Talk:General Fusion

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:10, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

News?

This is the most recent item I found: http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/energy/big-bang-small-company ThVa (talk) 22:59, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Recent news added indicating that the Chair of the Board has changed. I have added a diagram and removed the reqdiagram tag. I'm frightened - not about the fusion (a good thing), but about however many tons of liquid lead being pumped around this thing at fusion-causing pressures and temperatures. "Hey Mikey, go tighten that valve and uh, watch out for leaks, eh!" Egmason (talk) 09:28, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I found this article listing General Fusion with two other ongoing fusion experiments: http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/07/alternative-nuclear-fusion-projects-tri.html Cameronarndt (talk) 19:48, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Nature covered them in an article about the state of fusion research http://www.nature.com/news/plasma-physics-the-fusion-upstarts-1.15592. (87.177.237.75 (talk) 16:59, 29 August 2014 (UTC))

(Steampunk)

So steampunk! Is there a video?--87.162.42.216 (talk) 16:16, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Development

Perhaps it would be beneficial to include the several developmental experiments that have lead to general fusion's current 3 meter experiment. This would provide some background to the development process the company has gone through (over 14 years now) and show that it's not just their first try to build a fusion deviceCameronarndt (talk) 19:56, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Dead links

    The two SDTC lks are now dead, and a Google search for "General Fusion" within the SDTC site gives five hits, all dead. The Chrysalix links is also dead, and a Google search of that site gives 12 non-redund hits mentioning them, all marked questionable as to safety by my anti-viral software.
    At best, the article is seriously out of date; at worst SDTC found reason to wash their hands of the company, and others may want to examine what Chrysalix now says.
    In any case, the remaining lks should be examined in more detail than i have, to see if the journalists relied on anyone other than GF, Chrysalix, and others with a stake in the company.
--Jerzy•t 22:13, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

In general, dead links in references are not a big problem. A reference reflects a source that was available at the time a section of the article was written. There is no absolute need for the link to remain live (although live links are preferred for obvious reasons.)

Your evaluation of the links seems flawed. SDTC's website still does list General Fusion in it's list of "Round 13 Funded Projects" from 2009,[1] and the other dead link was to a Media Backgrounder supporting the assertion that SDTC is a foundation established by the Canadian government.

Chrisalix still lists General Fusion in their portfolio.[2]--Srleffler (talk) 03:45, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

NPR source

Just heard this today. Audio and transcript here: http://www.npr.org/2011/11/09/141931203/-power-for-the-planet-company-bets-big-on-fusion

In a pinch it may serve a substitute for any dead links. I gotta say, that fellow LaBerge is quite a character, quite entertaining to hear. Makes me wish I had him as a professor when I was taking physics in college. ~Amatulić (talk) 02:40, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Funding

So, reading: http://fire.pppl.gov/fpa11_laberge_GF.pdf , a presentation prepared in 2011 lists GF as receiving "$32.5M in venture capital, $4.5M in government support" I'm guessing that only a fraction of the $13.9 million was awarded to GF directly. In any case, the VC figure listed on Wikipedia could perhaps use some updating. Oh, and this presentation might be a useful place for sourcing information for links. The actual GF website is glitzy but informationally barren. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.50.78.21 (talk) 16:22, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for this. It was interesting to read. We have to be careful about using information in our articles, which comes from the subject of our articles. We much prefer information from independent sources. In many cases, this is required. See Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources.--Srleffler (talk) 05:24, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Alright, well, shame, 'cause there aren't that many great sources on info, but on the funding front at least, there's a recent line tossed out here: http://www.burnabynewsleader.com/news/237978501.html "And by the injection of $45 million in private venture capital and another $10 million in government funding." Still a more accurate figure than what the article currently has. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.50.78.21 (talk) 19:57, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

That newspaper article is a good source. Feel free to add some information based on it to the article. Give it a try—the wording and formatting don't have to be perfect. Another editor will be along to tweak it soon enough.--Srleffler (talk) 05:15, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and it appears the PDF has been updated... http://fire.pppl.gov/FPA13_Richardson_Gen_Fusion.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.50.78.21 (talk) 20:02, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Oh, also, I kinda get Wikipedia's policy, but people have noted in past it has weaknesses in the echo chamber effect, or, in this case, where basically all info on their science, progress and funding, comes from the company itself, so it there doesn't seem to me to be a huge difference in reading that FPA13 PDF and extracting technical and progress details, or my linking to some site which is doing the exact same thing, and maybe made a new graph based on it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.50.78.21 (talk) 20:16, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

We actually have a way of dealing with that. If basically all of the info on a company comes from the company itself, we don't cover them. We only cover topics on which it is possible to find reliable, independent sources of information. In addition, to have an article about them companies must be notable. If reliable media sources haven't written about a company, we won't either.

There is one key difference between you extracting information from the company's reports and you linking to a newspaper that has written an article, based in part on those reports: editorial standards. At least in principle, newspaper reporters check their facts, and editors strive to make sure that coverage is fair, balanced, and accurate. We don't expect that they always succeed, but we respect the principle. As an encyclopedia, our role is to report what other sources have said about a topic—we are a "tertiary source". We don't dig up the facts and verify them ourselves, but we summarize the work of those who do.--Srleffler (talk) 05:15, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Updated the funding section with information and references for the 2011 and 2015 funding rounds, and corrected a dead link for the 2013 project with SDTC and Los Alamos. -Mountainlife00 (talk) 01:40, 17 March 2017 (UTC)