No post body was provided.
Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
741–750 of 827 posts
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#742> The fusion announcement is great news but sadly it won't help in our battle to lessen the effects of climate change. > There's huge uncertainty about when fusion power will be ready for commercialisation. One estimate suggests maybe 20 years. Then fusion would need to scale up, which would mean a delay of perhaps another few decades. > And here's the problem: the need for carbon-free energy is urgent - and the gove…
Can anyone explain these timelines better? Can we throw more money at this and scale much faster? Are safety/regulation considerations the main bottleneck? This has gotta be one of the most important investments for humanity and our planet. Hard to fathom these timeline predictions in the same world where mRNA vaccines and various spacecraft have scaled in <1 year.
This has gotta be one of the most important investments for humanity and our planet.
If you think climate change is an existential threat, we should divert fusion research money into immediate construction of traditional nuclear power plants.
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#743Earlier quoted context omitted.
Use 6-15R or 6-20R. I think it would pass inspection because most safety requirements around gfci and afci don’t apply to 240V circuits
They do now, but only when accessible by a person. Even car charging station outlets do (even though every car charging station has gfci built in...)
Ah looks like this was a change in 2017. With any outlet there’s no guarantee what will end up plugged in so it’s logical to require it even if the purpose is an EV charger.
Thanks!
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#744Earlier 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...
Ireland is #2? As a culturally ignorant American, that _does_ surprise me.
I much prefer an Irish breakfast to an English breakfast tea. It’s stronger and has a distinct taste (although I didn’t like it as much initially.)
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#745Earlier quoted context omitted.
What disposal? Less than 1% of the solar plants have been ever decommissioned. It's hard to set up recycling plants if you have nothing to recycle yet.
Lifespan is 25-30 years, they don't last infinitely. What's your point?
The point is that it's hard to expect industrial processes for recycling solar panels now, since there is no market for them yet, and won't really be any for the next decade.
Also, the lifespan is 25-30 years, but after that time the panels will still maintain 50-80% efficiency - so they can be reused for different purposes (or shipped to Africa, where there is a plenty of cheap space, sunlight, and they will work well).
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#746Earlier quoted context omitted.
but 3phase (120degrees) is a lot better for powering motors than the 2 phase one in the US
3-phase is available in USA, but it's typically not provided to residences.
of course, the heavy motors/industrial equipment loves 3 phase AC. Higher voltages allow lower losses in the conductors, hence less copper needed everywhere incl. small motors as the current us lower through and through.
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#747Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Interesting. In Poland, where I live, I researched this recently, for my mother's house - and it won't work. The heat is needed from October until April, and most of that time solar panels generate close to zero electricity.
In the end, my mother will have a significant surplus of power during summer (even with storage), and will still need to heat up house in winter using gas, or grid electricity (coal :/).
I read about some Nordic researchers developing long-term heat storage, which would be way better.
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#748Earlier quoted context omitted.
110v can easily kill you. It's a little harder to get a good solid connection through your body and into the ground than 220v. But it certainly can and does happen.
Amps kill, not volts. Hence high voltage low amp Tesla coil spark shows.
You need to be introduced to a classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDf2nhfxVzg
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#749> The fusion announcement is great news but sadly it won't help in our battle to lessen the effects of climate change. > There's huge uncertainty about when fusion power will be ready for commercialisation. One estimate suggests maybe 20 years. Then fusion would need to scale up, which would mean a delay of perhaps another few decades. > And here's the problem: the need for carbon-free energy is urgent - and the gove…
Can anyone explain these timelines better? Can we throw more money at this and scale much faster? Are safety/regulation considerations the main bottleneck? This has gotta be one of the most important investments for humanity and our planet. Hard to fathom these timeline predictions in the same world where mRNA vaccines and various spacecraft have scaled in <1 year.
Fusion is still at the phase of fundamental research in some areas, while others are in a sort of "engineering research".
Either way, it's actually hard to imagine fusion will ever be a promising power source, at least with any tech resembling what we know today. It is extremely complex technology living in proximity to extreme radiation bombardment and extreme temperature differences. A fusion reactor will need basically complete replacing every 20 years in the best possible conditions, assuming nothing goes wrong. Re-building the most expensive power plant in the world every decade or two is not likely to be a great way of powering your country.
Also, despite the common narrative, it requires an extremely rare fuel: tritium. Basically the only way to create tritium is to run a fission reactor, which negates the safety promises of fusion.
I think overall wind+solar+fission are a much better and safer investment in the future. Fusion is fine as an experiment progressing along in the background, but nowhere near as promising as it's made out to be.
Re: Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy
#750Earlier quoted context omitted.
It can do that if they manage to make it work as planned Solar, even under ideal conditions, needs backup and much more manpower and management to make it work... and even then, it is not reliable. So, solar is not a replacement for fusion, or nuclear or coal for that matter. It is great for supplementation though.
No it doesn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power
They are high maintainence and very expensive, but the thermal storage is very promising, in that it doesn't have the worst downside of solar. China has been experimenting with them, so I'm hopeful that they will come up with a cheap way to do that.