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Honestly, if the cost of renewables continue to drop and thus make fusion economically unattractive, why the hell bother? Outside of edge cases (such as space f
by qubex 7y ago
Honestly, if the cost of renewables continue to drop and thus make fusion economically unattractive, why the hell bother? Outside of edge cases (such as space flight, inaccessible places, propulsion systems, & cetera) it seems that relying on renewables, storage, off-grid/smart-grid solutions sounds economically and environmentally preferable.
- The_rationalist 7y agoDo you know any city that have a majority of it's energy that come from renewable? Are there any smart grid that really works, that manage the absence of solar energy the night, the load balancing, etc without just pumping nuclear energy at the moments where solar/etc can't keep up with the electrical demand?
- gallexme 7y agoThere many water dams which feed whole cities
- borkt 7y agoDams are literally terrible in terms of ecological impact. The sooner they are all gone the better.
- generatorguy 7y agoA lot of the impact can be mitigated by building fish pass channels, building new habitat such as compensation channels, and controlling the rate of change of water levels.
- drewbug 7y agoas opposed to figuratively terrible?
- Negitivefrags 7y agoThe ecological impact of dams is totally local, but the ecological impact of CO2 is global. If we were to power the entire earth with hydro, the local damage to ecosystems would be a very small price to pay indeed.
- anoncake 7y agoAlso, using a fossil plant is harmful, using a dam is not. The damage was done when it was built.
- jabl 7y agoI've seen arguments that some dams where the water level varies a lot produce a lot of GHG's due to decaying plant matter. But yes, in general compared to fossils it certainly wins.
- DennisP 7y agoDams are obviously better than fossil, but I think a case can be made that fusion would be better than dams.
- hedvig 7y agoAny specific good material that I could read more on this?
- DennisP 7y agoWe really should stop using the same word for two things with such different characteristics. Hydro/geothermal: nice steady power but not easily available everywhere. Wind/solar: available everywhere but variable output. Obviously it's easy to run a city on "renewables" if you have a convenient dam, but if you only have wind/solar it's more challenging.
- sitharus 7y agoHow big of a city? Does 1.6 million people count? If Auckland, New Zealand runs on 80% renewable electricity which is certainly a majority in my books.
- goatinaboat 7y agoDo you know any city that have a majority of it's energy that come from renewable? Montreal runs on hydro
- pfdietz 7y agoThis argument annoys the hell out of me. Renewables gave gone from too exoensive to cheapest over a time short compared to the lifespan of our generating infrastructure. So the installed base is zombie tech, not what would be installed today.
- sbierwagen 7y agoIn the US, the NWPP (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, and part of some other states) is 47.2% hydro, 8.6% wind, 3.4% nuclear, 0.7% geothermal and 0.5% solar = 60.4%. CO2 emissions come out to 651 pounds per megawatt. https://www.epa.gov/energy/power-profiler#/NWPP https://www.epa.gov/energy/power-profiler#/NWPP California doesn't have as much renewables in their fuel mix, but they get better emissions per megawatt, since they burn less coal: https://www.epa.gov/energy/power-profiler#/CAMX https://www.epa.gov/energy/power-profiler#/CAMX As far as I can tell, upstate New York has the lowest carbon emissions per megawatt in the United States, 294.7, thanks to lots of nuclear and hydro: https://www.epa.gov/energy/power-profiler#/NYUP https://www.epa.gov/energy/power-profiler#/NYUP
- StillBored 7y agoPut another way the NW with 60% renewable is 3x higher than NY, which mixes its hydro with Nukes and avoids the use of coal.. If you assume 60% renewable with natural gas as the peak/remainder then your still 2x higher than France. These graphs prove the failings of modern "green energy" because all that hydro was built 50+ years ago, and if instead of fighting Nukes and getting coal plants the environmentalist would have embraced Nukes we wouldn't really be talking about CO2, particularly if the widespread use of breeders brought the price down so that buying electric cars made sense without the huge subsidies both in purchase price and electric charging. Put another way, making electric cheaper via modern fission would make electric cars more appealing than the unsustainable subsidy models currently in use.
- markvdb 7y agoAll of Norway... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Norway#Mode_of_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Norway#M...
- jrace 7y agoHow about an entire country? https://www.ecowatch.com/iceland-worlds-largest-clean-energy-producer-per-capita-1882105880.html https://www.ecowatch.com/iceland-worlds-largest-clean-energy... >Today, all of Iceland’s electric power is generated by hydropower and geothermal energy, and about 95 percent of the nation’s heating demands are warmed by geothermal means. https://www.sciencealert.com/costa-rica-has-been-running-on-100-renewable-energy-for-2-months-straight https://www.sciencealert.com/costa-rica-has-been-running-on-... >Costa Rica ran on 100 percent renewable energy for 76 straight days between June and August this year, according to a new report, demonstrating that life without fossil fuels is possible - for small countries, at least. This is the second time in two years that the Central American country has run for more than two months straight on renewables alone, and it brings the 2016 total to 150 days and counting.
