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!
Will we ever get fusion power?
31–40 of 309 posts
Re: Will we ever get fusion power?
#32We already have a zero maintenance fusion power plant that will last billions of years and that outputs millions of times more energy per second than humanity uses in a year. We already have technology that can take the electromagnetic waves this fusion power plant produces and directly convert it into electricity without needing pesky intermediaries like boiling water to turn a turbine. This technology is relatively…
Will orbiting solar panels ever work? Now that starship is viable, payload cost to orbit will dramatically drop. Is it cheaper to have orbiting solar plants than solar/battery(or whatever long term energy storage)?
It’s that baseload problem which makes the manmade fusion/fission attractive.
Re: Will we ever get fusion power?
#33The big problem is that we have funded fusion at "Fusion Never" levels. Had we shoved as much money at fusion as we have at, say, horizontal drilling for liquified dinosaurs, we'd have fusion right now .
Is that true of the Chinese?
Re: Will we ever get fusion power?
#34We already have a zero maintenance fusion power plant that will last billions of years and that outputs millions of times more energy per second than humanity uses in a year. We already have technology that can take the electromagnetic waves this fusion power plant produces and directly convert it into electricity without needing pesky intermediaries like boiling water to turn a turbine. This technology is relatively…
Will orbiting solar panels ever work? Now that starship is viable, payload cost to orbit will dramatically drop. Is it cheaper to have orbiting solar plants than solar/battery(or whatever long term energy storage)? It’s that baseload problem which makes the manmade fusion/fission attractive.
For a space based solution you have all the costs of solar, plus launch costs, plus the receivers are very large and costly themselves.
It’s never going to be cheaper than solar, but it does have the advantage of working at night and through cloud cover.
In the very long run it might make more sense to launch whatever’s using the power into space as well, saving on the cost of the transmission and receiving infrastructure, but also removing further sources of pollution from Earth.
Re: Will we ever get fusion power?
#35We already have a zero maintenance fusion power plant that will last billions of years and that outputs millions of times more energy per second than humanity uses in a year. We already have technology that can take the electromagnetic waves this fusion power plant produces and directly convert it into electricity without needing pesky intermediaries like boiling water to turn a turbine. This technology is relatively…
Schockley-Quiesser limit
Re: Will we ever get fusion power?
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Insane amounts of heat is exactly what you want from your power plant..
Being pedantic, but most heat is considered "waste" heat - aka it is high entropy energy, which is much harder to convert into the more useful forms of energy (mechanical, electrical, etc.)
Most power plants (coal, gas, geothermal, nuclear) and some solar plants already use a heat engine. Modern designs can capture nearly half the heat energy for use as electricity.
Re: Will we ever get fusion power?
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be interesting if there was a global grid and market for (hopefully clean) energy so that a joule of energy could be sold anywhere instantaneously, just like any other commodity. This would allow countries to quickly power up without even building a power plant. It would also allow large base load power stations (like nuclear) to have permanent demand. Of course there are technical challenges of building out…
A global and free market for electricity means that African citizens are going to have to outbid bitcoin miners and ai trainers for electricity. I would much rather see a world where governments are at least partially in charge of the grid to ensure that their population gets their share of the capacity.
It will be almost impossible to not outbid bitcoin miners for electricity due to the fact that mining is a non-geographically constrained free market where miners are not profitable unless their electricity cost is very close to zero (i.e. otherwise wasted energy). As soon as there's other demand for the same energy, bitcoin mining will instantly become unprofitable in that area and they will need to relocate.
Re: Will we ever get fusion power?
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Solar panels today work But not tonight
Luckily about 50% of the Earth is lit up by the sun at any moment and energy storage capabilities are advancing much faster than fusion's capabilities are. Distribution and storage are way more tractable problems than fusion. If you want to be really ambitious you can go to space and have 100% capacity :).
Needing the sun for energy and improving solar panel feels like trying to make the best ICE engine ten years ago or working on an expert system for AI in the 90s. There are obvious immediate gains in the short term, but research has shown there is something else better out there and its best if someone is doing the R&D now so we can get a leap frog moment eventually.
Re: Will we ever get fusion power?
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless you colonize it, you cannot utilize 50% of the Earth's energy. If it proven anything, what the war in Ukraine showed us is how terrible of an idea to outsource energy, especially to nations who don't share interests with us.
It would be interesting if there was a global grid and market for (hopefully clean) energy so that a joule of energy could be sold anywhere instantaneously, just like any other commodity. This would allow countries to quickly power up without even building a power plant. It would also allow large base load power stations (like nuclear) to have permanent demand. Of course there are technical challenges of building out…
This is a nice fantasy, but you still need the infrastructure to efficiently transmit said energy.
Re: Will we ever get fusion power?
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's clear that solar panels, while working today, clearly haven't been able to solve today's problems, or else this discussion wouldn't be happening. But we should keep investing in them, one way or another. Similarly, we should keep investing in the prospect of commercially viable fusion reactors. The harnessing of fusion reactors would be instantly revolutionary as opposed to the incremental progress solar…
I would say it’s clear that solar panels are absolutely working extremely well today, at least as long as you don’t live too close to the poles. Renewables all together is growing faster than nuclear ever did. And solar is now a huge part of that. We have models where solar or solar+wind is providing all the power to everything from small remote weather stations through houses to large islands. Some small countries a…
> all the power to everything from small remote weather stations through houses to large islands
Not without very large capacity gas/etc. plants available on standby (unless you’re fine with will below 99% availability)