Humans can be fallible, violence prone, dangerous to themselves, other species and the world, true.
But humans can also cooperate, achieve amazing feats, and even save the planet from devastation.
I considered this when I heard that 70 years after the first use of atomic fusion, humans have achieved *ignition* at the Lawrence Livermore Lab. That means more energy was produced from a fusion reaction than was used to power it. We have a long way to go, but this is a huge milestone! #Hope #Fusion
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George Takei :verified: 🏳️🌈🖖🏽 (georgetakei@universeodon.com)'s status on Friday, 16-Dec-2022 00:21:18 JST George Takei :verified: 🏳️🌈🖖🏽
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Gma47 (patb47@universeodon.com)'s status on Friday, 16-Dec-2022 00:29:43 JST Gma47
@georgetakei I find this breathtaking. Why isn’t it getting more play? Can you imagine a day where we no longer need fossil fuels? In my great grandchild’s future?
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Monica DePaul, Author (monicadepaul@universeodon.com)'s status on Friday, 16-Dec-2022 00:32:35 JST Monica DePaul, Author
@georgetakei Too bad the coal industry will smear it as dangerous and pay politicians to never implement it, just like what's happened with nuclear, despite it producing less radiation and no carbon compared to coal.
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Cwnidog (cwnidog@universeodon.com)'s status on Friday, 16-Dec-2022 00:49:58 JST Cwnidog
@georgetakei : A great advancement.
Now, are the dilithium crystals ready to take the strain?
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Aspen Proposal (aspenproposal@universeodon.com)'s status on Friday, 16-Dec-2022 02:09:22 JST Aspen Proposal
@georgetakei
We just need to make sure that we don't divert funding from renewables, which have immediate application, to fusion which is still likely decades away. Fossil fuel subsidies, on the other hand.... -
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Kitsy Stratton (kitsystratton@universeodon.com)'s status on Friday, 16-Dec-2022 04:22:38 JST Kitsy Stratton
especially #hope
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Kevin Morgan (zinc1024@universeodon.com)'s status on Friday, 16-Dec-2022 05:20:20 JST Kevin Morgan
@georgetakei My understanding is the GROSS energy put into the LLL experiment was quite a bit more than that produced. The energy from the lasers hitting the ignition material was less, but that doesn't include the energy to FIRE the lasers. So...it's a bit disingenuous, IMO. Progress...but commercial fusion still probably decades away, maybe more.
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我不会说中文 ? (istartedi@universeodon.com)'s status on Friday, 16-Dec-2022 07:15:48 JST 我不会说中文 ?
@georgetakei You're such an optimist. It isn't too often I say this about a technology, but I hope fusion continues to be so complicated and expensive that only the wealthiest nation-states on the planet can achieve it.
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Debby Ryan (dooordah@universeodon.com)'s status on Friday, 16-Dec-2022 09:40:27 JST Debby Ryan
@georgetakei Sorry but most of the humans with influence are not altruistic. So we will kill our selves off and the planet will be better off without us!
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Pedalpusher (pedalpusher@universeodon.com)'s status on Friday, 16-Dec-2022 12:30:01 JST Pedalpusher
@georgetakei twitter put a danger danger on your pinned tweet so the link won't work.
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DoubleFelix (doublefelix@universeodon.com)'s status on Friday, 16-Dec-2022 14:05:00 JST DoubleFelix
@georgetakei We can and should celebrate the advance of science. There simply won't be enough tritium in nature to make a difference. In THEORY. a fusion process can "breed" new tritium by injecting lithium into the process. I don't think this has never been done for real. Meanwhile we already have fusion power with solar, wind & hydro. Let's make sure the fusion boosters aren't actually working on behalf of the fossil fuel people to derail efforts to deploy wind and solar aggressively now.
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