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Comment by zpeti | Hacker News Reader

$100bn to get to a working fusion reactor doesn’t mean the second one will cost €100bn as well…

Oh for sure. To be clear, I meant the amortized cost, not the initial cost of, say, ITER. I could've stated that better.

Either way we (humanity) have to research these things or we are guaranteeing that we will reach an energy and materials plateau and eventual decline as a species.

This makes no sense. A plateau does not imply decline.

Yep, but if you want to have cheap energy, then it better to start with something cheaper, like LENR, which is still pain to reproduce, but give it $100bn and 20 years and then compare with ITER.

As long as we're in fantasyland I suggest perpetual motion machines, or perhaps unicorn power.

It's hard to make up for LENR's lack of existence with clever engineering. But even if LENR existed, how do you think it would get around the problem described? LENR would make heat, low grade heat.

A low-grade heat is OK for heating of buildings, so it can replace natural.

LENR is hard to reproduce even for those who can reproduce, but at this point we can be sure that LENR is not a fantasy land. Multiple scientists in multiple institutions are able to reproduce the experiment sometimes, so this is the science.

IMHO, external factors are involved, e.g. cosmic rays, which generate muons[0], or radioactive elements or gases decaying, and LENR devices are just boosting them.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion

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