5 ms·

> It's not even been developed, yet the author is convinced it will be 'the most expensive way to create electricity ever devised'. Sounds to me like the autho

by Tharkun 11y ago

> It's not even been developed, yet the author is convinced it will be 'the most expensive way to create electricity ever devised'. Sounds to me like the author is right in a sense. A lot of money has been going into fusion for many, many years now. If you look at the bottom line you're going to need to be generating a LOT of electricity from fusion before you're ever going to break even. I'm not saying that this is the right way of looking at it, financial gains aren't everything, after all. But fusion IS very expensive electricity.

ZenoArrow 11y ago
> "But fusion IS very expensive electricity." You're falling into the same trap as the article author, you have no way of knowing that. For example, this article on the dense plasma focus approach to nuclear fusion shows the costs are far below that of other non-nuclear sources: http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/cost-advantage-roi/ http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/cost-advantage-roi/ Even if you take into account the research costs (which I think is a mistake, the cut off point is too hard to define, I mean would you include R&D into petrol-based cars in the solar car R&D costs?) the level of funding that the dense plasma focus has had to date has been relatively small, it could recoup those costs quickly. You can get a sense for the investment costs involved in one dense plasma focus project here (though admittedly this doesn't include all similar research projects, of which there are a few): http://www.integrityresearchinstitute.org/FutureEnergy/FocusFusion-Ver6.htm http://www.integrityresearchinstitute.org/FutureEnergy/Focus... So you see, because you have no way of knowing which fusion approach would win out, you cannot say with any certainty that it is expensive electricity.
- ju-st 11y ago
  You have also now way to know if these 0.5ct/kWh are correct. And that article is actually sales material from the plasma fusion company. The wikipedia article on this topic suggests that no progress has been made since 2012.
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    > "You have also now way to know if these 0.5ct/kWh are correct. And that article is actually sales material from the plasma fusion company." The article I linked to contained an estimate. The point I'm making is that nobody knows what the final cost will actually be. If you want to play guessing games then you should be happy to know what information is available to base that guess on. > "The wikipedia article on this topic suggests that no progress has been made since 2012." Progress has been made since 2012, though the progress has been slower than it could've been as there's been a lack of funding. This year the focus appears to have been on improving one of the key parts. The team update their website fairly frequently, last news update about the project was made less than a month ago: http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/news-and-archives/lpp-news/ http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/news-and-archives/lpp-...
richmarr 11y ago
> A lot of money has been going into fusion for many, many years now Sure, but if you're going to holistically include the cost of the science in the comparison price per KWh you should also balance it against the cost of dealing with the consequences of sustained carbon emissions from other types of power generation.
- jlarocco 11y ago
  That's really not an unusual or surprising thing. Most products have research and development costs factored into their prices. It's the primary reason why bleeding edge stuff costs so much. As far as carbon emissions go, it's hard to compare without knowing what byproducts fusion will generate.
- duaneb 11y ago
  > Sure, but if you're going to holistically include the cost of the science in the comparison price per KWh you should also balance it against the cost of dealing with the consequences of sustained carbon emissions from other types of power generation. Guess what? They all still beat fusion hands down. Think of all the cows that farted and then died to feed the researchers. Think of all the carbon emissions generated by the actual research. Think about the real, actual return we have today. You seem to be banking on the fact that we actually CAN produce an efficient fusion reactor in the near future. Total efficiency of our investment is very, very, very dependent on how fast it can crank out. Now compare it to military investments and you might get somewhere.... EDIT: if you disagree, I'd obviously love feedback. It just seems silly to think that fusion is at all something we can depend on being able to pull out of our ass. The manhattan project was never a sure thing.
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    > "if you disagree, I'd obviously love feedback." You've clearly made your mind up that pursuing nuclear fusion is a waste of money, there's no point in debating if you're not prepared to consider that the research could pay off.
    - 11y ago
relkor 11y ago
> A lot of money has been going into fusion for many, many years now. Maybe the ~$29 billion [1] spent by the US on fusion total since 1953 to date seems like a lot from a personal perspective, but consider the modern cost of $3.5 billion for building 1 Giga Watt of generation capacity [2] for a coal power plant, the claim that fusion is unreasonably expensive and impracticable doesn't hold water. Compare fusion research to other broad spectrum research projects that benefit broad swaths of mankind, you see a remarkably different attitude and perception. This one cancer research foundation in the UK raised 460 million pounds in 2012/13 [3], more than twice the total international spending on ITER in 2014 [4]. There is clearly a double standard when it comes to comparing the results of fusion R&D with other long term efforts that still fail to offer satisfactory solutions after decades of concerted effort. [1] http://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/reframe/wasteful/ http://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/reframe/wasteful/ [2] http://schlissel-technical.com/docs/reports_35.pdf http://schlissel-technical.com/docs/reports_35.pdf [3] http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/prod_consump/groups/cr_common/@abt/@gen/documents/image/cr_111520.pdf http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/prod_consump/groups/cr_commo... [4] (page 20) https://www.iter.org/doc/all/content/com/Lists/depts/Attachments/40/2014_iter_financial_statements.pdf https://www.iter.org/doc/all/content/com/Lists/depts/Attachm...
- duaneb 11y ago
  That's completely irrelevant to efficiency. It's objectively a terribly inefficient technology as it stands now for watt generated per dollar spent.
  - relkor 11y ago
    Using watt's generated per dollar as a metric of success for fusion research (emphasis mine) is a false analogy. No commercial fusion power plant exists, however you seem to want to hold research reactors constructed for the purpose of discovery to the same financial standard as operating coal power plants. When the first commercial fusion reactor is turned on then we can bemoan capital costs using real data. Until then, don't compare apples and oranges.

