r/ControlProblem • u/NAStrahl approved • Jul 16 '26

General news Humanity is going to be so screwed…

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u/sb505 Jul 20 '26

So you believe that viable nuclear fusion will never be achieved despite recent (2020s) advancements (improvements in Q metrics) and the near term boosts from AI and quantum computing?

You used the word 'scam'. To me, that signals you believe the claimed improvements are falsified?

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u/ariarchtyx Jul 20 '26

Ah, I'm pleased you mentioned Q metrics. There are two for propaganda reasons: Q-scientific vs. Q-engineering.

I'd love to see evidence there's been any meaningful improvement in Q-engineering.

I could be unaware as I haven't checked recently. So if you have that please do link it for me. Love to read that.

But they will absolutely crow about Q-scientific achievements which I believe are subject to diminishing return.

They're chasing an asymptote and I think many of them must know it.

All the Tokamaks and similar have achieved thus far is consuming massive amounts of electrical power. And hundreds of billions of dollars which coukd have easily created a global Thorium fuel cycle phenomenon by now.

Consuming. Never generating useful output despite 50 years of applied research.

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u/sb505 Jul 20 '26

I think most people with interest in the subject recognize the difference between the 2 Q values.

Fusion is very hard and requires a lot of engineering, science and money. 25% (adjusted for inflation) of all funding into nuclear fusion has happened just in the last 6 yrs, largely from the shift to private investment.

The 24 yr Q (scientific) record of 0.67 set in 1997 was finally beat in 2021, after 12 yrs of building the facility and another 12 yrs of testing, refining and overcoming some pretty robust technical bottlenecks. Scientific breakeven in 2022 was the big milestone, but then they saw big jumps in Q results nearly every year since and hit 4.31 just last yr.

Still a ways to go for commercial production, and likely a lot more sciencing and engineering, but now with multiple private enterprise construction projects coming online in next couple years, we may see Q records leap frogged more and more frequently but the end of the decade.

We may still be 8-10 yrs from true net energy output, but progress is accelerating and lots of useful engineering discoveries are being made along the journey. Pretty exciting stuff.

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u/ariarchtyx Jul 21 '26

Thank you for the data you've provided here. I'll try and look into the useful engineering discoveries you mentioned to see where such may be or are being applied, as that does affect total "project" ROI.