0 theoretical hope for fusion energy to ever provide electricity under 30c/kwh. These are hot plasma experiments, which could be used to produce mass HHO from water vapour at just 2200C-3000C, even if endothermic. Can get energy from concentrated solar mirrors or just PV solar if plasma is used. Cooling magnets is a huge energy drain. HHO provide the highest turbine energy gain, though a net gain pathway is just slightly more in reach than fusion.
this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2025
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You know instead of the artificial sun we could use the real one no? I still think fusion is a good investment on the skill tree but not for consumer energy. Also can someone explain why we use solar panels instead of mirrors that heat up water and spin turbines? Almost every other method of producing energy uses that and from my understanding its more efficient and probably cheaper.
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While neat, this is not self-sustaining
it's taking more energy to power it than you're getting out of it. (You can build a fusion device on your garage if you're so inclined, though obviously this is much neater than that!)
One viewpoint is that we'll never get clean energy from these devices, not because they won't work, but because you get a lot of neutrons out of these devices. And what do we do with neutrons? We either bash them into lead and heat stuff up (boring and not a lot of energy), or we use them to breed fissile material, which is a lot more energetically favorable. So basically, the economically sound thing to do is to use your fusion reactor to power your relatively conventional fission reactor. Which is still way better than fossil fuels IMHO, so that's something.
Helion has an interesting take on fusion reactors that generate power using electro magnetism and Copenhagen Atomics are trying to create Thorium reactors. I hope they will work better than the boiling they use in tocamac reactors
It seems like it's probably too late.
Even if we crack fusion power today, I can't see it being deployed cheaply enough and quickly enough to compete with solar/wind+batteries. By the time we could get production fusion plants up and ready to feed power into the grid, it'd be 2050 and nobody would be interested in buying electricity from it.
I think if we figure out nuclear fusion there will be induced demand for energy, in applications that were previously infeasible: desalination via distillation instead of reverse osmosis, direct capture of CO2 from the atmosphere, large scale water transport, ice and snowmaking, indoor farming, synthesized organic compounds for things like carbon sequestration or fossil fuel replacement or even food, etc.
Geoengineering might not be feasible today, but if energy becomes really cheap we might see something different.
This seems like a pipe dream but I don't disagree that it could open up some new applications
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Fusion would provide orders of magnitude more power than solar. There's a limit on how much we can practically get from solar, fusion would allow us to exceed that.
There’s a limit on how much we can practically get from solar,
Most residential buildings can self sustain from solar. Dense cities not, but there is dual use grazing and agriculture land, and small portions of desert that could power the world. Solar is enough for type 1 civilization. Nuclear plant energy density is overstated due to their + uranium mine exclusion zones, which could produce more solar power than the uranium content available in those mines.
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Yeah, but there's no prizes for producing way more power than we use. We're not running out of space to put solar panels or batteries.
'Too much power' has never been an issue, and will likely not be an issue ever with solar. There are multitudes of technologies, especially in industry, that are currently impractical because they would consume too much energy.
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moar energy! there will never not be an application for energy production. specifically fusion has the benefit of being highly dense large scale production. which makes it attractive on a number of levels.
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Long distance transmission creates enormous power wastage, and cities are rarely located in places ideal for large scale wind and solar. Fusion can help deliver power to urban centres, reducing the acreage needed for a solar farm.
There are also inland places in northern latitudes that benefit little from solar. Wind and fusion would be a great energy mix for those places.
Long distance transmission creates enormous power wastage, and cities are rarely located in places ideal for large scale wind and solar. Fusion can help deliver power to urban centres, reducing the acreage needed for a solar farm.
A fusion plant will need either nearby solar or nearby fusion plant, with solar only ok if restarting it can wait until daytime. More likely than not, a fusion plant is needed to help regulate plasma temperature based on reaction rate, and cool magnets. But a 10gw fusion plant still is extremely unlikey to need its output overnight compared to day peak demand. A fusion plant needs to be located near a low property value power plant, instead of close to high property value customers.
Nah, it'd be quite useful for interstellar travel as but one example I'm helping with.
Maybe for deep sea or space?
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That is one technology that I don't care if China steals secrets to make it happen faster.
No need!
The data gathered by EAST will support the development of other reactors, both in China and internationally. China is part of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) program, which involves dozens of countries, including the U.S., U.K. Japan, South Korea and Russia.
If we were a smarter society, we’d end our stupid cold war with them and cooperate.
If they were a more humane society, we likely would.
More humane like Nazi-America, or more humane like Warcrimes-Russia? Description unclear, please clarify.
More humane like the best of us wish to be and the majority of us never will be
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More like if they were willing to embrace capitalistic western values and bend over for America whenever we're feeling frisky
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Post-scarcity society def scares capitalists.
im pretty sure almost unilaterally, every country would like the solution to near infinite energy regardless. its extremely vital if as a species, ever want to start a colony outside of earth.
the only people against it would be those in the pocket of other forms of energy monetary wise.
Preach.
Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave!
With a box of scraps!
We're not Tony Stark, sir.
Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
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