101–110 of 309 posts
It's just 50 years away.
AI was also 30years away forever then it was not. its a function of dollar spent researching not fairy dust powered by hopes and dreams. problem is the problem seems so unsurmountable that private sector (until now) was never interested in exploring this and govt funding is really mostly about making things blow up. so there you are. all that said the fusion triple product neutron-flux time energy has been steadily g…
20 years from now. And the same answer after 20 years.
This is ultimately a capital game and without enough capital researchers and engineers have to go with the safest bets lest they lose funding. So you get ITER which will almost certainly work but has taken forever to build because it's a gargantuan feat of overengineering in all the ways that matter to make sure it works.
And for what it's worth, ITER's new baseline schedule will be announced this upcoming Wednesday (July 3). Likely first plasma will be in the next 2 or 3 years with first fusion operation some time between 2035 and 2040.
In 100,000 years from now, after we're past the next ice age, archeologists will unearth tokamaks all around the world. Regular people will speculate aliens and a worldwide connection between the peoples of the world to explain the multiple occurrences. They'll have unlimited energy based on some quantum shit.
They'll either wonder at our stupidity, or they'll wonder what they missed since it will appear to them that maybe we got it working.
20 years from now. And the same answer after 20 years.
No, there are multiple projects and companies that are making good progress toward commercially practical fusion reactors. Helion Energy has a contract to deliver Microsoft a fusion reactor by 2028. It's only four years away so we don't need to speculate about it. Helion will either deliver or they won't: https://www.reuters.com/technology/microsoft-buy-power-nucle... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bDXXWQxK38 https…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't take this the wrong way, but I envy your naivete. You are extremely optimistic about people and politics.
How so? To my ears, "we need to accept significant degradations in the availability of electricity" is a deeply pessimistic statement.
Of course, it frequently happens involuntarily, and just saying "get used to it" is pessimistic, as you say.
Both reflect the same thing: it's politically untenable to voluntarily accept poor reliability of electricity supply.
Would love to see comments that actually respond to the article! Everyone here seems to be sharing their general opinions on fusion or a reaction to the article title. The article is actually very detailed!
20 years from now. And the same answer after 20 years.
No, there are multiple projects and companies that are making good progress toward commercially practical fusion reactors. Helion Energy has a contract to deliver Microsoft a fusion reactor by 2028. It's only four years away so we don't need to speculate about it. Helion will either deliver or they won't: https://www.reuters.com/technology/microsoft-buy-power-nucle... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bDXXWQxK38 https…
If it takes 7 years to build something that is known and has been done a couple of hundred times before, I think it's safe to say it will take more than 4 years to build something of similar complexity that has never been done before.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed, I think it is a great article. Personally, I'm most inclined to agree with the "bear case" summarized at the bottom of the article: 1. I think it's highly likely that, at some point (and probably in the not-too distant future with ITER and DEMO), humans will produce fusion reactors that are self-sustaining with net positive output (ignition). 2. Given the inherent complexity and difficulty with fusion, I thin…
"Base load" doesn't really enter into it: you just need storage to make renewables make sense by supplying when generation doesn't meet demand and recharging when demand is less than supply. (or, if you have a cheap "base load" you use storage to even out the peaks and troughs in the same way). Base load is just a somewhat arbitrary line drawn across the lowest point of demand, it's not an actual requirement of the g…
But that's no longer the world we live in. The lowest cost energy is now from intermittent sources, and the optimal grid design will look very different.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At this point I would bet against commercial fusion power plants. It was always questionable if they would be cost competitive with fission power plants, but now even those are being replaced by renewables and grid storage. The bigger problem is that fusion plants aren't useful for making weapons. Fission plants were basically a side project of the nuclear arms race, which is why they're a dying industry now. The wor…
Strong Wind doesn't exist on asteroids and many planets, so I think there will be a long term need. Solar power decreases with the cube root of distance from the sun,so twice the distance is 1/8th the flux
Solar decreases as 1/r^2. Cube root? Where did that come from?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At this point I would bet against commercial fusion power plants. It was always questionable if they would be cost competitive with fission power plants, but now even those are being replaced by renewables and grid storage. The bigger problem is that fusion plants aren't useful for making weapons. Fission plants were basically a side project of the nuclear arms race, which is why they're a dying industry now. The wor…
There's a huge surge of investment into Nuclear these last few years. Innovation is starting again in that sector, I wouldn't bet against it.