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I am always amazed by the (low) price of those projects, compared to the potential benefits $890 million for potentially giving a new clean energy source seems

by IMTDb 8y ago

I am always amazed by the (low) price of those projects, compared to the potential benefits $890 million for potentially giving a new clean energy source seems incredibly low. I can't see a reason why we don't have at least 10 of those projects being concurrently funded in the US, Europe and China. This is a fraction of a percent of the annual budget of each region. Whoever gets their hand on that first is going to have a massive economical - and probably military - advantage over the others.

bufferoverflow 8y ago
For just 10% of its military budget USA could have 71 of these running. (I know, I know, of course, US labor is more costly than the Chinese).
whatshisface 8y ago
>Whoever gets their hand on that first is going to have a massive economical - and probably military - advantage over the others. If you were China, would you rather fight the US military (not going to work), or fight the US grip on world power via oil? Wow, if China switches us all to batteries and fusion, the petro-dollar and Texas economy are done for. That's far more than any military threat could ever hope to achieve.
- darawk 8y ago
  Ya, but if China invents fusion power, it's not like it's going to stay in China. Inventing fusion power will (probably) not be a strategic advantage to the country that invents it. The technology will disseminate rapidly to the other major powers. What will happen is the middle east will stop being such a hot geopolitical issue, and will be relegated to the status of other countries that are important only insofar as their humanitarian crises are a source of guilt for richer countries.
- i_am_proteus 8y ago
  This project is part of ITER-- China's contribution to an international effort to make fusion power a reality.
- imtringued 8y ago
  The Texas economy is already done for in terms of oil extraction. Fracking won't be sustainable for more than a decade or two. The benefits of fusion power would actually cement US power through space exploration and colonization more than any other country.
hannob 8y ago
> I am always amazed by the (low) price of those projects, compared to the potential benefits What would be the potential benefit? In an optimistic scenario you'd end up with a technology that will likely have very high capital costs for construction and also very high infrastructure costs for transmission lines, because you create a lot of energy in one location. Even in that best case I don't see such a technology playing a huge role in a future energy system. You end up competing with Wind, Solar and Storage decades into the future (i.e. they'll be much cheaper than they already are today). Of course there's also the much more likely case: It just won't work. Given that there are much more pressing needs in energy research (how do we manage storage once we get to higher rates of renewables? how do we decarbonize sectors outside of electricity?) there isn't that much in favor of fusion imho.
- moosey 8y ago
  I surmise that effective fusion power would completely alter the space race forever, even before we figure out propulsion from this energy source. The scientific benefits from a potential large scale space platform with that kind of energy input would have enormity beyond measure, I'm sure. Even if we don't leave the planet, the amount of energy that can be produced from a fusion plant would still offer tremendous benefits. You could run massive technological infrastructure directly around such a power source. While one could say that humans themselves have little use of such a thing, I argue that fusion power could usher in a new age of humanity, despite the cost.
- ThomPete 8y ago
  That line of reasoning sounds backwards. The benefits would be clean, limitless energy and why is it likely that it will have a high capital cost and why wouldn't that be dwarfed by the availability of clean, limitless energy? Claiming that somehow storage for renewables is a much more useful goal sounds more like ideology than anything. Take the money currently going into solar and wind and put it to use there instead. Solar and wind will never provide anything even close to what is needed for the energy needs of future generations or for any kind of progress in ex space exploration.
  - 8y ago
mhb 8y ago
Isn't the reason we don't have these cheap fusion projects because they don't produce usable fusion? Otherwise why would ITER have cost $20B?
fma 8y ago
Per the article..."Wu Songtao, a top Chinese engineer with ITER, conceded that China's technical capabilities on fusion still lag behind more developed countries, and that US and Japanese tokamaks have achieved more valuable overall results"
maxxxxx 8y ago
"I can't see a reason why we don't have at least 10 of those projects being concurrently funded in the US, Europe and China. " I think it's the same reason why scaling up a dev team by 10x doesn't produce much more output in the same time. There are a lot of open questions in fusion that need to be worked out. Until one day someone will be able to put all partial solutions together into a working system. In the end it just takes time to try things, fail a few times and learn from others' failures.
- adrianN 8y ago
  There are several potential routes to fusion, the tokamak design is just one of them. We could pursue all options simultaneously.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    Isn’t that’s what’s happening? ITER is a tokamak, Germany has built a stellarator. Other countries have smaller experiments. Right now nobody has a clear path to a commercial plant so they all try things and see which one works best in reality.
    - adrianN 8y ago
      Tokamak research gets almost all the funding.

