Sadly true, but considering this man might have had some very valuable testimony to provide regarding a recent Congressional hearing, this one really, really, really deserves much closer attention.

Really interesting article about Loureiro from back in December

Funding the fusion revolution

“If you walked into a room of fusion scientists in 2018 or 2019 and said there were going to be fusion startups, and venture capital funding to the tune of $9 billion, you would have been laughed out of the room,” says Nuno Loureiro, the director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC).

When CFS announced its latest funding round in August, investors talked about fusion as a potentially world-changing technology. “Achieving commercial, affordable fusion power would be one of the most transformative milestones in human history—delivering clean, limitless energy to help strengthen energy security and improve global living standards,” said Carmichael Roberts, managing partner at Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) recently closed an $863 million Series B2 funding round, bringing the MIT spinoff’s total capital raised to nearly $3 billion. The UK government recently announced a £2.5 billion commitment to fusion development, Germany committed €2 billion, and the Shanghai government has created a ¥10 billion fund to support fusion research. And in October, the U.S. Department of Energy published a roadmap identifying key steps the U.S. needs to take by the mid-2030s to lead the world in commercial fusion energy deployment, including expanded public-private partnerships.

When CFS announced its latest funding round in August, investors talked about fusion as a potentially world-changing technology. “Achieving commercial, affordable fusion power would be one of the most transformative milestones in human history—delivering clean, limitless energy to help strengthen energy security and improve global living standards,” said Carmichael Roberts, managing partner at Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

By 2100, fusion could provide anywhere between less than 10% to about 50% of global electricity generation in a “deep decarbonization” scenario, according to a 2024 MIT Energy Initiative report. More immediately, fusion could serve facilities like data centers, whose operators are willing to pay a premium for a reliable source of clean energy.

Loureiro calls CFS “very serious,” but he also says it’s an “open question” whether it is realistic to expect that fusion power will become commercially viable by the early 2030s. He notes that fusion startups are racing not only against each other, but also with the advances being made in other sources of clean power. “All of these companies are pursuing very aggressive timelines, because it’s a competition with advanced nuclear and geothermal,” he says.

Loureiro notes that the race for fusion also has geopolitical implications, with China and others striving to be the first to produce fusion energy at scale. Despite the influx of private capital, U.S. government funding for fusion has been largely flat for two decades, he says, with annual spending hovering around the same amount as the CFS Series B2 round.

“This is a very advanced technology, and whatever nation masters it first is going to have an incredible advantage,” Loureiro says. “There is a moonshot opportunity here, a version of the Apollo program. But you cannot fund a disruptive technology with non-disruptive levels of money.”

I wonder what he thought about the Department of Energy’s new Office of Fusion and the Office of AI and Quantum?

Perhaps he could have provided some important input to Congress regarding the DOE reorganization and the uncertain future of the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations?

It’s Not Cold Fusion… But It’s Something An experiment that earned Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann widespread ridicule in 1989 wasn’t necessarily bogus

I’m not sure it’s really fair to classify Mallove as a bullshit artist.

A bullshit artist would be somebody funded by the oil and gas industry in 2025 who commissioned debunked climate science reports, attempts to close the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, and avoids testifying before Congress.

Furchtgott-Roth and other conservatives say the efficiency rules deprive Americans of market choice. “We’ve moved from an energy scarcity era in the Biden administration to an energy abundance era in the Trump administration,” she said. “There’s no need for the government to set rules for efficiency.” A new report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, said the efficiency rules are “raising prices, limiting product choice, and undermining performance, reliability, and longevity.”

On a completely unrelated note, the head of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, who was working to advance clean energy technology was murdered in his home Monday night.

On Tuesday, an article was published regarding a recent Congressional hearing, reorganization at the Department of Energy under Chris Wright.

Following the publication of this article, House Science Committee Democratic staff told FYI that DOE has not yet determined which Fusion Energy Sciences programs will be moved from the Office of Science to the Office of Fusion, aside from the Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program and the INFUSE program. They also said it is unclear if the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations will continue to exist. The headline of this story has since been updated accordingly.

Lofgren criticized Wright for not testifying before the committee, saying “there must be accountability” for actions at DOE this year, including “the mass firings and coerced departures of dedicated experts throughout DOE, the illegal elimination of the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, insanely inaccurate statements regarding the role that renewables play in ensuring the reliability of our electric grid, [and] the widely debunked climate ‘science’ report that the secretary commissioned.”

Gil said the work of the new offices will be “complementary” to the basic research in the Office of Science. “Sometimes people say, ‘Well, are you doing it in tension with the support of the basic science?’ We’re not. We’re saying, because we’ve succeeded in investing in that, we have the opportunity now to create an industry,” he said.

Loureiro, who was married, joined MIT in 2016 and was named last year to lead MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, where he worked to advance clean energy technology and other research. The center, one of the school’s largest labs, had more than 250 people working across seven buildings when he took the helm. He was a professor of physics and nuclear science and engineering.

