Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab • Hacker News Board

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#141

Post by gjsman-1000 » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 4:19 PM UTC

rapsey wrote: post #110

automatic6131 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Almost certainly not. The US alone generates 4,095 billion kWh yearly. For a half a day, you would need to store 5,600,000,000 kWh. Tesla Megapack can store 3916 kWh fully loaded. This means you would need 1,430,000 Megapacks to power the US for half a day. With Tesla only being capable of producing roughly 40,000,000 kWh of Megapacks annually, it would take 140 years to produce all the batteries. If Tesla created 100 times the factory capacity they have now (which, could the supply of raw materials even withstand the smallest fraction of that?), it would take 14 years, for batteries that have a warranty of 15 years. These are lithium-ion batteries which are the most space-efficient, unless you don't mind clearing hundreds of square miles of space for this project. Did I mention it costs about $1 million per Megapack right now, so this project would cost $1.4 TRILLION assuming all Lithium+Cobalt+Supplies+Labor cost the same as they do now despite demand being increased 100x, and ignoring all engineering costs, and factory scaling costs, which could multiply the cost exponentially. All to power the US for just half a day. Now consider how to add Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, the rest of North America...

We're not close, and it's basically completely unfeasible. Fusion will be closer in 100 years than such a project.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#142

Post by Robotbeat » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 4:19 PM UTC

throw1234651234 wrote: post #86

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 coolin…

Tiny H-bomb except pure fusion, and instead of a fission bomb as the trigger, you have huge lasers. You’d produce energy the same way, with heat being captured by some sort of spherical shield around the tiny bomb (which could also be breeding some of the fusion fuel out of lithium) and used to produce steam to run turbines.

This is the first time that the laser’s photon energy was exceeded by the energy produced by fusion. But this machine isn’t optimized as a power plant, just to demonstrate fusion (mostly to improve modeling of H-bombs, actually). The shots take hours to do, the tiny bombs are currently expensive to make, the chamber for the tiny bombs isn’t designed to capture heat, breed fuel, or even withstand damage from higher yield fusion. Another machine would be needed to demonstrate like 10-100 tiny bombs per second, and the efficiency (and repetition rate) of the lasers would need to be higher and the energy gain also needs to be much higher (but if they got “ignition” where the fusion heat helps sustain the reaction, this may be doable). And need to find a way to make these tiny bombs cheaper.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#143

Post by neonsunset » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 4:19 PM UTC

VaxWithSex wrote: post #122

neonsunset wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Quoted post unavailable.

What were the estimated damage and deaths caused by Fukushima incident? When was the reactor site built, when was the reactor designed?

A few extra questions you may also be interested in: lithium, cobalt mining, costs of nanolitography for high efficiency photovoltaic cells. All that with tax breaks and heavy govt incentives vs insane regulatory burden on nuclear industry. Also nuclear scare in education that makes the public treat opinions like yours as even remotely realistic.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#144

Post by danbruc » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

sharikous wrote: post #105

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…

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.

Exactly. Looking at the Wikipedia article [1] suggest that they start out with 422 MJ stored in capacitors, turn this into 4 MJ IR laser light, convert it into 1.8 MJ UV laser light, this into x-rays of which 0.15 MJ heat the target of which finally 0.015 MJ heat the fuel. Depending on what in this chain you consider the input energy, you can get orders of magnitude different numbers - 15 kJ of energy produced could either be a gain of 1 or a gain of ‭0.0000036 or anything in between.‬ And this is before trying to capture the released energy and converting it into electricity, this will come with another sizable loss.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#145

Post by JumpCrisscross » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

megaman821 wrote: post #97

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).

Only if you limit yourself to using solar generated with Minnesota's state borders. Solar, Wind, HVDC transmission lines, short-term battery storage get us most of the way there, and is all on the process of being built out now. Medium term storage is still up in the air (flow batteries? compressed air?). Long term storage looks like hydrogen or natural gas with carbon capture. All these things seem more achievable t…

> if you limit yourself to using solar generated with Minnesota's state borders

I live in a cold state. The idea of relying on out-of-state power, regulated and controlled by people with zero accountability to you, for life-and-death energy is a tough sell.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#146

Post by augusto-moura » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 4:21 PM UTC

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…

Much of fissions complexity comes from safety/damage management. Even after years of advancements we hear about some incidents and radioactive leaks every other decade.

Fusion is a much safer alternative both in incidents and fallout

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#147

Post by VaxWithSex » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 4:21 PM UTC

galangalalgol wrote: post #134

VaxWithSex wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you are correct.

So they are ignoring the laser efficiency as well as the thermal to electric efficiency? If you did the same for a tokamak, stellerator or Bussard, would you get a similar ratio?

Jup. Fusion research is necessary and funding should be provided. But it is not close to commercial or generative viability.

So there is at the moment no working design for a generator as a plant that produces more electricity than it takes in.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#148

Post by gjsman-1000 » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 4:21 PM UTC

VaxWithSex wrote: post #118

hadlock wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly wonder if large scale population of the northern areas is feasible without carbon fuels. Historically chopped wood was used to heat northern homes and camps, later coal and oil and I guess now to some extent electricity, but as you say, renewable energy doesn't apply there. If places like Minnesota are a net negative for green/renewable energy, their costs may be much higher to offset generation in more fa…

Minnesota can use wind, which is also cheaper.

Minnesota has anticyclones, which are periods lasting over a week with almost no wind.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#149

Post by ThomPete » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

By now everyone knows that Fusion, if we succeed, is going to provide us with abundant clean energy.

But Fusion is not just another way to power your lightbulbs, fusion is a completely new type of energy.

With fusion we can in principle reach 10% of the speed of light which would be revolutionary for space travel.

But even wilder, because it's technically a sun we would over time be able to create basic materials like, Gold, Neon, Sodium, Magnesium, Silicon, Nickel, Copper, Zinc, Gallium, Germanium.

It would also mean abundant energy to create synthetic materials that could even replace use of fossil fuels in our materials.

Re: Fusion energy breakthrough by Livermore Lab

#150

Post by dahfizz » Mon, Dec 12, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #120

dahfizz wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Construction still hasn't begun on that project, 3 years later. When is the last time LA had a large construction project come in under budget? I'll believe it when the batteries are actually installed and the bill is paid. Also, the solar farm is planned for 800-MWh of storage. In 2021, LA used over 65 TWh of electricity[1]. That's over 7 GWh, per hour. So this storage would run the city for a few minutes. Not exact…

See you in ten years at the earliest when any nuclear generator you break ground on today generates its first kWh of power (assuming it isn’t wildly late or over budget, as every one built since the 70s has been).

I'm not saying fusion is necessarily the answer. I'm just tired of hearing "solar plus storage is the cheapest option" when the sources always rely on projected costs and a pathetically small amount of storage.

We need a major breakthrough in storage tech to make grid-scale storage a reality. Li-ion batteries are never going to cut it. Who knows whether grid scale storage will come along faster than fusion.