by IMTDb 8y ago

bufferoverflow 8y ago

For just 10% of its military budget USA could have 71 of these running. (I know, I know, of course, US labor is more costly than the Chinese).

whatshisface 8y ago

>Whoever gets their hand on that first is going to have a massive economical - and probably military - advantage over the others. If you were China, would you rather fight the US military (not going to work), or fight the US grip on world power via oil? Wow, if China switches us all to batteries and fusion, the petro-dollar and Texas economy are done for. That's far more than any military threat could ever hope to achieve.

darawk 8y ago
Ya, but if China invents fusion power, it's not like it's going to stay in China. Inventing fusion power will (probably) not be a strategic advantage to the country that invents it. The technology will disseminate rapidly to the other major powers. What will happen is the middle east will stop being such a hot geopolitical issue, and will be relegated to the status of other countries that are important only insofar as their humanitarian crises are a source of guilt for richer countries.
i_am_proteus 8y ago
This project is part of ITER-- China's contribution to an international effort to make fusion power a reality.
imtringued 8y ago
The Texas economy is already done for in terms of oil extraction. Fracking won't be sustainable for more than a decade or two. The benefits of fusion power would actually cement US power through space exploration and colonization more than any other country.

hannob 8y ago

> I am always amazed by the (low) price of those projects, compared to the potential benefits What would be the potential benefit? In an optimistic scenario you'd end up with a technology that will likely have very high capital costs for construction and also very high infrastructure costs for transmission lines, because you create a lot of energy in one location. Even in that best case I don't see such a technology playing a huge role in a future energy system. You end up competing with Wind, Solar and Storage decades into the future (i.e. they'll be much cheaper than they already are today). Of course there's also the much more likely case: It just won't work. Given that there are much more pressing needs in energy research (how do we manage storage once we get to higher rates of renewables? how do we decarbonize sectors outside of electricity?) there isn't that much in favor of fusion imho.

moosey 8y ago
I surmise that effective fusion power would completely alter the space race forever, even before we figure out propulsion from this energy source. The scientific benefits from a potential large scale space platform with that kind of energy input would have enormity beyond measure, I'm sure. Even if we don't leave the planet, the amount of energy that can be produced from a fusion plant would still offer tremendous benefits. You could run massive technological infrastructure directly around such a power source. While one could say that humans themselves have little use of such a thing, I argue that fusion power could usher in a new age of humanity, despite the cost.
ThomPete 8y ago
That line of reasoning sounds backwards. The benefits would be clean, limitless energy and why is it likely that it will have a high capital cost and why wouldn't that be dwarfed by the availability of clean, limitless energy? Claiming that somehow storage for renewables is a much more useful goal sounds more like ideology than anything. Take the money currently going into solar and wind and put it to use there instead. Solar and wind will never provide anything even close to what is needed for the energy needs of future generations or for any kind of progress in ex space exploration.
- 8y ago

mhb 8y ago

Isn't the reason we don't have these cheap fusion projects because they don't produce usable fusion? Otherwise why would ITER have cost $20B?

fma 8y ago

Per the article..."Wu Songtao, a top Chinese engineer with ITER, conceded that China's technical capabilities on fusion still lag behind more developed countries, and that US and Japanese tokamaks have achieved more valuable overall results"

maxxxxx 8y ago

"I can't see a reason why we don't have at least 10 of those projects being concurrently funded in the US, Europe and China. " I think it's the same reason why scaling up a dev team by 10x doesn't produce much more output in the same time. There are a lot of open questions in fusion that need to be worked out. Until one day someone will be able to put all partial solutions together into a working system. In the end it just takes time to try things, fail a few times and learn from others' failures.

adrianN 8y ago
There are several potential routes to fusion, the tokamak design is just one of them. We could pursue all options simultaneously.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  Isn’t that’s what’s happening? ITER is a tokamak, Germany has built a stellarator. Other countries have smaller experiments. Right now nobody has a clear path to a commercial plant so they all try things and see which one works best in reality.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    Tokamak research gets almost all the funding.