Hadn’t heard about this, but that’s really sad. Also, always weird vibes when high profilish scientists are murdered. It can easily be just an unfortunate case of wrong place and wrong time, but its a strange coincidence.

Hard not to think of the cold fusion scientist who was really just in the wrong place at the wrong time apparently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Mallove

White Trash is usually a good choice for Christmas parties.

https://mytxkitchen.com/white-trash-recipe/

Chex mix makes a similar pre made holidays muddy buddies if you don’t want to bother cooking.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Chex-Mix-Muddy-Buddies-Peanut-Butter-Chocolate-Snack-Mix-Holiday-Edition-2-5-oz/910306057

You could throw this in with it and basically have your own pre-made version

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Freshness-Guaranteed-Santa-Snack-Bowl-Chocolate-Pretzels-Candy-13-oz-340g/1877605029

David Cross - Beer Tent Story

Do you know why they would fire him?

He did seem legit shaken up by whatever was in the Epstein files when he first found out, so probably not unrelated to that? But also why the delay. What changed between then and now?

You said antifa is a terrorist organization. Tell us, as a committee, how did you come to that? Where do they exist? How many members do they have in the United States as of right now?”

You fool, that’s exactly why they’re so dangerous! They can be everywhere and nowhere all at once. Everybody and nobody at the same time. That’s why it’s safest to just assume everyone who disagrees with the president is Antifa and then ask questions once you have people in custody.

I don’t even think I would call it a false flag. Maybe there’s more to the story, but from the information they’re releasing it seems like a stretch to even call it a stretch.

Where is the actual threat in what this person said or did?

But why assume that?

For all we know this person literally just said something about being ready for another Waco and it was intentionally misconstrued to have an excuse to arrest them.

Fuuuuck yes!!!

Also, just learned the entire plot to kidnap Governor Whitmer a few years ago was entirely conceived by an FBI informant. JFC

https://theintercept.com/2024/03/06/gretchen-whitmer-kidnapping-informant/

The document was titled “Operation Midnight Sun,”

Beneath the list of targets were blank lines, marked: “add more if enough comrades.”

A Signal group was created for, in the participants’ words, “everything radical,” including the bomb plan itself.

I feel like you don’t need to be a detective to know that’s some ridiculous shit.

According to the affidavit, the informant met up with Audrey Illeene Carroll, who went by the nickname Asiginaak. At the meeting, Carroll handed over eight pages covered with handwriting in blue ink. The document was titled “Operation Midnight Sun,” and laid out a plan to detonate backpack bombs at five separate locations on New Year’s Eve, when fireworks would mask the sound of explosions. The plan was unfinished. Beneath the list of targets were blank lines, marked: “add more if enough comrades.” (Carroll’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

The odds this bitch isn’t on Lemmy?

So according to an article about the arrest in Louisiana, Prosecutors say Legnon shared an image in a group chat with members of the Turtle Island Liberation Front last week that indicated he was preparing to travel to New Orleans to attack Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

If this whole thing was set up to incriminate people, how did they all end up in the same signal chat? Maybe somebody with an incentive got them to join?

Legnon believed it was time to “recreate” Waco with an attack in New Orleans, authorities said in court documents.

What is that even supposed to mean? Waco was when the federal government raided a private compound and murdered a bunch of innocent civilians (including children) in the process of taking down a cult leader. The cult leader was a scum bag, but just because he was in the wrong, definitely doesn’t make the government in the right for killing a bunch of children.

So by recreating a Waco, I would assume that means creating something like a compound that you plan the feds will raid??? Weird, but again, I’m just so confused. Particularly confused about how that is evidence of a threat against the government? Instead of implying they feel threatened by the government.

Also, you’re allowed to carry a fire arm in Louisiana so how is doing so and wearing a vest a crime? If it’s not a crime, why bother to mention it and present it as some kind of evidence of danger or threat?

Not saying I like the idea of everybody wearing bullet proof vests and carrying loaded guns everywhere, but if that’s a crime half the state needs to be locked up.

It is software created by a private company, so technically isn’t the government already the 3rd party? Honestly at this point, I am not sure I could trust anyone to have that kind of surveillance overreach any less than the Nazis running the federal government.

Not to say that I would trust a private company any more. Just to clarify everything is fucking garbage and society is on the brink of complete collapse, and once that happens I guess it really doesn’t matter who has access to my SSN, banking information, health conditions, or embarrassing browser history.

Likely Palantir and our self appointed Lord and savior Peter Thiel will arrange to have all of that information available on everyone with one convenient click of a button for anybody who can pay for it. Like those reports you can buy online about people’s public records, except it includes everything we used to consider protected information back in olden times. Before we started making all this progress.

What the fuck?

It’s not bad enough you’re bleeding the country dry, and we all fucking know it, but to add insult to injury, you keep trying to distract (very poorly btw) from what you’re doing by using innocent people as scapegoats