security by CONTINUING THE PROGRAM (these are guaranteed NOT to succeed). If you have money that wants fusion, as opposed to fusion research, invest in the private programs (or pick one) if you can.
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  3. Do you really thing you will have to remind the government to tax economic activity?
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  4. Folks, this so easy to search, why are you all blowing smoke? Deuterium, (Hydrogen isotope 2) the easiest atom to fuse, constitutes just over one out of every ten thousand Hydrogen atoms in ordinary water. It has an ENORMOUSLY LONG half life and heavy water (D2O) is SAFE TO DRINK. The fusion of two Deuterons produces either a Helium -3 nucleus, (which is also considered so stable they won't list a half-life) and an fast neutron; or a Tritium nucleus (Hydrogen isotope 3) which has just over a 12 year half life and beta decays to Helium 3 and a fast proton. The most dangerous radiation from this process is not the nucleus products, but the NEUTRONS released by the process directly. A more energetic reaction is to fuse 1 Deuterium and 1 Helium-3, producing 1 Protium (Hydrogen isotope 1), and 1 Helium-4 (the common stable isotope pumped into airships and toy balloons) This releases more energy per unit of fuel, and is aneutronic (doesn't generate neutrons to make the reactor radioactive), but it requires much higher energy of fusion, so it is harder to ignite. Also, we do not currently have a supply of Helium-3 in industrial quantities. We could get it from Dee (Deuterium) reactors, but we would have to put up with the neutrons from that reactor. Rather than messing with that, SECOND GENERATION D/Helium-3 reactors may opt to import the Helium-3 from the Moon, it's lighter than garden variety helium (cheaper to transport and stable) and fused with Terrestrial Dee can release a LOT of clean energy. This high energy for low fuel input characteristic (along with the aneutronic property) might also make it the power plant of choice for large spacecraft.
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  5. +Ratatoskr Folks, we want abundant cheap energy from fusion, we will never get this from a government utility, especially an international government utility. The administrative overhead and red tape will proliferate to eat any savings from the new tech. Also the additional centralization of power will be detrimental to freedom. All a company can own is a design, and it will only be a monopoly till other companies come up with a competing design. And none of them (even the first one) have a market unless they undersell current utilities (unless the government distorts the market, say for environmental reasons to favor fusion).
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  6.  @salaciousBastard  In the context of a spurious radiation scare, it is reasonable to characterize something you can drink a tumbler of without harm as safe to drink. It is not likely to prove a health hazard for the reader, because heavy water is expensive and not a consumer item.
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