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ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

bbc.co.uk

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Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#191

Post by worik »

arkh wrote: post #129
jpdus wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Picture a few large cities with contractors running around every roof tending to solar panels and compare to a few experts at a single nuclear power plant. For the contractors-on-roofs, the slip & falls add up even though they'll never get an HBO mini-series. This is a very flawed and short-sighted argument. Averages don't matter when you are talking about fat-tailed/power law risk distributions. Nobody would be op…

> But (almost) everyone would be opposed to a fission plant or nuclear waste facility next door - and rightfully so. Reading this kind of debate from France is a good laugh. If you're interested you can check where our electricity comes from here: https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/la-production-delectricit... (between 60 and 70 percent of nuclear energy today).

Because France was desperate to have its own nuclear weapons.

It was not economic for them either (tho back in the day it displaced coal - try having a coal plant next door)

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#192

Post by worik »

belorn wrote: post #160
jpdus wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Picture a few large cities with contractors running around every roof tending to solar panels and compare to a few experts at a single nuclear power plant. For the contractors-on-roofs, the slip & falls add up even though they'll never get an HBO mini-series. This is a very flawed and short-sighted argument. Averages don't matter when you are talking about fat-tailed/power law risk distributions. Nobody would be op…

Renewables are only safer and cheaper bet once the battery issue is solved and can be made equally green, safe and cheap. The primary reason why nuclear isn't commercial viable today is that combining natural gas and renewables makes for a very cheap energy grid.

Nope.

There are other alternatives, and grid scale batteries are viable now. Just cheaper to burn gas/coal and fsck the future!

The obvious alternative is pumped hydro, that is well established. Another is demand management, unexplored because the greed heads in control do not believe that our society can work together for the common good.

Coming from Aotearoa, as I do, I know that is a fat lie.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#193

Post by nicoburns »

usui wrote: post #54
svara wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit odd to me that you seem to deem fusion power realistic, while discounting other ways of generating and storing power that are basically available already. Power from renewables can be stored for the long term as hydrogen. That's well understood technology, scaling up is an engineering problem. When the sun shines and the wind blows, solar and onshore wind are the cheapest ways to make electricity, so there…

Thanks for pointing out, because now that I think of it, my view does come off as odd. What I think it reflects is that despite nuclear fusion being a technical, engineering problem, I believe getting companies/governments to abandon carbon for wind/solar to the point of carbon-neutral is even more insurmountable. Does that viewpoint make sense? For them to get off fossil fuels, it's going to need a ball-out-of-the-p…

Why do you think economic incentives won't be enough? Solar and wind are already the cheapest energy sourve in terms of production. We just need large scale storage to become cheap and practical and we're sorted.

The UK government has committed to being carbon neutral by 2050. That's well before you're even prediciting the fusion becomes available.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#194

Post by xupybd »

epistasis wrote: post #116
xupybd wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it renewables and batteries have their own environmental impacts that can't be ignored. When comparing nuclear with renewables the impacts start to show nuclear as at least a good contender as the future power source. But large scale fusion might drastically lower energy costs. That could enable things like carbon capture.

"Can't be ignored" meaning what precisely? This is a phrase that sounds like pure FUD, and despite spending a lot of time trying to quantify where this supposed environmental damage comes from, I haven't been able to find anything of substance. Similarly, I don't think there's much reason to believe that fission nor fusion will be able to compete with renewables on cost. Even if fusion is a completely free source of…

Can't be ignored means we have not found a non destructive means of energy production yet. Waste from current renewables will build up. We still need to be on the look out for better technologies for the future. That is not to say they are not a huge leap forward but it does have to be considered.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#195

Post by knolax »

valuearb wrote: post #164
godelski wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I'm particularly upset about SSC's[0] failure to be built. There are many advantages to housing the smartest scientists in the world within the borders of your country, and those benefits aren't limited to scientific output. After all, a big part of these multi-national projects is the culture war. And let's be real, which is worth more? A super collider that runs for decades or the F35 (which cost more,…

My software startup was a huge beneficiary of the SSC cancellation, it freed up a nuclear physicist to write graphics software for us, which became one of our biggest products. I’m in favor of pursuing basic research, but there is always a cost. When you take a group of your smartest people and focus them on non-economic activities, the economy loses something.

A nuclear physicist working on graphics software sounds like underemployment to me.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#196

Post by StanislavPetrov »

Avicebron wrote: post #133
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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 This is also not true if we dealt with the massive overpopulation of the earth instead of acting as its some sort of moral crisis not to stuff as many people as possible onto a planet with finite renewable resources.

How do we go about dealing with the massive overpopulation?

One of the simplest ways is to offer economic incentives to people who have fewer (or no) children instead of the opposite (which is our current policy).

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#197

Post by ksm1717 »

Jugurtha wrote: post #172
landryraccoon wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without giving a strong opinion either way on whether this particular project is a good investment or not : Science, as an institution imo undervalues good marketing and good PR. For profit enterprises are under no illusion that they can succeed without good marketing and public perception. If large expensive projects like this are needed to increase public awareness and support for basic scientific research then I a…

> Science, as an institution imo undervalues good marketing and good PR. For profit enterprises are under no illusion that they can succeed without good marketing and public perception. Not to mention, this could be an attraction. Sell tickets for guided tours. I would gladly give money to have a guide walk me through that. Granted, at $100 a ticket, and 10,000 people a year, it'll take 20,000 years to recoup the inv…

Man, you’re just giving out ideas like this for free?

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#198

Post by Symbiote »

valuearb wrote: post #164
godelski wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I'm particularly upset about SSC's[0] failure to be built. There are many advantages to housing the smartest scientists in the world within the borders of your country, and those benefits aren't limited to scientific output. After all, a big part of these multi-national projects is the culture war. And let's be real, which is worth more? A super collider that runs for decades or the F35 (which cost more,…

My software startup was a huge beneficiary of the SSC cancellation, it freed up a nuclear physicist to write graphics software for us, which became one of our biggest products. I’m in favor of pursuing basic research, but there is always a cost. When you take a group of your smartest people and focus them on non-economic activities, the economy loses something.

"The economy" seems to favour the current generation of Einsteins working on optimizing ad impressions for Google, spreading fake news for Facebook and sucking unimaginable amounts of money into Bezos' pocket, the consequences be damned.

We could use a lot less of this, and a lot more Einsteins in research laboratories and universities.

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#199

Post by m0zg »

jodrellblank wrote: post #180
m0zg wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you even serious? https://www.google.com/search?q=three+gorges+dam&newwindow=1...

" Xinhua also stressed in its report that all metrics were still up to standard and all the variables being monitored fell within the design parameters. " " Meanwhile, Wang Hao, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and an authority on hydraulics who sits on the Ministry of Water Resources’ Yangtze River Administration Commission, has also assured that the dam is sound enough to withstand the impact from flo…

> who sits on the Ministry of Water Resources’ Yangtze River Administration Commission

That's all you need to know. If you don't understand what I'm telling you, go watch "Chernobyl".

Re: ITER: World's largest nuclear fusion project begins assembly

#200

Post by Godel_unicode »

worik wrote: post #189
Godel_unicode wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's incredibly short-sited. I'm glad for you that your startup was able to make money, but do you really think that the long-term economic value created is higher by making yet another piece of graphics software than from fundamental research? I would argue this entirely the other way; whenever the smartest people are sucked away from foundational work to make money "up the stack", it makes us all the poorer.

Pie in the sky when you die....

https://www.comparably.com/companies/cern/salaries
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