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Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

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Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#81

Post by rootusrootus »

coldpie wrote: post #74
toomuchtodo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar and batteries are already cheaper than fossil fuels in most markets. Nuclear isn’t competing with renewables, it’s competing against batteries and almost free renewables that charge them. Nuclear is still possibly a great fit for niche locales where renewables aren’t feasible at all. Not a nuclear hater by any means (we need every innovation we can get), just show your math. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/…

Are solar + batteries feasible to heat every house in Minnesota with electricity when it's below -20F (-30C) for a week, we have > just show your math. I admit I can't. It's mostly gut-feeling from various science news sources I keep up with (e.g. Ars Technica; Skeptic's Guide to the Universe).

I wonder if we should seriously consider moving people away from such cold climates and towards warmer ones. Air conditioning is cheaper and coincidentally happens at about the same time as maximum solar power.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#83

Post by PietdeVries »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #80
eganist wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still decades off but as I understand it, this was the hardest nut to crack. They got what, 2.5 megajoules out of 2.1 in? I might be in the opposite camp as you but this is very much a "where were you when—" moment for me. I'm sure someone will pop in to disappoint me but I think the point is it's no longer a hypothetical exercise.

> They got what, 2.5 megajoules out of 2.1 in? Of laser energy into a tiny control volume that doesn't consider how much energy went into the laser systems. If you draw the control volume around the building and see that the lasers require vastly more energy than what came out, I think you'll be less excited, right? We've been getting lots of energy out of fusion since the early 1950s with thermonuclear bombs. We kno…

I think fusion-plants have always been "15 years away", and most likely will be so for quite a few years...

Edit: I was wrong, fusion is always 30 years away: https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/why-nuclear-fusi...

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#84

Post by melling »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #57
coldpie wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, energy storage is still an unsolved problem. Research on batteries may get us there soon, but today they aren't feasible. It's very much worth putting effort into both approaches. IMO the best outcome is a wide variety of clean energy sources and storage solutions, so the best solution can be chosen for a given geographical/political/etc situation.

Solar and batteries are already cheaper than fossil fuels in most markets. Nuclear isn’t competing with renewables, it’s competing against batteries and almost free renewables that charge them. Nuclear is still possibly a great fit for niche locales where renewables aren’t feasible at all. Not a nuclear hater by any means (we need every innovation we can get), just show your math. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/…

That’s great! Because there are [ONLY] 8500 coal power plants producing 20% of the CO2 emissions globally.

Removing 20% of emissions will make a huge difference.

ETA on this should be around 2030?

What I don’t get is since solar is cheaper, why are we building so many coal power plants?

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2317274-china-is-buildi...

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#85

Post by gjsman-1000 »

IMTDb wrote: post #64
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #50

Well... if Nuclear Fusion becomes actually possible in a cost-effective manner, so much for the need to roll out solar and wind-based electricity, which looks very much like a 1st-generation modern green energy technology in retrospect. I'm not complaining. If we do crack the code on Nuclear Fusion, if I was the government, my next step would be to figure out how to build so many reactors that electricity costs go to…

> even the most diehard gas-car fans won't be able to resist They just won't have a choice; if we can provide a real alternative, we can just forbid gas car altogether. Just like we banned CFC to save the ozone when better alternatives were developed. The main issue is that our electricity grids and production facilities aren't ready yet to sustain a mass shift to electric, so we need to ease in the transition. But t…

> They just won't have a choice; if we can provide a real alternative, we can just forbid gas car altogether. Just like we banned CFC to save the ozone when better alternatives were developed.

