If the cars prove popular those stations will grow like broadband and cellular coverage.

Given that there is no shade and the roof is entirely slanted toward the sun... maybe. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against solar energy... but everything we are discussing doesn't take into account the install costs, the maintenance, the lifespan, etc etc

Now here you have a project that understands the scope of coverage required to get the kind of power needed. It's completely impractical on many levels but it shows the massive square footage you are talking about when you look at our power requirements.

The biggest issue is a simple one... we just waste too damn much energy. That isn't likely to change much. Which is why I am a huge proponent of funding fusion research. As "impractical" as it sounds, it is actually one of the most realistic measures we can take towards safe, clean renewable energy that would exceed demand such that it would drive down costs and could theoretically bring a boatload of manufacturing back to the US. As we move more and more toward automation, energy and transport costs not labor will be the deciding factor on where a factory gets built.

Yes this is whack, guys. I require instant gratification and do not ever think of things in a broad context and most certainly do not think in terms existing outside of my own lifespan. /america

All I said is they need to scale back the hype when they really aren't doing much. Hell, they won't even have one in every major city. KC probably won't see one.

What do you think it would take to initiate a self-sustaining and safe fusion reaction?

install costs, maintenance, etc. don't scare me as much as knowingly continuing to increase our dependency on an energy source that is not renewable.

There are challenges facing green technology.. but that's exciting. I hope that advancing renewable energy will be one of the great feats that we accomplish as humans of the early 21st century.

You ever hear the phrase, "Rome wasn't built in a day"? Jesus Christ, man.

The safe part is the easiest part. Unlike fission, a fusion reactor that has a catastrophic failure simple stops. The only "unsafe" part of it is the irradiation of any casing/shielding materials which produce a minimal amount of waste. The "Holy Grail" is to get to aneutronic fusion which eliminates that by creating a reaction whose byproduct can be converted directly to electrical energy. Think of it in terms of creating a mini sun to power solar cells. That isn't accurate but it works well enough as an analogy.

The self-sustaining part is where we have problems. The term for this is "ignition." You have two basic approaches to achieve this. I can go into details if anyone cares but let's just say the US facility working on this uses lasers and the Europeans use magnets. (Wow, that is so oversimplified it sounds stupid) At one point we were ahead of the Europeans on this but massive cutbacks in funding (thanks to both Obama and Congress) have let the Europeans jump ahead. It actually doesn't matter who "wins" the race in this both approaches have significantly advanced the science in recent years.

Ok, let's focus on the Euro project, ITER, since they are currently in the lead. (could change at any point though and I still think NIF has a more solid approach) The Euros aren't messing around. They are building an experimental reactor now and expect it to be operational by the 2030s. IF it works, they expect to produce 10 times the energy that is put into the reaction.

I can go through a litany of engineering issues that both projects are facing but the real issue is funding. We know the science works it's now down to engineering issues which can always be solved with time and money. The problem is that the scale of time and money we are talking about is pretty damn huge, but the payoff is well worth it in my mind.

What's disappointing is I talked with a rep from Philips the other day, and asked about their innovations in low voltage lighting, specifically their color kinetics line. He told me they were pretty much going to completely scrap low voltage lighting. I was shocked.

The reason, the "industry" prefers line voltage. Meaning, electricians don't want to learn how to install/troubleshoot it, and don't want to lose that scope of work to low voltage techs b/c it likely wouldn't require a license. Total copout.

So they'll continue making LED lights that screw into your existing wiring and have a driver locally that fails long before the LED's will, b/c of all the wasted energy to heat, and continue selling them for $65 a pop.

Screw that. There is no reason I shouldn't be able to run a cat 5/6 to every light location and power my light with a poe or upoe switch, with a central driver hooked up to a simple APC battery backup so I don't lose lights during a power outage. Not to mention full controllability from "smart" devices.

Would make troubleshooting and upgrading much much easier in the future when more high tech systems come out. Such as light harvesting and LiFi tech(internet over light).

Jesus Christ man. Get it through your head. All I said was don't call it blanketing. Maybe polka dotting, or pimpling. Maybe even back acne-ing.

I agree I just look at all the limitations and think we currently have a "middle of the road" approach to things. We are looking past the short term of fossil fuels but are jumping the gun and wasting a ton of money on "solutions" that are half baked and simply CAN'T EVER truly meet our long term needs. Again, this is why I'm a "fusion guy."

You're right in saying that much of the problem is waste. A huge amount of energy can be saved by continuing to make our country more efficient.

Which is why Philips move away from low voltage lighting pisses me off. I'd like to find a good system before I build a house. Doesn't make a lot of sense to try to build energy efficient, and use antiquated lighting systems.

I'd actually be more interested to know about the engineering challenges facing the reactors.

That Tesla sedan is frigging sweet. I have seen several on the streets here in Cali over the past few days. I would love to have one....too bad they are $100k+

Iter's not even really begun yet, and they're already years behind. Plus, even if ITER works, it's just the experiment and not going to be used as an actual power plant. We probably won't see fusion power in our lifetimes.