Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin
Except all solar power is originally fusion. :)
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Yes, other than generating geothermal energy through the decay of radioactive isotopes in the depths of the Earth, fission is just a rounding error for natural energy production. It is fusion, specifically the proton-proton fusion process, that drives the production of energy in the Sun (and it was more energetic fusion processes or exotic processes like photoerosion that created everything larger than helium-4). And quite frankly, any rational society would have made the necessary investments to replicate solar fusion instead of trying to develop a form of fusion that could consume the products of fission (tritium) as the major fuel.
I can imagine a society without fossil fuels avoiding fission entirely and focusing its efforts on fusion. Without the nuclear armed nations forcing researchers to focus on DT fusion, they would have likely developed nuclear fusion by their equivalent of the 1990s. With a smaller population of 2 billion or so, a higher percentage of their people could have been devoted to R&D rather than being wasted doing subsistence farming or urban scrounging (the two of which 'employ' fifty percent of the global population in 2018). The resulting world could be a more advanced world by their equivalent of 2018, but it would look much more different than our 2018.