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Can Nuclear Fusion Put the Brakes on Climate Change?

newyorker.com

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Re: Can Nuclear Fusion Put the Brakes on Climate Change?

#4

Post by chii »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #2

Probably not. ITER takes 440 megawatts of total power to generate 500 megawatts of power, at the cost of many years of development & billions of dollars. [1] [1] http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2021/10/how-close-is-nuclea...

> ITER takes 440 megawatts of total power to generate 500 megawatts of power

not 500 MW of usable power. Have a watch of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ4W1g-6JiY

Re: Can Nuclear Fusion Put the Brakes on Climate Change?

#5

Post by erazor42 »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #2

Probably not. ITER takes 440 megawatts of total power to generate 500 megawatts of power, at the cost of many years of development & billions of dollars. [1] [1] http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2021/10/how-close-is-nuclea...

From your article it's more: "Okay, so ITER will have delivered in that full demonstration that we could have okay 500 Megawatt coming out of the 50 Megawatt we will put in."

Re: Can Nuclear Fusion Put the Brakes on Climate Change?

#6

Post by yboris »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #2

Probably not. ITER takes 440 megawatts of total power to generate 500 megawatts of power, at the cost of many years of development & billions of dollars. [1] [1] http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2021/10/how-close-is-nuclea...

Shouldn't we be betting for SPARC from MIT and not ITER?

https://www.psfc.mit.edu/sparc

Re: Can Nuclear Fusion Put the Brakes on Climate Change?

#7

Post by skywal_l »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #2

Probably not. ITER takes 440 megawatts of total power to generate 500 megawatts of power, at the cost of many years of development & billions of dollars. [1] [1] http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2021/10/how-close-is-nuclea...

ITER means International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. It's not supposed to be useful. It is a prototype.

And yes, it costs a lot, but if they succeed, it would solve so many problems, it would be worth it.

And for scale, compare this to the amount of money being spent on, I don't know, the video game industry[1].

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20190509014637/https://newzoo.co...

Re: Can Nuclear Fusion Put the Brakes on Climate Change?

#8

Post by d_theorist »

I used to be so excited about fusion, but then I actually learned more about it. Perhaps I'm missing something, but the benefits over fission seem underwhelming.

It's about the same cost on a per-megawatt basis. Modern fission plants are totally safe. Nuclear waste is basically a non-problem, especially with the most recent technology.

And fission has the huge benefit of being a mature, proven technology.

What's the big benefit of fusion that makes it worth investing so much money?

The only thing I can see is that it doesn't require uranium, which can be abused to make weapons. But does that by itself justify the investment?

Re: Can Nuclear Fusion Put the Brakes on Climate Change?

#9

Post by BitwiseFool »

In a fission reactor, I know the energy goes into the water, which creates steam and that turns a turbine. But it looks like fusion reactors use a near vacuum and high powered magnets. Once two atoms actually fuse, where does that energy "go"? Does the new helium atom just bounce around the containment unit? How do we actually extract meaningful energy from such a closed system?

Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER for visuals.

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