- The_rationalist 7y agoThanks but I'm looking for non local renewable energies, geothermal and water dams are great but they will not save the world.
- RandallBrown 7y agoWouldn't a fusion reactor provide considerably more energy for considerably less (or at least more concentrated) effort? Managing the millions of turbines and solar panels isn't a small task. I would love a world where the skyline wasn't dotted with wind turbines and solar panels.
- mattkevan 7y agoI love a skyline dotted with wind turbines and solar panels, especially when the current alternative is not being able to see the skyline due to the fumes and toxic particulates from fossil fuels.
- DennisP 7y agoSure but what if the alternative were fusion? We could avoid the fumes and the dotted skyline.
- markvdb 7y agoI guess it's a question of differences in taste. Anecdotal evidence: I actually like the sight of wind turbines at the horizon.
- mattkevan 7y agoOn the drive to Cornwall in the UK there’s a moment where as you approach a hill you can see the tips of turbine blades appearing and disappearing over the top. As you get higher you see more and more of the wind farm laid out across the valley. It’s a breathtaking sight, and the knowledge that it’s producing clean energy makes it all the better.
- DennisP 7y agoWhat I would like to see is forest. My ideal future: fusion power, lab-grown meat, and lots of trees.
- 7y ago
- rubicon33 7y agoThe elephant in the room with "renewables" is batteries. In order for renewables to be truly as convenient as grid power, there has to be a storage system of some kind at the site of use. Generally that means, in your car, in your home, etc. The environmental cost of disposing of batteries hardly insignificant.
- redwall_hp 7y agoOr low energy yield per square meter required. e.g. solar is like 200W/m^2 (and doesn't run all day, so the watt-hour rating gets kneecapped), wind isn't fantastic either. This won't scale well with anticipated energy needs. It would be a real struggle to cover our current energy needs with wind and solar (with other renewables like hydro and geothermal being geographically limited, subject to environmental issues and more or less already maximized where they can be used)...and we need more. We're heading toward electric cars with batteries that hold 3x what the average household uses in a day (which drain in a few hundred miles), and will need more energy for carbon capture and desalination as time goes on...
- pfdietz 7y agoLand area is not a problem with current energy needs. I wish you folks would actually do the arithmetic on this.
- manfredo 7y agoOr just use fission, which is renewable through uranium seaewter extraction.
- dgemm 7y agoThat is not renewable, it's just a very large source of non-renewable fuel.
- DennisP 7y agoActually, since uranium in the ocean is at equilibrium, if we take some out then the concentration will go back up as more uranium is dissolved from rocks. Of course it will run out eventually but so will the sun, in a similar amount of time.
- boomboomsubban 7y ago"Renewables" are nuclear fusion with the actual reactor 90 million miles away, assuming wind is a product of heat. The amount of energy that can be produced is staggering, and there's no guaranteed that current "renewables" can keep up with our need. >sounds ... environmentally preferable. The main waste of fusion is helium, it's entirely possible that renewables and batteries are more damage to the environment.
- Miraste 7y agoNot all renewable energy is from the sun. Tidal and geothermal power are both fusion independent.
- boomboomsubban 7y agoTides rely on the sun's gravity. Geothermal might be independent, but also don't seem very renewable.
- Miraste 7y agoTides don't rely on the sun's gravity. It does affect them, but if the sun disappeared there would still be lunar tides, which are the majority of tidal activity. Well, I suppose the subsequent frozen oceans would be detrimental. The gravitational tidal forces would still exist though. And why do you think geothermal power isn't renewable?
- jlj 7y agoThey do actually. I learned in a marine navigation class that the tides are on a cycle of 18.6 years. If only the moon affected the tides, the cycle would be about 28 days. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide > Nineteen years is preferred because the Earth, Moon and Sun's relative positions repeat almost exactly in the Metonic cycle of 19 years, which is long enough to include the 18.613 year lunar nodal tidal constituent.
- gmac 7y agoI believe it will be difficult to generate all the energy we need with renewables alone (source: https://www.withouthotair.com/ https://www.withouthotair.com/), and even if that’s possible, a massive surplus of energy would presumably allow us to start sucking CO2 back out of the atmosphere, and undo some climate change.
- jerf 7y agoBecause fusion will let us do things that we may not be able to do right now. Especially if fusion takes the form of one of the non-ITER-style reactors that merely costs millions instead of billions, it may still be by far a more environmentally-friendly power generation method; no massive construction of square miles of solar panels, no need for windmills, power for space craft and space stations. Things like desalinization may be far more practical with fusion. In the long term, we won't just need power as good as today; we need something much better than today. The next step after fusion would be some form of total conversion, of which the only feasible chances seem to involve black holes, so, a ways off yet. Probably not save to use on a planet.