ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly
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Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly
#2I think fusion is cool, but I also think it distracts from more important and promising approaches to clean power. No one has ever demonstrated a self-sustaining, net positive fusion reaction. It will probably take >30 years to make this technology cheap , safe and reliable and another >20 years to deploy it at scale. We don't have 50 years to wait on clean energy, we need it today. We should be focusing our attention on renewables, like solar, which are rapidly dropping in cost, and good 'ol nuclear power, which is already proven to be safe and reliable, instead of crossing our fingers and waiting for some magical tech to save us. We already have the tech, we just need to get serious about deploying it. I bet a concerted roll-out of nuclear + solar could cut US emissions due to electricity generation by at least 30% over the next 20 years.
EDIT: I see this is getting some downvotes. I want to reiterate that I support fusion research, I am just saying that I don't believe fusion is the quickest or most realistic approach to reducing emissions.
Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly
#3Is Iter aiming for breakeven or net plus energy?
Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly
#4Is Iter aiming for breakeven or net plus energy?
One objective is a Q value of greater than 10 for a moment. And a steady Q value of 5.
Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly
#5I think fusion is cool, but I also think it distracts from more important and promising approaches to clean power. No one has ever demonstrated a self-sustaining, net positive fusion reaction. It will probably take >30 years to make this technology cheap , safe and reliable and another >20 years to deploy it at scale. We don't have 50 years to wait on clean energy, we need it today. We should be focusing our attentio…
Don't be so alarmist. We don't need it today.
Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly
#6Some years ago, likely around 2010, I had the priviledge to visit Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (it was called UKAEA Culham back then). During my visit, we were shown around various experiments and after a long evening, we had the opportunity to attend a Q&A with the staff. The question everyone wanted to know the answer to was When will it be ready? The scientists and everyone else involved honestly thought 10 years would be more than enough time for the technology to mature and find its way into everyday lives.
Commercial fusion energry, always 5-10 years away.
Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly
#7I am going to need some help on this one as my knowledge on physics is limited: What makes scientists believe that the solution to nuclear fusion power is only a matter of scale? I desperately want nuclear fusion to work because nuclear power is the only realistic way to solve the looming energy crisis of the 21st century while still maintaining the same standard of living for everyone. It's also 500% more important that nuclear fusion works because most people around the world think that nuclear fission is scary (weaponization concerns even though fission power is different from bomb-making, radioactive waste, reactor meltdowns, etc.), even though it's the only realistic method we have today of going carbon-neutral.
However, I looked up the article on "fusion power" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power) and it says "but to date, no design has produced more fusion power output than the electrical power input, defeating the purpose."
Can anyone help explain what I am missing, or what is not explained well? My common-person impression is if a laboratory experiment cannot even produce desired outcomes, what makes people think that an engineered, faulty-prone system will? The way I see it is that researchers produce the proof-of-concept, and engineering will attempt to reproduce that at scale. Isn't this preemptive? Or, from the article, it seems that it is necessary to build this thing in order to get any conclusive research results.
Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly
#8I think fusion is cool, but I also think it distracts from more important and promising approaches to clean power. No one has ever demonstrated a self-sustaining, net positive fusion reaction. It will probably take >30 years to make this technology cheap , safe and reliable and another >20 years to deploy it at scale. We don't have 50 years to wait on clean energy, we need it today. We should be focusing our attentio…
Everybody else but the ITER people are focusing on solar and wind. What more do you expect?
Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly
#9I am going to need some help on this one as my knowledge on physics is limited: What makes scientists believe that the solution to nuclear fusion power is only a matter of scale? I desperately want nuclear fusion to work because nuclear power is the only realistic way to solve the looming energy crisis of the 21st century while still maintaining the same standard of living for everyone. It's also 500% more important…
This is a lab experiment, just a huge one.
Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly
#10P != NP will be proven before we have a breakeven fusion.