Elon Musk needs to get in on this.
Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
661–670 of 827 posts
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#662Earlier quoted context omitted.
If fusion is the best thing right now, that would be incredibly sad, because it barely seems to be making any progress at all. Fortunately we've seen tons of progress in other fields: computing, quantum computing, solar energy, medical, gene therapy. Even superconductors are slowly getting better.
Yeah but that stuff just doesn't really tickle the imagination. You won't see that stuff on the cover of an 80's scifi book.
That first sentence is an entirely subjective take, and one that I disagree with entirely.
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#663OK so with fusion everybody loves it because the fuel would be clean and nearly endless. Isn't that what solar power offers? Nobody wants to deploy solar due to high upfront cost. However, wouldn't the startup on a fusion reactor be much greater?
Imagine you live in a smallish, not-so-sunny country like the UK. How much of your land area do you have to cover with solar panels in order to completely rid the nation of fossil fuels?
Morocco or southern Spain isn't that far away.
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#664OK so with fusion everybody loves it because the fuel would be clean and nearly endless. Isn't that what solar power offers? Nobody wants to deploy solar due to high upfront cost. However, wouldn't the startup on a fusion reactor be much greater?
The thing is, a commercial-scale fusion reactor could produce the same energy as a truly vast solar array, and also produces power at night, does not need to be exposed to wind and rain to operate and can be scaled directly instead of with costly battery arrays. Solar has the upside of actually producing a power surplus already, though.
How about putting panels in space?
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#665OK so with fusion everybody loves it because the fuel would be clean and nearly endless. Isn't that what solar power offers? Nobody wants to deploy solar due to high upfront cost. However, wouldn't the startup on a fusion reactor be much greater?
Solar comes with a lot of challenges for large-scale usage as a replacement for coal, nuclear, etc. Really, the only thing better about solar at the moment is that it is available. First off, the daylight cycle is an obvious concern and there still isn't a great way to store solar energy during the day for use by cities (or generally large consumers) at night. Not to say it's not possible, but people are largely stil…
We will need an infinite impossibility drive to break the light barrier. ;-)
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#666Earlier quoted context omitted.
Solar comes with a lot of challenges for large-scale usage as a replacement for coal, nuclear, etc. Really, the only thing better about solar at the moment is that it is available. First off, the daylight cycle is an obvious concern and there still isn't a great way to store solar energy during the day for use by cities (or generally large consumers) at night. Not to say it's not possible, but people are largely stil…
An other large drawback with solar is the required latitude. The further north it gets the fewer hours of sun light, and the energy you get is lower from the lower angle of attack. At the same time the energy needed for heating goes up during winter. Solar makes great sense for places where energy consumption is higher during the summer than during winter.
I know a guy who lives in Canada pretty far north of the US border. He heats entirely with PV solar. He claims it's also way less expensive than other fossil fuel heat. Basically PV solar cost has plummeted to the point that it is conceivable this sort of thing is possible. No need for a battery here as he pumps his electrons directly into concrete slabs which then radiate heat at night.
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#667I am a strong proponent of Fusion energy and did some work on the subject in undergrad. This is not a major breakthrough, it's a benchmark. A major breakthrough would be materials that could withstand the neutron bombardment longer, the ultimate limiting factor for fusion energy plants after we achieve positive net energy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_reflector Doesn't reflectors help a lot here or am I missing something?
Probably, but I'd guess that the reflector still absorbs a small percentage of the beam it's reflecting. And at the GW scale I'm sure even a small percentage is enough to absorb a great deal of energy.
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#668Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to like the idea of fusion energy, but practical application has always seemed to be 40 years in the future, and it's starting to sound more like 60 years now. I hope it will be possible some day, but it's not going to help with out energy needs in our lifetime. (Unless that longevity research is going to pay off, I guess.)
It took more than 300 years to build the cathedral [1] in my home town (albeit with a 60-year pause in the middle). So indeed it might take another 4 or 5 generations to master nuclear fusion, but I see no issue with that. We should not shy away from starting projects that we won't see any benefit in our lifetime. But of course, it also means that we should not rely on nuclear fusion being available in the short term…
I suspect there was a lot of inceramental value to be had while the construction was ongoing. A cathedral doesn't need to be 100% complete to use as a house of worship, an inspiration for the community, a display of wealth and soft power, and so on.
Fusion hasn't really produced much utility at all so far, aside from some interesting discussions.
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#669Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apparently, about 12% of the land or 29,690 sq km in order to meet current energy demands (electricity, petrol, oil and gas). Apparently, only 6% of the country is currently built on which suggests that for any country of a similar latitude, you can estimate a land total of double that currently used per person. This does not take into account energy storage and assumes no energy is generated at night. https://www.fi…
Of course that 6% only counts land usage by humans . How many (additional) non-human habitats would you have to decimate to cover 12% of the land with (ugly) solar panels? Maybe thats acceptable in some deserts, but pretty terrible in other places. 1 step forward, 1 step back. Plus that figure is for our current energy usage, which is only going to increase over time.
Curious, do you find server farms also ugly to look at? To me both server racks and solar panels look like modern technology.
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#670Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apparently, about 12% of the land or 29,690 sq km in order to meet current energy demands (electricity, petrol, oil and gas). Apparently, only 6% of the country is currently built on which suggests that for any country of a similar latitude, you can estimate a land total of double that currently used per person. This does not take into account energy storage and assumes no energy is generated at night. https://www.fi…
1 sq km = 100 hectares = 100 GWh of energy produced per year in northern Europe. 29000 sq km = 2900 TWh Which is 10x the current electricity use of UK. I think they may be overestimating the numbers by taking the petrol, oil and gas verbatim - whereas they should consider that electric cars have way higher efficiency, and electric heating can be done also way more efficiently than gas heating (because heat pumps).
This guy electrodacus.com swears that panels are so cheap now that it really only makes sense to heat with PV directly. He stores extra into an array of concrete slabs which then radiate out over the night. He built a special type of MPPT to orchestrate this flow of energy from PV into thermal mass. He lives in deep freeze Canada.