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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

#171

Post by jimbob45 »

einpoklum wrote: post #161
acidburnNSA wrote: post #153

But where are the fusion neutrons? (See Voodoo Fusion [1]) [1] https://vixra.org/pdf/1812.0382v1.pdf I'm a professional fission guy. I started out in fusion and switched to advanced fission. These days I don't see why we don't just build lots more regular old LWR fission reactors. Imagining that somehow fusion is going to a) work, b) be cheap (fuel cost is only 5% of total nuclear fission cost so who cares), and c) n…

> It's way easier. Is that why power plants go years over time and hugely over-budget? > It has been working fine since the 1950s. Oh, yeah, just fine, not a hitch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accident... > Waste problem is solved The solution being: Ignore it, I guess? > net saves millions of lives by displacing air pollution And we fight wars for peace too. > It's zero carbon Not if you coun…

The solution being: Ignore it, I guess?

The waste is completely solid and can be safely buried and forgotten. Is that ignorance?

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

#172

Post by jcranmer »

einpoklum wrote: post #161
acidburnNSA wrote: post #153

But where are the fusion neutrons? (See Voodoo Fusion [1]) [1] https://vixra.org/pdf/1812.0382v1.pdf I'm a professional fission guy. I started out in fusion and switched to advanced fission. These days I don't see why we don't just build lots more regular old LWR fission reactors. Imagining that somehow fusion is going to a) work, b) be cheap (fuel cost is only 5% of total nuclear fission cost so who cares), and c) n…

> It's way easier. Is that why power plants go years over time and hugely over-budget? > It has been working fine since the 1950s. Oh, yeah, just fine, not a hitch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accident... > Waste problem is solved The solution being: Ignore it, I guess? > net saves millions of lives by displacing air pollution And we fight wars for peace too. > It's zero carbon Not if you coun…

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accident...

How many industries are there where the list of notable accidents has such few fatalities? I mean, have you actually looked at the accidents on that list? The vast majority of them are basically garden-variety industrial accidents--and there's only so many because people are minded to exhaustively list every mishap that occurs at a nuclear power plant in a way that they're not for, say, a coal power plant.

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

#173

Post by acchow »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #152
Nition wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point that I hadn't considered before. Like how adding more lanes to a road just creates more traffic. I hope things don't go that way but I can see it happening.

Sigh, this again. Induced demand is still valid economic demand, and congested roads are still being used productively. There's a reason why sane governments don't regularly "improve" roads by removing lanes.

> Induced demand is still valid economic demand, and congested roads are still being used productively. There's a reason why sane governments don't regularly "improve" roads by removing lanes.

I guess that depends on your perspective. I see expanding freeways as enabling further sub-urban growth, which is fundamentally unsustainable (from an energy, logistics, and municipal funding perspective).

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

#174

Post by vlunkr »

goodpoint wrote: post #163
felixmeziere wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it will be for the second half of this century, if we make it there. Side comment: fusion can be seen as a solution to many of our worst problems. But another way to see it is that without a complete change in what societies value and how they act (i.e. a cultural/philosophical/storytelling change), fusion is just going to increase the rate at which we are transforming this planet into a giant pile of garbage, w…

> fusion is just going to increase the rate at which we are transforming this planet into a giant pile of garbage Thank you for saying this. Unlimited almost-free energy makes energy-saving measures moot, including building insulation. People would heat or cool even open spaces with little regard for the environment. And all the heat is eventually released into the atmosphere. Consumerism would be supercharged as wel…

So the problem fusion is that is will be too good? Interesting take.

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

#175

Post by nine_k »

mwint wrote: post #166
einpoklum wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's way easier. Is that why power plants go years over time and hugely over-budget? > It has been working fine since the 1950s. Oh, yeah, just fine, not a hitch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accident... > Waste problem is solved The solution being: Ignore it, I guess? > net saves millions of lives by displacing air pollution And we fight wars for peace too. > It's zero carbon Not if you coun…

Waste problem - drive through the US state of Nevada. There’s nothing for hundreds of miles. You could likely just throw the waste out of an airplane over Nevada and be more or less fine. With containment techniques combined with the ridiculous amount of uninhabited desert the US has, this is a non issue.

France, with much less uninhabited land, and vastly more nuclear power plants, somehow manages to place waste in a way that's acceptable for an EU country, and neighboring countries.

(But of course "waste" is not really waste, it's fuel spent for a few per cent; a breeder reactor + reprocessing should burn it again and again and again.)

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

#176

Post by goodpoint »

vlunkr wrote: post #174
goodpoint wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fusion is just going to increase the rate at which we are transforming this planet into a giant pile of garbage Thank you for saying this. Unlimited almost-free energy makes energy-saving measures moot, including building insulation. People would heat or cool even open spaces with little regard for the environment. And all the heat is eventually released into the atmosphere. Consumerism would be supercharged as wel…

So the problem fusion is that is will be too good? Interesting take.

No, it's not "too good".

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

#177

Post by freetime2 »

mwint wrote: post #166
einpoklum wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's way easier. Is that why power plants go years over time and hugely over-budget? > It has been working fine since the 1950s. Oh, yeah, just fine, not a hitch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accident... > Waste problem is solved The solution being: Ignore it, I guess? > net saves millions of lives by displacing air pollution And we fight wars for peace too. > It's zero carbon Not if you coun…

Waste problem - drive through the US state of Nevada. There’s nothing for hundreds of miles. You could likely just throw the waste out of an airplane over Nevada and be more or less fine. With containment techniques combined with the ridiculous amount of uninhabited desert the US has, this is a non issue.

They already tried this in Nevada and failed for political reasons [1]. Dumping nuclear waste in the desert may be a non issue to you (and to me as well), but to a lot of people - particularly people who actually live in Nevada - it is a very serious issue.

The question of how to dispose of nuclear waste - in a manner that is satisfying to the residents of the state where it is being disposed - remains an unsolved issue in the US. And the current policy is to basically just ignore the waste. It’s being stored for the time being at reactor sites in steel and concrete casks - which I don’t think anyone would argue is a sufficient solution.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste...

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

#178

Post by barneygale »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #152
Nition wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point that I hadn't considered before. Like how adding more lanes to a road just creates more traffic. I hope things don't go that way but I can see it happening.

Sigh, this again. Induced demand is still valid economic demand, and congested roads are still being used productively. There's a reason why sane governments don't regularly "improve" roads by removing lanes.

Sane governments regularly pedestrianise roads and city centres, at least in Europe.

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

#179

Post by Kon5ole »

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.

There are solar panels in use on svalbard island, Norway. Far north of Alaska

Solar needs more space in such locations but space is abundant and also nobody lives there so you dont need much power anyway.

The sun shines 24 hrs a day during summer, so you can generate lots of hydrogen for use during winter.

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

#180

Post by shadowofneptune »

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.

It's a chat room. The conversations are disposable, it is part of the medium. Having a record of discussion is not really what interests me about instant messaging.
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