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Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#671

Post by formvoltron »

1_player wrote: post #582
dymk wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're getting better. Solar is getting so much cheaper, at such a fast pace, that I really don't understand how one can disagree that it's the future of our energy grids. Installing solar is a no-brainer in some parts of the world now, and in the very near future (extrapolating from the last 10 years), it'll be every part of the world soon. What problems am I hand waving away? https://www.statista.com/chart/26085…

I don't get why you and many other commenters are so against the idea of fusion. Solar is decent, not perfect by any stretch, so we should just give up trying to solve the energy technology for the next 200 years? It's not even like it's one or the other. No one is abandoning solar to work on fusion. But fusion, if it works, is orders of magnitudes more efficient than solar is. It opens avenues that are considered im…

I'm 48.

When I was 16 I remember reading a Scientific American article that was describing how nuclear fusion was around the corner. Within the next 2 years!

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#672

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

dymk wrote: post #620
1_player wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why you and many other commenters are so against the idea of fusion. Solar is decent, not perfect by any stretch, so we should just give up trying to solve the energy technology for the next 200 years? It's not even like it's one or the other. No one is abandoning solar to work on fusion. But fusion, if it works, is orders of magnitudes more efficient than solar is. It opens avenues that are considered im…

I'm not against fusion, there just is simply no viable fusion power that can be built today. It's not going to get here fast enough. We need to adopt renewables yesterday. There is no time to be wasted pretending that fusion provides any value aside from starry eyed theoretical aspiration. We will not be here in 200 years to enjoy fusion if we don't adopt solar and battery _right now_.

> We will not be here in 200 years to enjoy fusion if we don't adopt solar and battery _right now_.

Technically, none of us will be here in 200 years.

I very much doubt if climate change will lead to an end to the human species, so I think a better way talk about this stuff is to frame it in terms of our descendants living in an impoverished, less beautiful, more strife-filled world.

But yes, FFS, action yesterday or last week, and make it trillions of dollars worth of action, like an actual war, but for infinitely better reasons.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#673

Post by HWR_14 »

kuschku wrote: post #623
HWR_14 wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may last for generations to come, but did the original development take generations?

Old-school land reclamation worked by putting woven fences in the water where waves would deposit sand over decades and centuries, slowly growing the land bit by bit. Those versions were already multi-generational projects. (I'm citing the techniques used in the north frisian wadden sea, I'm unsure if the same techniques were used in west frisia as well)

Oh, that's very interesting. So I'm guessing that technique was used to make areas that were put of the water during low tide, and then eventually dikes were added to make them dry land?

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#674

Post by pengaru »

Xixi wrote: post #656
mcv wrote: post #646

Earlier 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…

If you never stop working on some creative art project it's never finished, your endless cathedral build has nearly zero relevance to nuclear fusion producing electricity for consumers which would be a definitive "delivered" goalpost, after which any further developments/improvements would just be optimization iterations.

I'm reminded of the Crazy Horse Memorial... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Horse_Memorial

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#675

Post by bluescrn »

fragmede wrote: post #241
kiba wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure if we have a project that spans multiple generations? It would be easier to do a project that provide some kind of immediate benefit while having long term multigenerational long term effect. Science is kinda that way. We get immediate knowledge with long term unknown payoff.

Many churches built before the industrial age took multiple generations to build.

Modern civilisation may not have multiple generations left.

And it might not even take an all out nuclear war, social media may turn out to have been even more destructive than nukes.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#676

Post by formvoltron »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #580
dymk wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're getting better. Solar is getting so much cheaper, at such a fast pace, that I really don't understand how one can disagree that it's the future of our energy grids. Installing solar is a no-brainer in some parts of the world now, and in the very near future (extrapolating from the last 10 years), it'll be every part of the world soon. What problems am I hand waving away? https://www.statista.com/chart/26085…

Solar is, without a doubt, a major part of future energy grids. But this chart is the levelized cost of energy. Its not the price at which you can get it. Energy demands are higher in winter. They are non trivial at night. The cost of energy might be low, but the price at which you can get it may be very high if not enough is available.

A lot of the "not available at night" argument can be solved with.... owning an EV.

I use 6kWh / day. (not sure how! but that's what the power company says)

A decent EV battery holds 20 kWh or more.

Boom. There is my night time storage buffer.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#677

Post by ComputerGuru »

ketozhang wrote: post #642
advisedwang wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Water has a specific heat capacity of 4184J/kg/C. Lets say to get to the boil you need to go from 20C to 100C and that a kettle holds 1.75L. 59MJ / (80C * 4184J/kg/C) = 176kg ~= 176L ~= 100 kettles. Water has a latent heat of vaporization of 2260 kJ/kg. So to boil it dry: 59MJ / (80C * 4184J/kg/C + 2260 kJ/kg) = 22kg ~= 22L ~= 12 kettles. I have no idea what the journalist calculated.

I think the journalist is calculating load capacity. A 1500A @120V kettle requires 0.18 MW. Rounding up, 60 kettles requires 12 MW. It's not how much water you can boil, it's how many kettles you can run at the same time.

But they’re UK, so it wouldn’t be 110V. Nice try, though!

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#678

Post by ComputerGuru »

tsol wrote: post #494
soheil wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd probably be surprised to learn that the UK is not at the top of the list of countries with the highest tea consumption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tea_consu...

It's strange to me how low India is on the list. As an Indian all the Indians I know drink huge amounts of tea. Might just be an economics thing-- they can't afford to buy as much tea as they'd like to. That or it's something to do with the way the stats are collected

Actually, tea is about as cheap as clean water there. I commented separately, but tl;dr I think local tea consumption in countries that produce tea is being massively undercounted.

Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy

#680

Post by gameswithgo »

noetic_techy wrote: post #679

Not a breakthrough, just a milestone. Yet again they cite the "20 years out" which has become a joke among anyone that follows fusion research. There is really nothing to see in this article, move along.

when i was a boy it 40 years out, seems good that even the hyper cynical snarky comments are twice as optimistic now.
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