>20 mn USD
that's a fuckload of money

>>1387
You mean "20 bn USD" right?

>>1388
20 munillion. It's a new unit.

>>1387
Yeah, but if it works, reactors like it could provide the entire energy infrastructure of a country of roughly 3 million people

US would have to pay 2 trillion to equip the country with free energy for all

A country like Russia would have to pay 666 billion, and all of EU + other European nations and Russia would together have to pay 4.6 trillion

To put that into perspective, the bailout money in USA could have paid for both all of Europe and North America to have free fusion power forever

>>1391
Wait, you guys misled me

Calculation givens:
- Actual cost of ITER is 15 billion
- Actual cost of DEMO is double that for 30 billion
- Commercial version of demo is quarter that for 7.5 billion
- ITER runs 500 million watts
- DEMO runs 12.5 billion watts
- Population of Europe is 700 million, plus 140 million Russians and 350 million Americans (Canada included) for a total of 1.2 billion people
- Maximum use of electricity in the developed world is 1500 watts per person in US and 750 watts per person in EU and Russia, average by population is (in my head) roughly 940 watts per person
- If DEMO runs 12.5 billion watts divided over 940 watts per person says that one DEMO reactor can satisfy roughly 13 million individuals
- Total population of developed world at 1.2 billion divided by 13 million individuals says 92 DEMO reactors can satisfy everyone
- DEMO production cost is around 10 billion times 92 reactors comes to roughly a trillion dollars, plus add a trillion in there for development, shits and giggles
- US and Canada bailout money is 12 trillion
- EU bailout money is 7 trillion
- Russian bailout money is 40 billion

- Total for recession bailouts = 20 trillion
- Total for free, clean power = 2 trillion

Someone check my math

Dare I throw a big fat monkey wrench into this theoretical map and mention that electronics will get more efficient by magnitudes once we replace the silicon wafer with carbon and move on to nano and pico electronics? Meaning not only would future energy be cheaper in the future, we'd also need fractions of fractions of what we use today..

>>1413
We aren't getting off of silicone

It has light bending properties useful in exponentially increasing computing speed

http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~john/Diffractionless_PRL.pdf
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Optical-Microchips-may-Allow-Telecommunications-Advance-69871.shtml

Efficiency increases too as there is very little energy lost through heat

>>1416
Well, that's sort of disappointing, but sorta.. uplifting.

Which reminds me. I've heard we've developed ways to use heat, light, even sound in place of current for computers. Will these just be neat display items in research labs, or do you think they'll find unique computer world niches?

>>1419
I think the heat one is most promising
Humans make body heat naturally, and heat is generally easy to make
So think implanted computers with touch screens on your forearm

Constant sound or light is a bit harder

>>1420

Not even heat, try blood.

http://www.physorg.com/news122819670.html