I haven’t been putting much science up on here but felt the need to do so with this. If true, it’s damned important.
“Hydrogen-boron fusion produces no neutrons and, therefore, no radioactivity in its primary reaction. And unlike most other sources of power production – like coal, gas and nuclear, which rely on heating liquids like water to drive turbines – the energy generated by hydrogen-boron fusion converts directly into electricity. But the downside has always been that this needs much higher temperatures and densities – almost 3 billion degrees Celsius, or 200 times hotter than the core of the Sun.”
You may be interested in the Subsea Expo up here in Aberdeen in February, it’s a good chance to get close to some interesting technology including autonomous ROVs, and various sensing technology. It’s *** cold but that’s what whisky is for,
hmm under whelming response! 🙂
I don’t think people really realize that research on the fundamental issues in physics and on the basics of energy production, energy density, information processing etc are what lead to the fantastic futures you see in your books and the real bootstrapping of humanity !
Something small like simple improvements in battery life for example will have us with year long computing power in our pocket with no recharging required, we’ll end up with displays everywhere ! in our clothes, on our shoes, in our furniture ! Or with drones that continuously follow us checking on our safety, acting as wireless transmission hubs, permanent personal wifi hovering outside our office window!
Or permanent bodily implants relying vital real-time information out to our always on phones monitoring our REAL health and mood in real-time.
And this is just relatively modest improvements in batteries.
Imagine what super cheap limitless power will do to the world?
Interesting link thanks Neal (And I’d forgotten about phys.org so thanks for that too)
Love your books by the way 🙂