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

growthbusiness.co.uk

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

#301

Post by scaramanga »

eatonphil wrote: post #3

The article doesn't seem to mention why exactly but I'm guessing it's some combination of 1) visible climate change (extreme heat, wildfires, drought, etc.) so people want better energy sources and 2) the mayhem Russia started seeing as it is one of the bigger energy providers. Or has there been anything else?

A much more reasonable first guess would be "the desire to increase the next-quarter earnings of industries which make political contributions." Which is the main driving force of all public investment. If politicians can take advantage of climate chaos and put it down as part of their "climate bullshit, whatever" policies then they can get a larger pay day, so why not?

Here in Korea for example, they are building out the worlds most dangerous fission reactors because domestic heavy industry, concrete companies, and so on are extracting very good earnings from that. Meanwhile, Korea is the leader in offshore wind (but only to export to other countries, and it's all manufactured in Thailand) presumably the lack of interest in the Korean government in stimulating domestic demand, and the cheap labour in Thailand are factors, along with oil prices, in why it is so cost-effective.

A belief in the free market would lead us to expect that eventually the green options would become just as corrupt and be able to hold the world hostage and capture policymakers, but it does not seem to have happened yet, maybe there is just a lead time for industries to develop their capacities for political corruption?

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

#302

Post by socialdemocrat »

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…

I would rather see some push towards high temperature reactors. Whether gas cooled or molten salt. Point is it that if we have high temperature differentials we can more easily do thermal storage or produce hydrogen. Both are kind of important combos for renewable energy.

Wind, solar, battery and some kind of variant of hydrogen economy is bound to stay/evolve and nuclear light to be built with that in mind so it can be more of a complementary technology rather than living in an alternative universe.

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

#303

Post by lven »

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…

I tried to describe this problem in further detail in a post called con-fusion. Kind of sad to see money burn like this. https://lvenneri.com/blog/ConFusion

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

#304

Post by socialdemocrat »

downrightmike wrote: post #253
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…

The problem is energy companies and the entrenched family assholes that run them. Three Mile Island was being forced to push ahead and use the crane to move the vessel, even though it WAS damaged and would have likely lead to a meltdown. Engineers knew it wasn't safe and were punished and fired for not using the crane unless it was actually checked and in working order. The public is right to be wary of nuclear when…

If I could upvote this a hundred times. It is easy to mock the public for not getting nuclear power and being paranoid.

People today have really forgotten how much people got lied to constantly about nuclear power. France which they like to pull out as this amazing nuclear country built all the reactors they hype up by faking safety checks on nuclear reactors.

It is just really naive to assume every nuclear plant is run by the books.

People complain about over regulation of the nuclear industry. Yeah… they kind of brought that upon themselves.

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

#305

Post by lven »

jason0597 wrote: post #147

I am genuinely surprised that there is so much interest in the comments here and excitement about fusion energy powering the future. Yet I see surprisingly few numbers or physics being discussed. Kind of disappointed for a forum that is supposedly technically-minded and able to speak mathematics. There was this great MIT paper [1] published a while back that's still to be rebuked, talking about the serious technical…

One morea article worth reading about the con-fusion https://lvenneri.com/blog/ConFusion

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

#306

Post by lven »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #160
bloodyplonker22 wrote: post #72

It means we are closer to success when we see a lot more VC funding of nuclear fusion versus government (taxpayer) funding. VCs don't have the timeline or ability to lose money without much consequence or blame like the government does.

It could also mean there are lots more rich people who want to spend money on a gamble to "save the world" and don't care to do sufficient due diligence to dig below the fancy slide decks they get spoon fed in the board room every quarter.

You're better off donating money to fusion companies directly than paying taxes to the government. Wish musk had donated his taxesto companies last year instead.

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

#307

Post by notatoad »

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.

valid economic demand does not equal "good".

increasing demand on a highway gets more people to where they are going, but if the destination doesn't have more parking spots, you've caused an imbalance in the system. same as the electrical generation - if it suddenly becomes absurdly cheap to manufacture more consumer goods, we've just increased the pressure on the whole system that needs to manage the rest of the lifecycle of those goods after manufacture. sure, some people will make money, but that's not the point.

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

#308

Post by scaramanga »

mrshadowgoose wrote: post #202
eatonphil wrote: post #3

The article doesn't seem to mention why exactly but I'm guessing it's some combination of 1) visible climate change (extreme heat, wildfires, drought, etc.) so people want better energy sources and 2) the mayhem Russia started seeing as it is one of the bigger energy providers. Or has there been anything else?

The taste of immense profit is in the air. In the minds of potential investors, fusion is no longer a "lol maybe in 50 years" technology. Advances in magnetic modeling and magnet technology have resulted in cheaper, easier-to-develop alternatives to the classic Tokamak. Timelines are now believably "this decade" for demonstration reactors. Energy production/harvesting is a foundational element of our civilization. Li…

The first part, the taste of immense profit, sure. But the idea that people are thinking of profits on the timescale of "this decade" is almost laughable, given the situation we are already in with climate change.

A much more rational explanation would be "they are trying to grab as much cash as they can right now, for as long as people believe that this is a thing that we should be doing, and may be possible", regardless of whether it's a good idea (it isn't), or whether it would work (doesn't look like it). But sure, maybe they are completely sincere and really believe in it all, who knows?

But the issue isn't just that "all of the comforts of modern society require the expenditure of some form of energy" it's also the case that "exponentially increasing energy expenditure is just accelerating the rate at which we are asset stripping and polluting the earth" and the latter continues to be true even if we stop emitting CO2.

I think it should now be apparent to all that comfort-seeking and suicide are essentially the same process (ask any addict), at least for the definitions of "comfort" that our current political and economic system are organised around. Of course, quite a lot of people still do not experience a lot of "comfort" even with the practically limitless energy that we have from fossil fuels.

Edit: sorry for the ramble, but to summarize, I think you give people too much credit to imagine they can design such a complex money printer with a 10 year plan, and if they could plan to that timescale, they are probably going to see that society so far in to collapse by then, that even with infinite energy, there will not be much value in the money that it prints.

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

#310

Post by lven »

GeekyBear wrote: post #288
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…

> For example, there are leaks of tiny amounts of tritium at some fission plants and people lose their minds. If a fusion reactor loses power, fusion ceases. The reactor shuts down. If a fission reactor loses power, fission continues. A reactor that cannot be cooled melts down. I don't think people will be as wary when fail safe reactor designs come off the drawing board and are in use long enough to have their own t…

This is not true. Fission reactors have to deal with decay heat, not fission reactions when cooling is lost. This can be managed. Fusion reactors also have decay heat. In new reactors like the Micro Modular Reactor, it's actually less decay heat than a fusion power plant. Please please read my post :https://lvenneri.com/blog/ConFusion#financial-risk-of-powerp...
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