Major nuclear fusion milestone reached as ‘ignition’ triggered in a lab • Hacker News Board

Re: Major nuclear fusion milestone reached as ‘ignition’ triggered in a lab

#251

Post by throwaway894345 » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:19 PM UTC

micromacrofoot wrote: post #239

xondono wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s just simple arithmetic, however you want to subsidize or socialize the cost, the fact is that renewables have higher cost per MW. Every dollar spent on higher energy costs is a dollar not spent in other things. This will impact growth.

Sure, but aren't fossil fuels also subsidized? Haven't the costs been reduced due to the economies of scale and time? Are the environmental downsides not considered part of the cost? I get it, renewables are still more expensive, but are they really doomed to trap more people in poverty? Couldn't one argue that the unbalanced economic systems are the primary thing that traps people in poverty and the cost of energy i…

Fossil fuels are heavily subsidized. Most places in the world allow the fossil fuel industry to write-off their pollution costs, and many other places go further even than that.

Moreover, it's disingenuous of the OP to suggest that renewables lead to "millions trapped in poverty" while fossil fuels merely result in "climate change" (as though climate change doesn't imply billions trapped in poverty).

Re: Major nuclear fusion milestone reached as ‘ignition’ triggered in a lab

#252

Post by Ericson2314 » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

rfrey wrote: post #61

Meta-question about fusion energy -something I don't understand about the movement. I spent a few years as CTO of a company providing heat-to-electricity plants. We financed and built them off high-heat plants like natural gas turbines. The "fuel" was heat going up the stack - so it was essentially free. We still couldn't compete with conventional electricity plants, even with a $30/tonne price on carbon in Canada. G…

Supply doesn't create it's own demand.

This is plain social failing you're describing. You ask whether it will happen to fusion, I would argue it has already been happening to both for quite some time.

Just as starter motors are needed to stat ICEs, so new sorts of power generation start as unprofitable, and end as essential.

Re: Major nuclear fusion milestone reached as ‘ignition’ triggered in a lab

#253

Post by bob229 » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:26 PM UTC

i guess it's just 20 years away then hahaha

Re: Major nuclear fusion milestone reached as ‘ignition’ triggered in a lab

#254

Post by SuoDuanDao » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:28 PM UTC

rfrey wrote: post #61

Meta-question about fusion energy -something I don't understand about the movement. I spent a few years as CTO of a company providing heat-to-electricity plants. We financed and built them off high-heat plants like natural gas turbines. The "fuel" was heat going up the stack - so it was essentially free. We still couldn't compete with conventional electricity plants, even with a $30/tonne price on carbon in Canada. G…

I don't think nuclear power - fission or fusion - can ever be profitable on a capital return basis. They're the best bang for your buck if the cost of capital is zero and among the worst if it's greater than zero.

Nuclear physicists and engineers are smart enough that I think they could understand this problem if they spent a weekend grappling with it, but they're so specialised in their very difficult discipline that they never spend that one weekend.

Re: Major nuclear fusion milestone reached as ‘ignition’ triggered in a lab

#255

Post by yunohn » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:28 PM UTC

solarhoma wrote: post #215

humaniania wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Natural gas is only inexpensive because of fracking. With fracking in the USA at least the people involved can set up an LLC that dissolves after the well runs out. They are not required to disclose the contents of the fracking wastewater fluid. It gets pumped back down underground where it could dissipate into the rest of the water system. These people claim that it's safe for decades when our computer models can't…

There is a lot wrong with your post. >They are not required to disclose the contents of the fracking wastewater fluid. Majority of water used in hydro fracking is slick water. This is normal water with friction reducers added to it. Typically 1%. Though can change based on the design of the frack. These are maybe not disclosed to the public since they typically are proprietary formulas that each vendor creates on the…

>> They are not required to disclose the contents of the fracking wastewater fluid.

> not disclosed to the public since they typically are proprietary formulas that each vendor creates on their own.

So, you’re agreeing with the poster then? Fracking wastewater is opaque and undisclosed to public.

> If the well integrity

My understanding was that the poster was talking about the fracking procedure and resulting wastewater, throughout their post. Nobody was questioning the integrity of concrete.

