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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

#91

Post by Schroedingersat »

paconbork wrote: post #77
boomskats wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article you linked to states this as the reason for the project being scrapped: > But a group of residents organized as “Save Our Mesa” argued such a large installation would be an eyesore and could curtail the area’s popular recreational activities — biking, ATVs and skydiving — and deter tourists from visiting sculptor Michael Heizer’s land installation, “Double Negative.” I also searched the page and the word…

The article mentions both "conservationists" and "endangered species advocates", who I believe tend to consider themselves (and are considered by others to be) environmentalists. Here's an example of a wing of the Nevada Democratic Party (who according to their bio, want a #GreenNewDeal) also being against the development: (edit, forgot the link: https://twitter.com/LeftCaucus/status/1374527780034015244 ) For another…

That's the biggest reach I've ever heard.

Those are NIMBYS who want their view. Maybe with a mix of oil lobbyists.

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#92

Post by _dain_ »

LegitShady wrote: post #51
toveja wrote: post #23

To those interested in discussion outside of HN, there is a discord community [0] with professional, academic, and hobby fusion afficionados. [0] https://discord.gg/Rcum9zkBtg

Discord is a black hole in the internet. People have discussions you can't search for and isn't indexed on Google etc. It's convenient but it's worse than a forum for creating knowledge people can search through later. It's a shame it's used for such interesting discussion.

> People have discussions you can't search for and isn't indexed on Google etc.

this is a feature not a bug. the real problem is lack of user ownership over data, not lack of searchability.

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#93

Post by Digital28 »

rainsford wrote: post #57
Digital28 wrote: post #2

This 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?

I'd love to see viable nuclear fusion power, but the lack of more investment at the moment doesn't really seem unreasonable. As you said, there are a number of other green alternatives, including traditional nuclear fission power, that have proven they can be real alternatives to fossil fuels and that would benefit from continued investment. Unless I've missed something, nuclear fusion meanwhile has yet to demonstrat…

It's an equal level of insanity that technologies like thorium breeder reactors haven't been getting whole number percentages of first world budgets, especially considering how extremely high of a priority climate change has become and how costly the alternatives (e.g., disaster mitigation) are getting.

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#94

Post by jholman »

paconbork wrote: post #77
boomskats wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article you linked to states this as the reason for the project being scrapped: > But a group of residents organized as “Save Our Mesa” argued such a large installation would be an eyesore and could curtail the area’s popular recreational activities — biking, ATVs and skydiving — and deter tourists from visiting sculptor Michael Heizer’s land installation, “Double Negative.” I also searched the page and the word…

The article mentions both "conservationists" and "endangered species advocates", who I believe tend to consider themselves (and are considered by others to be) environmentalists. Here's an example of a wing of the Nevada Democratic Party (who according to their bio, want a #GreenNewDeal) also being against the development: (edit, forgot the link: https://twitter.com/LeftCaucus/status/1374527780034015244 ) For another…

You appear to think that "conservationist", "endangered species advocate" and "environmentalist" are all synonyms for "climate activist"? Your previous comment claimed there was opposition from "climate activists", and these are not examples of that. The BattleBorn situation seems to be about about tourism and similar values (not climate activism), the Ivanpah situation looks like it's about species conservation (not climate activism).

Don't get me wrong, I am very frustrated by people who see themselves as environmentalists, for whom climate change (and thus non-carbon energy sources) is not the top priority. I think they have wrong priorities. But that doesn't mean they're hypocrites, they're just (IMO) wrong.

All that said, I agree with your topline observation that we need all the help we can get.

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#95

Post by adventured »

Teever wrote: post #43
sacrosancty wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fusion isn't a silver bullet even if it works. If it costs more than solar+battery then it's worthless.

Not at all. There will always be places where solar+battery isn't viable. Northern Canada and Alaska come to mind.

Along with small and or very high population density nations.

India is going to end up with perhaps two billion people and will have extraordinary population density/spacing problems. They're going to desperately need huge numbers of nuclear fission power plants or fusion plants to provide for that. They will not have the space for epic scale solar farms. Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Philippines, Vietnam, Israel, Belgium, Netherlands (among others) are in the same space vs population situation. And given the population explosion across parts of the Middle East and Africa, it's a certainty nations in those regions will have the same problem as well.

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#96

Post by kadonoishi »

Ekaros wrote: post #64
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar is basically indirect fusion.

So is all other energy production methods we use... Apart from some fraction of geothermal.

Tidal would rely on orbital energy.

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#97

Post by epistasis »

grej wrote: post #53
sacrosancty wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fusion isn't a silver bullet even if it works. If it costs more than solar+battery then it's worthless.

Totally disagree. Solar + battery will never match the energy density of fusion.

And fusion will never be able to stop emitting massive amounts of waste heat that must be dealt with somehow.

I'm not sure what benefit density provides, especially since people obsessed with density seem to only focus on the reaction chamber, which is the smallest part of the massive building and heat rejection apparatus that will be needed.

Rejecting waste heat is a real difficulty, and part of the reason that's France's fission fleet is at less than 50% capacity right now.

Thermal electricity production has a chance of becoming obsolete compared to direct conversion of photons into electricity. When solar plus storage costs less than steam turbines plus heat rejection, then it doesn't matter how cheap or dense the fusion part is in terms of economics.

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#98

Post by [deleted] »

jayd16 wrote: post #75
otikik wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They did say solar and battery. . So taking it literally I think they're correct that if we had a battery technology such that it provided consistent cheaper energy we wouldn't need a hypothetical nuclear backup.

[deleted]

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#99

Post by thriftwy »

jleahy wrote: post #35
thriftwy wrote: post #31

I believe that there might be a way to have a compact and efficient fusion reactor which we just don't know yet (and a time traveller would be able to "hold my beer" us into it) For example, there's this plasma-producing microwave + cut grape trick, what if you use something like this to supply really hot deuterium plasma?

Then you get super hot deuterium plasma, which is unconfined and so won't fuse.

Maybe you can generate it in one place and confine it in the other? Not dissimilar to how ICEs work. Produce plasma and then burn (fuse) it in pulses.

Re: More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

#100

Post by [deleted] »

jayd16 wrote: post #75
otikik wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They did say solar and battery. . So taking it literally I think they're correct that if we had a battery technology such that it provided consistent cheaper energy we wouldn't need a hypothetical nuclear backup.

[deleted]
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