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Why is nuclear fusion so hard?

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Re: Why is nuclear fusion so hard?

#11

Post by stareatgoats »

shawnz wrote: post #9
kjar wrote: post #3

For most of my life fusion has been teased but not delivered. fission has been pimped for decades yet cannot get private funding, or build reactors in a decade, or provide solutions for the waste. Yet still the industries persist with their propaganda while renewables beat them in cost and time to operation. If I managed the funds I'd cut nuclear and redirect to wind and solar immediately.

> If I managed the funds I'd cut nuclear and redirect to wind and solar immediately. Why? Research has shown that nuclear fission could be safer per kWh than wind and solar. Just because it's not as good as fusion doesn't make it worthless.

> nuclear fission could be safer per kWh than wind and solar.

Sounds completely improbable. Care to provide some reference to back that statement up?

Re: Why is nuclear fusion so hard?

#12

Post by intralizee »

kjar wrote: post #3

For most of my life fusion has been teased but not delivered. fission has been pimped for decades yet cannot get private funding, or build reactors in a decade, or provide solutions for the waste. Yet still the industries persist with their propaganda while renewables beat them in cost and time to operation. If I managed the funds I'd cut nuclear and redirect to wind and solar immediately.

The majority of people in power will operate by the ends justify the means. I've always wondered if this is true, why humanity will not readjust population numbers and where the renewables actually can sustain the population. Seems better for increasing the length in time for humanity to exist on the planet and come up with a solution to energy where the population can progress to infinite. Compared to the alternative outcome of everyone dies by ruining the planet. Maybe it's already too late for humanity and thus people don't care.

Re: Why is nuclear fusion so hard?

#14

Post by shawnz »

stareatgoats wrote: post #11
shawnz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I managed the funds I'd cut nuclear and redirect to wind and solar immediately. Why? Research has shown that nuclear fission could be safer per kWh than wind and solar. Just because it's not as good as fusion doesn't make it worthless.

> nuclear fission could be safer per kWh than wind and solar. Sounds completely improbable. Care to provide some reference to back that statement up?

Some examples of research that has reached this conclusion:

https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/magazi...

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-ener...

It might sound improbable if you are comparing from a purely technological point of view. But the reality is that the energy output of nuclear is so much higher than other technologies, it easily makes up for any increase in risk by requiring much fewer plants. That's what makes nuclear so attractive in the first place.

Re: Why is nuclear fusion so hard?

#16

Post by adrianmonk »

kjar wrote: post #4
kjar wrote: post #3

For most of my life fusion has been teased but not delivered. fission has been pimped for decades yet cannot get private funding, or build reactors in a decade, or provide solutions for the waste. Yet still the industries persist with their propaganda while renewables beat them in cost and time to operation. If I managed the funds I'd cut nuclear and redirect to wind and solar immediately.

my point in short is we don't have time for this right now. we need to de-carbonize our energy system a decade ago. this tech. is not operational and will take a decade to be so - that's not time we have to avoid catastrophic climate destabilization.

If the objection is that nuclear can't be built quickly enough, then the renewable options need to be judged against that same standard.

Suppose everyone in the world already agreed to go a hundred percent renewable in 10 years. Effectively replacing the entire world's energy infrastructure is going to take a huge amount of raw materials and production capacity. Is there going to be enough?

It's possible the answer is yes, but I wouldn't take it for granted. There will need to be a lot of battery storage, which means there needs to be a lot of lithium. Are there enough lithium mines? Have geologists identified enough deposits to cover that massive quantity? And are there enough factories that can build batteries? For wind, there will need to be neodymium permanent magnets. For solar, you need fabs to build it all.

Maybe all those challenges can be solved, but maybe it's also possible to streamline the process of building nuclear fission power plants.

Re: Why is nuclear fusion so hard?

#17

Post by Retric »

assblaster wrote: post #6
josefx wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I managed the funds I'd cut nuclear and redirect to wind and solar immediately. To make those a reasonable base you need to add enough storage to keep everything working even when your current weather does not meet the energy demand. I think setting up that storage is currently going to be the biggest cost factor.

When you factor in storage costs, how do solar and wind compare to alternatives?

Still generally cheaper.

People regularly go off grid solar for less than the cost of grid electricity over the lifetime of their system. They save on the grid distribution system and overhead, but lose out on vast economy of scale. Peaking power plants also tend to be more cost effective than large scale grid storage. Having excess capacity also vastly reduces the need to storage.

Existing investments complicate the issue, but falling prices for both solar and battery systems regularly change the equation and this shift is only going in one direction.

Re: Why is nuclear fusion so hard?

#19

Post by Retric »

josefx wrote: post #5
kjar wrote: post #3

For most of my life fusion has been teased but not delivered. fission has been pimped for decades yet cannot get private funding, or build reactors in a decade, or provide solutions for the waste. Yet still the industries persist with their propaganda while renewables beat them in cost and time to operation. If I managed the funds I'd cut nuclear and redirect to wind and solar immediately.

> If I managed the funds I'd cut nuclear and redirect to wind and solar immediately. To make those a reasonable base you need to add enough storage to keep everything working even when your current weather does not meet the energy demand. I think setting up that storage is currently going to be the biggest cost factor.

Base load power is not a useful feature. To follow the demand curve you generally what to turn massive amounts of production off at specific points in the day, base load is simply what you keep running during those periods.

Nuclear power plants for example where known to be hard to throttle which was a significant design issue. Historically, the tradeoff is worth it as the cost per kWh was less, but again not a useful feature and you would expect renuables to kill off other forms of base load power based on price.

Re: Why is nuclear fusion so hard?

#20

Post by gahhebjjd »

Michaelanjello wrote: post #7

Delete.

So for the record, this comment that was deleted referred to "reservoir nets" and "spiking architectures" as ways researchers should control plasma instability and in a separate comment, the poster claimed to have "said more than I should already". There was also a disparaging comment about fusion researchers.
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