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Will we ever get fusion power?

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Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#141

Post by nradov »

frankgrimesjr wrote: post #132
buu700 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I don't see fusion as relevant on a time scale that will impact the climate crisis in any significant way, but it could be a major asset in taking us from net zero emissions to preindustrial carbon levels. It could also simply just be a way to achieve cheap and abundant energy in general, irrespective of climate issues. But as you said, of course it's an open question whether fusion will actually be more…

Would there be any obligation to pay out financial penalties if the company declares bankruptcy?

Obviously not. Those customers would have to line up as unsecured creditors, so the "penalties" are only theoretical and exist mainly for PR purposes.

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#142

Post by yalogin »

I recently started thinking that even if we master fusion and know how to keep it safe, we as a society have become way too science averse that we will not let it happen. See the reaction to nuclear fission based power plants now. Everyone is scared of it and the byproducts. Germany, one of the most progressive nations on the earth,went and shut down all of its nuclear plants as a knee jerk reaction. I don’t have hope that fusion will be allowed.

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#143

Post by dave333 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #86
dave333 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been a well documented series of engineering solutions to problems in the implementation that have taken time to solve. Melting electrodes due to too much power - solved by molten stream electrodes C 2016. Melting holes in the reaction chamber eventually resolved after many different things tried by quartz that is transparent to UV. Etc. Demonstrations are offered to qualified parties.

They're not rewriting physics. Whatever's going on over there, it's fake. Though the main suncell page mostly just claims to be a solar concentrator? Like, okay, you can do that, but carefully aimed mirrors don't really save you any money over the same surface area of solar cells. Or twice the area of solar cells, looking at the efficiency claim on that page.

They have a new (since 1990s) classical model of atomic structure that is superior to the electron probability cloud model. It models the electron as a thin fluid shell that spins around the nucleus along all great circle paths. It allows calculations of molecular structure in closed form equations.

You misunderstand the suncell - the source of UV light is a hydrogen reaction when it bumps into a catalyst able to accept the right amount of energy that pushes the "ground state" electron into a lower energy orbit nearer to the nucleus releasing said energy. Solar concentrator photovoltaic cells are used to convert the intense UV light into electricity because they are cheaper per kW and much smaller.

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#144

Post by Animats »

pfdietz wrote: post #108
rcxdude wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Base load was a useful concept when steady output power plants with high capital cost produced energy at the lowest cost. It then made sense to use them as much as possible -- to handle the "base load" -- and cover the rest with more expensive to operate but lower capital cost sources. 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…

Right. Primary power sources will be solar, wind, and batteries. What we need now are peaking plants with low capital cost and high output. High operating cost when running is acceptable because they won't be running much. They're backup generators. Currently, gas turbines can do that, but not much else does.

Nuclear, fission or fusion, is the opposite. It's all fixed cost. A higher fixed cost than solar or wind.

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#145

Post by doctorpangloss »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #31

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!

Lemme sum it up for you: Not from fucking Helion.

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#146

Post by pacificmint »

yalogin wrote: post #142

I recently started thinking that even if we master fusion and know how to keep it safe, we as a society have become way too science averse that we will not let it happen. See the reaction to nuclear fission based power plants now. Everyone is scared of it and the byproducts. Germany, one of the most progressive nations on the earth,went and shut down all of its nuclear plants as a knee jerk reaction. I don’t have hop…

> Germany, one of the most progressive nations on the earth, went and shut down all of its nuclear plants as a knee jerk reaction.

Anti nuclear sentiment had been building in Germany since at least the 70s. Then Chernobyl happened in 1986 and it got even stronger. It was part of what propelled the Greens into the administration 1998.

That administration reached an agreement for the nuclear exit in 2000 and the first plant went offline in 2003.

Merkels cabinet tried to extend the planned runtimes for the remaining plants, and it was that extension that was rolled backed after Fukushima.

Now, you can think that it was a big mistake, but it certainly was not a knee jerk reaction. It was a decision that was 50 years in the making.

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#147

Post by wnc3141 »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #31

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!

I use the comments to see if the article is worth reading.

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#148

Post by Mistletoe »

orson2077 wrote: post #10

Fusion is always 50 years away for a reason: https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/5gi9yh/fusion_i... IIRC, the sum total of all fusion research throughout all of history is USD$100-200B. It's obvious governments/industry/humanity doesn't really want it, or they'd go fund it.

You could put teleportation on that bottom squiggle as well. Sometimes you stop funding things because it isn't physically possible or we have better alternatives.

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#149

Post by m463 »

rmbyrro wrote: post #95

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 have unlimited energy based on

...probably mining the center of the earth after finding it is methane or similar like thomas gold theorized, something like jupiter.

Re: Will we ever get fusion power?

#150

Post by tedd4u »

From 2 years ago. Large region of Australia running fully on solar/wind/storage for 10+ days. Seems like the focus has to be on storage and continued improvement of grid-scale and rooftop solar and wind.

    South Australia has just chalked up what is undoubtedly a world first – a run of 
    more than 10 consecutive days over which the average production of wind and solar 
    accounted for 100 per cent of local demand.

    No other gigawatt scale grid in the world has come close to this amount of “variable 
    renewable energy”, or for such a long time.

    RenewEconomy reported on Monday that South Australia had just enjoyed a seven day 
    run of wind and solar that produced more than 104 per cent of average demand. Closer     
    inspection proved it was even more impressive than that.


    According to Geoff Eldridge at data providers GPE NemLog2, the supply of wind and 
    solar averaged 100 per cent of local demand for 10 days and 9 hours (a total of 249 
    hours) from 08:20 on Friday, December 9, to 1720, Monday, December 19. [1]
[1] https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australias-remarkable-100-...
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