Banning gas cars outright, I think, would be a political miscalculation. There is broad mistrust of anything the government does right now in the US (not wholly undeserved), and it is likely to continue getting stronger, so not tainting it with a political ban would be a better solution in my view. Otherwise you risk polarization and failure, because not everyone buys climate change, or banning something because X is determined to be better now. It also would breed widespread resentment from people who aren't ready to switch (because, let me tell you, outside of cities, "reduces climate change" is something nobody cares about as a selling point). Just let electric vehicles naturally become better at everything and let gas cars slowly die naturally. The "invisible hand" will take care of the rest - just like it did with the horse and buggy.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#86

Post by throw1234651234 »

Could someone break down the costs of realistic fusion for me like I am 12 please?

For example, for fission, my 12 year old understanding is: Stack uranium plates until the reaction is self-sustaining, boil water to spin turbine, if reaction gets too fast, cover it with lead / cool it with water. Circulated water is slightly radioactive. Main costs are keeping reaction container / need power to circulate water cooling, disposing of spent fuel is a problem. Power output is 100s or 1000s times more effective than coal / oil once running. In addition to meltdown risk, public opinion is concerned about radioactive cooling water near their community.

What's the same tldr for fusion? (and feel free to correct my tldr)

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#87

Post by coldpie »

rootusrootus wrote: post #81
coldpie wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are solar + batteries feasible to heat every house in Minnesota with electricity when it's below -20F (-30C) for a week, we have > just show your math. I admit I can't. It's mostly gut-feeling from various science news sources I keep up with (e.g. Ars Technica; Skeptic's Guide to the Universe).

I wonder if we should seriously consider moving people away from such cold climates and towards warmer ones. Air conditioning is cheaper and coincidentally happens at about the same time as maximum solar power.

This might work with post-Surak Vulcans, but it's not gonna fly here on Earth with humans :)

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#88

Post by HillRat »

rapsey wrote: post #51

Even if fusion ends up producing more power than consuming in the real world, it still has to compete on cost. People too enthusiastic about fusion tend to ignore that it might not actually be a cost effective source of power. Solar panels are cheap and batteries are easier to build and there are lots of ways of making them.

Yeah, the cost of capsules for NIF is something like 4 orders of magnitude higher than it needs to be for commercialization, though admittedly it's not like they've industrialized the process yet.

The other thing is that if LLNL is still using their own definition of Q, it's not necessarily the case that they've demonstrated net-energy breakeven; they like to compare direct energy delivery to energy release, so when calculating Q they basically pretend there aren't any energy losses from actually running the huge laser facility itself. As a result, LLNL assumes that laser technology will improve to the point that real-life Q can catch up with their "scientific Q" metric. (IIRC I think "Project LIFE" was supposed to develop some of those technologies, but it never worked out, possibly since NIF is so far behind their promised schedule.)

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#89

Post by automatic6131 »

rapsey wrote: post #69
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Solar panels are cheap and batteries are easier to build and there are lots of ways of making them. Right now they are, but they often rely on materials from politically unstable regions (particularly Africa), or potential political rivals (China). Also, many solar panels require polysilicon from China, which is almost certainly produced with forced labor. https://www.csis.org/analysis/dark-spot-solar-energy-indust…

Mechanical, flow, heat, compressed air, pumped hydro are all types of batteries. All capable of storing MW to GW of power. It is not all lithium and cobalt.

Once again, I am reminding HackerNews that the technology to build a battery capable of storing enough renewable electrical energy for the (world|nation) for even half a day *does not exist* at any reasonable cost.

And if you want to store multiple days for a northerly nation with very cold winters, frequent high pressure anticyclones (so, no wind) that can last about a week, and you want to switch everyone to zero carbon heating, then the technology doubly doesn't exist.

And the only retort to the above will be mumbling "yeah, but exponential improvement in batteries plus didn't someone say something about hydrogen?" which is essentially, wishful thinking. When you can build a zero carbon grid out of nuclear fission plants - and we've known how to do so since the 60s.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#90

Post by dicroce »

One thing to consider: Even if you prefer solar, you still need to initially make those solar panels and that is an energy intensive process.

I think we're still probably 20 years away from commercialization of this, but I still think this is a very big deal.

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