Re: Major nuclear fusion milestone reached as ‘ignition’ triggered in a lab

#256

Post by p1mrx » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:30 PM UTC

mbgerring wrote: post #149

Pretty interesting how this huge rash of articles about the same 2 or 3 fusion experiments have appeared just as the Federal government is considering where to spend resources in energy infrastructure for the next ten years. Who’s the publicist?

I don't think it's a huge rash of articles; it's the same old news from August resurfacing every couple weeks.

Re: Major nuclear fusion milestone reached as ‘ignition’ triggered in a lab

#257

Post by NineStarPoint » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:30 PM UTC

rfrey wrote: post #61

Meta-question about fusion energy -something I don't understand about the movement. I spent a few years as CTO of a company providing heat-to-electricity plants. We financed and built them off high-heat plants like natural gas turbines. The "fuel" was heat going up the stack - so it was essentially free. We still couldn't compete with conventional electricity plants, even with a $30/tonne price on carbon in Canada. G…

Fusion is different in that the math scales well with the size of the fusion plant you create (and also the power of the magnets you have access to). If it's technologically feasible to create a large enough fusion plant, it starts to be able to create ludicrous quantities of electricity compared to things like geothermal that have much harder limits.

Of course, "technologically feasible" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but it is in the realm of theoretical possibility for a large scale fusion plant to be cost effective.

Re: Major nuclear fusion milestone reached as ‘ignition’ triggered in a lab

#258

Post by nitrogen » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:30 PM UTC

lazide wrote: post #233

rfrey wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exhaust from a gas turbine for a pipeline compression station is around 600C at about 95kg/second. That flow contains about 100MW of heat energy, which can be captured with Organic Rankine Cycle (like steam cycle, but using organic fluids like cyclopentane as a working fluid to better match the thermodynamics) about 20% of that can be converted to electricity. This is off-the-shelf tech. The problem isn't the technol…

The parent was pointing out that the economics are also a fundamental limit of the technology/physics. If you can do a lot of work with expensive machines to get 20MW from that plant, but you can also do less work and spend less money getting an extra 20MW by burning some cheap primary fuel (with higher quality heat/aka a bigger delta), then they’re just going to burn more primary fuel. It’s a bit silly to do it any…

> > gas turbine for a pipeline compression station

> primary turbine/power system could be built efficiently enough to not throw that waste heat out the back in the first place

It sounds like this might be a situation where maybe an older turbine already exists for generating mechanical power (pumping), and the add-on kit is supposed to capture more energy without having to replace the existing systems?

Re: Major nuclear fusion milestone reached as ‘ignition’ triggered in a lab

#259

Post by specialp » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:31 PM UTC

solarhoma wrote: post #215

humaniania wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Natural gas is only inexpensive because of fracking. With fracking in the USA at least the people involved can set up an LLC that dissolves after the well runs out. They are not required to disclose the contents of the fracking wastewater fluid. It gets pumped back down underground where it could dissipate into the rest of the water system. These people claim that it's safe for decades when our computer models can't…

There is a lot wrong with your post. >They are not required to disclose the contents of the fracking wastewater fluid. Majority of water used in hydro fracking is slick water. This is normal water with friction reducers added to it. Typically 1%. Though can change based on the design of the frack. These are maybe not disclosed to the public since they typically are proprietary formulas that each vendor creates on the…

>>They are not required to disclose the contents of the fracking wastewater fluid.

>Majority of water used in hydro fracking is slick water. This is normal water with friction reducers added to it. Typically 1%. Though can change based on the design of the frack. These are maybe not disclosed to the public since they typically are proprietary formulas that each vendor creates on their own. Each wanting to protect their IP from other vendors supplying the friction reducers.

How does this make the claim that they are not required to disclose the contents of the waste water false? Are friction reducers mostly similar and non toxic? It is irrelevant that it is 99% water as most industrial waste is mostly water. If I pumped out water that was 99% water and 1% mercury it would be incredibly toxic. The issue is certain chemicals end up lingering in water and bio accumulating for a very long time.

Re: Major nuclear fusion milestone reached as ‘ignition’ triggered in a lab

#260

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:33 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #177

bigfudge wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> photos created at the Sun's core take ~30,000 years to escape I’m guessing you meant photons but this still seems amazing. Is there somewhere I can find out more about that?

It's not really "the same" photon though.

[deleted]