231–240 of 686 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah. And Wind, Gas, Hydro, etc. Basically everything except fission, tidal and a portion of geothermal. Admittedly it's not a terribly useful classification.
Fission is just solar from different star.
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…
How long will the fuel last? Sabine Hossenfelder references studies in which we have enough Uranium for 50 years max. 6:08 here: https://youtu.be/0kahih8RT1k
(Whether breeders are practical or competitive is another matter, but then fusion looks pretty challenged in that respect also.)
The only true form of green energy other than geothermal. fission, solar, wind, waterfall energy all have their own negative environmental impacts
You need a lot of water for the cooling phase of the thermodynamic cycle that transform heat into electricity.
That's why during drought episodes fission plants have to be stopped.
There is however a non-thermal path to fusion energy, aneutronic fusion with direct energy conversion. In this scheme, the fusion reaction produces no neutrons and the kinetic energy of ions is directly converted to electricity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it's not "too good".
So the fear is we’ll use the extra energy to literally warm the planet? Seems like a scale mismatch. Climate “engineering” like blocking out the sun seems like a much more real danger
So I'm also skeptical.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, clearly that's why SpaceX was successful in an industry where the adage was "How do you become a millionaire in aviation? Start with a billion!".
Has SpaceX disclosed whether they're profitable or still burning investor money?
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…
Is it wise to write off safety issues? Chernobyl, Fukushima and three mile island all seem pretty bad. There is also the Robert Heinlein story "Blowups happen". I'm just not understanding how this can all be hand waved away.
Because of this, fusion is likely WORSE from the utility's point of view than fission. While fusion reactors are less likely to have catastrophic accidents with large external effects, they are probably more likely to have localized accidents that ruin the reactor. In any case, a fusion reactor will have to be designed to be extremely reliable because repairing it after any accident will be so difficult, as it will be too radioactive for anyone to get in to repair it. All repairs will have to be done remotely.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, clearly that's why SpaceX was successful in an industry where the adage was "How do you become a millionaire in aviation? Start with a billion!".
SpaceX is not successful as an industry It is a government funded project at this point
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How long will the fuel last? Sabine Hossenfelder references studies in which we have enough Uranium for 50 years max. 6:08 here: https://youtu.be/0kahih8RT1k
If you fully fission the U + Th in an average chunk of crustal rock (using breeding so you can use the 238U and 232Th) then said rock releases fission energy equal to the combustion energy of 20x its mass in coal. So with breeders we can in effect treat the entire Earth's crust as something an order of magnitude more energy rich than coal. (Whether breeders are practical or competitive is another matter, but then fus…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You keep bringing up climate change, like the only alternative is coal. Do you really think that nuclear fission can be a key player in reducing emissions to net zero? It seems far too expensive and slow to set up for something this urgent.
Fossil + biofuel makes 80% of our energy today. Getting rid of that will require vast amounts of zero-carbon energy. Wind and solar need to be built out at breakneck speed if we want to be serious. Much faster than what we're doing now. So does nuclear fission. I assume you're only looking at the slow and expensive nuclear builds? China is looking to build 150 new reactors to meet its goals. https://www.bloomberg.com…
I've heard this idea that we should "do everything", but I don't get that, why don't we do the best thing as well and as fast as we can?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it wise to write off safety issues? Chernobyl, Fukushima and three mile island all seem pretty bad. There is also the Robert Heinlein story "Blowups happen". I'm just not understanding how this can all be hand waved away.
Also hand waving away the fact that the waste products have to be managed for civilisation-length time scales.