Earlier quoted context omitted.
Solar is basically indirect fusion.
So is all other energy production methods we use... Apart from some fraction of geothermal.
And tidal.
More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade
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Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade
#82Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade
#83This is great news. That said, what the literal fuck -- we've previously been investing 1/850,000th of global GDP in one of 4-5 truly promising energy technologies while the world burns before our eyes?
If you look more into it, it's not clear at all that fusion is actually a promising source of power. None of the currently contemplated technologies have any realistic chance of producing power anywhere near competitively in cost, even ignoring the huge research costs left to get there (no currently planned fusion experiment has any hope of producing more power than it consumes).
Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Solar is basically indirect fusion.
So is all other energy production methods we use... Apart from some fraction of geothermal.
And even that, the heavy elements of the earth (basically anything heavier than Helium) only exist because of the sun's predecessor, making the heat from the core also just recycling from fusion.
Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade
#85This is great news. That said, what the literal fuck -- we've previously been investing 1/850,000th of global GDP in one of 4-5 truly promising energy technologies while the world burns before our eyes?
What if I told you commercially viable fusion power has been 10 years away for the last 40 years? What if I told you it always will be?
Investment in something that might not pay off is wise if it does, and foolish if it doesn’t.
Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade
#86Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fusion isn't a silver bullet even if it works. If it costs more than solar+battery then it's worthless.
I agree the cost is important. I disagree in the breaking point at witch it’s “not worth it”. To me, assuming our battery tech doesn’t find a similar breakthrough before, if fusion reaches one order of magnitude above the cost of solar, it is worth it, as a backup. Better to have it and use it when there’s clouds instead of coal or gas
If you plug your solar panel into some water when you have surplus sun you get hydrogen which burns fine in a combined cycle plant.
If that's too annoying to store you can get it hot and squeeze it over some nickel to get methane.
Electrolyzation becomes cheaper than mining methane for hydrogen (and thus ammonia) production if solar hits the $0.2-0.3/Watt threshold somewhere (which is predicted to happen in 3-7 years).
It's complicated and expensive, but I'm not sure I'd bet on a sabatier reactor (or hydrogen storage if it gets cheap), an electrolyzer and 4x the solar panels being more expensive than a fusion reactor with the average output of 1 unit of solar.
Plus the sabatier thing means we don't have to upgrade all the heating furnaces and expand the grid to have 8x the capacity.
Fusion will be real handy where power density is king though. And if there's some non thermal way of getting work out of it, I can see it being cheaper.
Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade
#88This is great news. That said, what the literal fuck -- we've previously been investing 1/850,000th of global GDP in one of 4-5 truly promising energy technologies while the world burns before our eyes?
Exactly. The past of fusion has been grim, but the future looks (probably) bright. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-f...
This was an awesome overview of current state of fusion attempts!
Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade
#89This is great news. That said, what the literal fuck -- we've previously been investing 1/850,000th of global GDP in one of 4-5 truly promising energy technologies while the world burns before our eyes?
Fusion isn't a silver bullet even if it works. If it costs more than solar+battery then it's worthless.
battery for solar installation is at the point where between 2-6hrs of capacity can be economical viable.
Maybe in a few more years/decade/s we will reach a point where in some places in the world it will be economical viable to have exclusive solar and battery, and that assuming prices will continue to drop and that there won't be any resource or physical limitations. Then we got colder climates where solar + battery is unlikely to ever become viable. Exports of solar generated green hydrogen could solve that assuming that the technology for that becomes cheap enough.
Multiple different directions where specific technologies could be economical dominant in the future.
Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade
#90This is great news. That said, what the literal fuck -- we've previously been investing 1/850,000th of global GDP in one of 4-5 truly promising energy technologies while the world burns before our eyes?
The world burning is the basis of the economy for dozens of petrostates and some of the world’s largest corporations.