by Tharkun 11y ago

ZenoArrow 11y ago

> "But fusion IS very expensive electricity." You're falling into the same trap as the article author, you have no way of knowing that. For example, this article on the dense plasma focus approach to nuclear fusion shows the costs are far below that of other non-nuclear sources: http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/cost-advantage-roi/ http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/cost-advantage-roi/ Even if you take into account the research costs (which I think is a mistake, the cut off point is too hard to define, I mean would you include R&D into petrol-based cars in the solar car R&D costs?) the level of funding that the dense plasma focus has had to date has been relatively small, it could recoup those costs quickly. You can get a sense for the investment costs involved in one dense plasma focus project here (though admittedly this doesn't include all similar research projects, of which there are a few): http://www.integrityresearchinstitute.org/FutureEnergy/FocusFusion-Ver6.htm http://www.integrityresearchinstitute.org/FutureEnergy/Focus... So you see, because you have no way of knowing which fusion approach would win out, you cannot say with any certainty that it is expensive electricity.

ju-st 11y ago
You have also now way to know if these 0.5ct/kWh are correct. And that article is actually sales material from the plasma fusion company. The wikipedia article on this topic suggests that no progress has been made since 2012.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  > "You have also now way to know if these 0.5ct/kWh are correct. And that article is actually sales material from the plasma fusion company." The article I linked to contained an estimate. The point I'm making is that nobody knows what the final cost will actually be. If you want to play guessing games then you should be happy to know what information is available to base that guess on. > "The wikipedia article on this topic suggests that no progress has been made since 2012." Progress has been made since 2012, though the progress has been slower than it could've been as there's been a lack of funding. This year the focus appears to have been on improving one of the key parts. The team update their website fairly frequently, last news update about the project was made less than a month ago: http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/news-and-archives/lpp-news/ http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/news-and-archives/lpp-...

richmarr 11y ago

> A lot of money has been going into fusion for many, many years now Sure, but if you're going to holistically include the cost of the science in the comparison price per KWh you should also balance it against the cost of dealing with the consequences of sustained carbon emissions from other types of power generation.

jlarocco 11y ago
That's really not an unusual or surprising thing. Most products have research and development costs factored into their prices. It's the primary reason why bleeding edge stuff costs so much. As far as carbon emissions go, it's hard to compare without knowing what byproducts fusion will generate.
duaneb 11y ago
> Sure, but if you're going to holistically include the cost of the science in the comparison price per KWh you should also balance it against the cost of dealing with the consequences of sustained carbon emissions from other types of power generation. Guess what? They all still beat fusion hands down. Think of all the cows that farted and then died to feed the researchers. Think of all the carbon emissions generated by the actual research. Think about the real, actual return we have today. You seem to be banking on the fact that we actually CAN produce an efficient fusion reactor in the near future. Total efficiency of our investment is very, very, very dependent on how fast it can crank out. Now compare it to military investments and you might get somewhere.... EDIT: if you disagree, I'd obviously love feedback. It just seems silly to think that fusion is at all something we can depend on being able to pull out of our ass. The manhattan project was never a sure thing.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  > "if you disagree, I'd obviously love feedback." You've clearly made your mind up that pursuing nuclear fusion is a waste of money, there's no point in debating if you're not prepared to consider that the research could pay off.
  - 11y ago

relkor 11y ago

> A lot of money has been going into fusion for many, many years now. Maybe the ~$29 billion [1] spent by the US on fusion total since 1953 to date seems like a lot from a personal perspective, but consider the modern cost of $3.5 billion for building 1 Giga Watt of generation capacity [2] for a coal power plant, the claim that fusion is unreasonably expensive and impracticable doesn't hold water. Compare fusion research to other broad spectrum research projects that benefit broad swaths of mankind, you see a remarkably different attitude and perception. This one cancer research foundation in the UK raised 460 million pounds in 2012/13 [3], more than twice the total international spending on ITER in 2014 [4]. There is clearly a double standard when it comes to comparing the results of fusion R&D with other long term efforts that still fail to offer satisfactory solutions after decades of concerted effort. [1] http://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/reframe/wasteful/ http://focusfusion.org/index.php/site/reframe/wasteful/ [2] http://schlissel-technical.com/docs/reports_35.pdf http://schlissel-technical.com/docs/reports_35.pdf [3] http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/prod_consump/groups/cr_common/@abt/@gen/documents/image/cr_111520.pdf http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/prod_consump/groups/cr_commo... [4] (page 20) https://www.iter.org/doc/all/content/com/Lists/depts/Attachments/40/2014_iter_financial_statements.pdf https://www.iter.org/doc/all/content/com/Lists/depts/Attachm...

duaneb 11y ago
That's completely irrelevant to efficiency. It's objectively a terribly inefficient technology as it stands now for watt generated per dollar spent.
- relkor 11y ago
  Using watt's generated per dollar as a metric of success for fusion research (emphasis mine) is a false analogy. No commercial fusion power plant exists, however you seem to want to hold research reactors constructed for the purpose of discovery to the same financial standard as operating coal power plants. When the first commercial fusion reactor is turned on then we can bemoan capital costs using real data. Until then, don't compare apples and oranges.