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Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

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Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#101

Post by DennisP »

megaman821 wrote: post #62
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.

I agree. There is no breakthrough on the horizon that is going to make a fusion plant have the complexity closer to a natural gas plant than a nuclear fission plant. Therefore the costs will remain high. It could still be a useful technology, especially in space. I could see a moon or mars base powered by fusion.

Gas has low capital cost but relatively high fuel cost, especially outside the US. For most fusion designs (possibly excluding NIF), the fuel cost is insignificant.

Also of course we might want to consider the carbon emissions of gas plants.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#102

Post by elurg »

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).

Why do we need to cover the worst case with 100% renewables?

The goal is to reduce emissions so it would be great even if we can just stop burning coal in the summer.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#103

Post by soperj »

PietdeVries wrote: post #83
acidburnNSA wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

I don't know what people get out of repeating this on every single fusion article. It's not inventive or insightful, and it doesn't further the discussion in the slightest.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#104

Post by VaxWithSex »

automatic6131 wrote: post #89
rapsey wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Sure it exists, it is called compressed air. Even better with CO2.

Close to me is the oldest one, built in 1972 and still operational today: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraftwerk_Huntorf

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#105

Post by sharikous »

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…

Could you elaborate on that? What do you mean that the lasers could require more energy?

Is it that in a specific volume they got X EM energy coming in from the laser and Y thermal energy coming out, with Y>X BUT the electricity consumption of the lasers is Z>Y>X?

If so that's sort of misleading, like the plethora of claims from ITER. I hoped this was different.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#106

Post by zaph0d_ »

cartoonfoxes wrote: post #98

NIF is still doing fusion research? I thought they pivoted to materials research in support of stockpile stewardship years ago.

They are still doing plenty shots for the national ignition campaign and figuring out the target manufacturing process. The official purpose of NIF has just been shifted to support security research.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#107

Post by reacharavindh »

eganist wrote: post #77
acidburnNSA wrote: post #49

After a few more major breakthroughs we'll be where fission was in 1942 after Fermi made the first man made neutron chain reaction. After that, we can see what a practical electricity producing plant looks like, and see how much people actually care about small amounts of tritium radiation. At the moment fuel costs in fission are like 5-10% of total costs for a fission fleet. In fusion it could be lower, but that wil…

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.

Not an engineer in this field, so I may have misread/misunderstood, but I read that 2.5MJ out for 2.1MJ of laser energy in, NOT the total energy needed to make the whole thing work.. So, in a layman’s world, it is not a net gain of power, only a small subset of the system yielding more power than it took in.

Happy to be proven wrong and told that it is more of a breakthrough than I think it is..

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#108

Post by Gwypaas »

Matticus_Rex wrote: post #72
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/…

"Places where sun availability makes solar inefficient" is still a niche so massive that "niche" seems like a bad descriptor.

Keep in mind HVDC. 3300 KM north of the Sahara desert, and you are relatively close to the Arctic circle. North of that is still a "niche," but now we're talking about a million people living hugely spread out.

Most of those people living in Russia, Norway, and Sweden with easy access to an abundance of hydro, to the level that energy flows north to south in the Scandinavian countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#109

Post by neonsunset »

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.

Solar and wind are bad and unsustainable due to mining of rare earth minerals and photovoltaic cells degrading and becoming a landfill liability.

Cost effectiveness is also a myth perpetrated by the death of nuclear executed through bureaucracy.

The nuclear, however, is currently the true energy source to use, technologically much simpler (than fusion) to execute with decades of experience making it the safest out there. It is the zero-carbon environmentally friendly energy source.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#110

Post by rapsey »

automatic6131 wrote: post #89
rapsey wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

> 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.

But it is almost certainly closer to existence than fusion.

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