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

#271

Post by SuoDuanDao » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:40 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…

As someone who worked around fracking wells as a roughneck, I see a lot wrong with your post.

>Majority of water used in hydro fracking is slick water. This is normal water with friction reducers added to it. Typically 1%. This is like saying "dihidrogen monoxide is the largest component of acid rain". Technically true, but the toxin is toxic enough even at low concentrations. You wouldn't enjoy having it in your eyes no matter how much of it is water that day. This is frankly a strange argument for someone who's worked with the stuff to make, it's not quite H2S but nobody I worked with took the toxicity lightly.

>The slick water is typically reused after the well back flows. That is what's told to the people in the office but it's not reliable. A volume of fluid is pumped down the well, the same volume is pumped back up. So long as there's no water at all downhole, you would recover only fracking fluid. Typically if people are worried about fracking, there is water downhole and no way of preventing mixing.

>If it is found there are any discrepancies they are fixed. The payment structure incentivises the field crews to under-report those kinds of errors. Some crews are diligent and take the reputational hit of reporting a fracking blowout, others simply kick some dirt over it. From my experience it's about 50-50. And in the latter case it certainly does often land on an unfortunate farmer's field.

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

#272

Post by 8note » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:42 PM UTC

xondono wrote: post #236

humaniania wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy subsidies for vulnerable people are an option that negates your only argument against the most sane option of switching to renewable and nuclear ASAP, at least in extremely wealthy countries like the USA.

My argument doesn’t care who’s pocket is funding the renewables. As a society, every extra dollar spent on pricier energy is an extra dollar that can’t go to social programs, or to new start up, or anywhere.

Every extra dollar saved on cheaper energy actually goes to lining some billionaire's pockets in some untaxed hole. And then eventually the people who would benefit from said social program will instead have to pay back a climate debt in the future.

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

#273

Post by javajosh » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:42 PM UTC

specialp wrote: post #259

solarhoma wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

Yes, I was thinking the same thing. 1% is actually an enormous amount since toxins are measured in ppm. Imagine being asked, for every 100 cups of water you drink, to drink a cup of mystery fluid. Actually, it's worse because any (non volatile) additive will tend to concentrate over time in food (and then concentrate further in animals if the food used for feed), and in addition any chemical is bound to change over time in contact with sunlight and ordinary plant/animal biochemistry.

I've never heard of this use of fracking water in CA, and if it's real it sounds to me like frackers IP be damned, we need to know what's in the damn water!

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

#274

Post by drdeca » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:43 PM UTC

humaniania wrote: post #102

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…

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…

Are you claiming that it is chaotic in the way that weather is? Or, if not, why would such a comparison make sense?

Like, why does it make more sense than "the people at the LHC claim they understand well enough to be confident that the LHC wont produce a black hole that swallows the earth, but how can we trust that when computer models can't predict the weather next week?" ? What does one have to do with the other?

It is not at all clear to me that the inability to predict the weather is at all a good reason to significantly doubt the accuracy of their models of the impact of the wastewater fluid. There may be other good reasons to doubt it! I'm not claiming their models are good, I know very little about it. But, without a further explanation as to why the two are comparable in this way, I don't see the "but we can't precisely predict the weather for next week" argument as having any non-negligible weight.

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

#275

Post by javajosh » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

malchow wrote: post #240

solarhoma wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

He's also wrong about there being a water *shortage* in California. There is water *diversion*, designed by environmentalists to save animals, that strips farmers of water.

Yes, what good is a biosphere when we have strip malls to build in the short term, and the Shangrila of Mars to look forward to colonizing in the long term?

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

#276

Post by nomel » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

xondono wrote: post #236

humaniania wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy subsidies for vulnerable people are an option that negates your only argument against the most sane option of switching to renewable and nuclear ASAP, at least in extremely wealthy countries like the USA.

My argument doesn’t care who’s pocket is funding the renewables. As a society, every extra dollar spent on pricier energy is an extra dollar that can’t go to social programs, or to new start up, or anywhere.

Many would claim that every extra dollar spent on renewables is reducing the environmental debt that we’ve accumulated, that we have to will pay for, with very real dollars, since we’ve subsidize our energy cost with future remediation costs.

I think there’s some in-between here.

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

#277

Post by 8note » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:47 PM UTC

orangepurple wrote: post #66

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…

You can't put a price on energy independence in a free market economy. Energy independence is a military objective and a matter of national security. The costs are difficult to put in perspective.

Isn't it an insurance cost, for repaying when the energy shuts off?

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

#278

Post by ChuckMcM » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

AlbertCory wrote: post #263

ChuckMcM wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could cite you things like this: ( https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6276900 ) but they will likely be buzzword soup. The simplest explanation is that the fusion reactor's energy output is the _primary_ heat source for a heat engine like a steam turbine. It sounded from your description that your company was targeting so called "waste" heat, which is a lower grade of heat (smaller delta between ambient so a smaller tempe…

Skin in the game [1]. OP has actually done it ("CTO of a company providing heat-to-electricity plants"). Have you? Or you just read about it? [1] https://www.amazon.com/Skin-Game-Hidden-Asymmetries-Daily-eb... ?

I get that, 100% props for the experience. And I totally respect it. The GP question was "what makes fusion different", and the only thing that is different really is the economics of how much it costs vs how much energy you get out.

Energy out is, by definition, the amount of heat differential you can generate. Cost is, again by definition, the total operating cost of the heat source.

So this is where the author and I see things differently, the author wrote: ... the "levelized cost of electricity", dominated by the capital cost of the plant, will still be much higher than other sources of electricity.

I agree with that statement, the difference with fusion is that the amount of energy produced after accounting for the capital cost of the plant will be a million times greater. And as I related in a later comment if you compare things on a dollars/BTU level the fusion plant will produce extremely cheap BTUs. Much cheaper than even the cheapest natural gas plant.

The key here is that the cost to build such a plant is much higher (and it is), but the energy produced by that plant is way higher. That is the ratio that makes fusion different.

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

#279

Post by 8note » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:49 PM UTC

jhallenworld wrote: post #84

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…

Study this: https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-... Ignoring storage: it makes no sense now to build anything but wind and solar. Only the marginal cost of gas is cheaper (meaning existing plants, not new ones). Including storage: conventional is still cheaper, but not by much (within a factor of 2): $81 for PV+storage vs. $44 for gas combined cycle. We should put more resources into storage n…

Where does that leave turning existing coal plants into gas plants?

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

#280

Post by Qwertious » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 7:50 PM UTC

xondono wrote: post #232

micromacrofoot wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Switch to renewables and drastically increase energy costs, which will trap millions of people into poverty, and put millions more in risk This feels like a bad faith take out of the gate (whether or not it's intended)... are there no mechanisms for subsidies to abate these issues? are renewables more likely to increase wealth gaps than other fuels?

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.

>It’s just simple arithmetic, however you want to subsidize or socialize the cost, the fact is that renewables have higher cost per MW.

All the more reason for a carbon price. If the cost from renewables is genuinely more expensive than climate destabilization, then make the price explicit and the market will sort the practical from the pointless.

If there's one thing markets are good at, it's choosing the cheaper option. But they need a price signal to work on in the first place.