7 ms·

If you attempted another fusion startup today would the odds of success be higher, or is fusion still about as far away as it was 20 years ago?

pfdietz 7y ago
Fusion used to be aiming at being better than fission, because that was the default post-fossil energy source. But now renewables are cheaper than that. So the competition has gotten better since then, and continues to improve rapidly, and it's not clear fusion can ever get cheap enough to compete with them. Another argument is that fusion reactors will require robots to maintain them (even the aneutronic ones will become too radioactive for hands on maintenance). But if you require robots that can do that, why not just develop and sell those robots, which would be generally useful?
- acidburnNSA 7y ago
  People say that about molten salt fission reactors too. The maintenance robots will need maintenance robots. Just sell the robots. Lots of people still in fission and fusion are assuming trouble with renewables related to intermittency, land use, grid integration, EROI, raw materials, etc. might arise as we approach deep decarb. If that doesn't happen, wonderful! If it does, then it may be nice to have some low-carbon atomic power stations on hand or in work to diversify the risk. It's basically the nuclear Pascal's wager. With a big risk like climate change, there's room for investors who choose to take an interest in nuclear. Fossil fuels still power the vast majority of the world. It's not yet clear that we're out of that woods. For instance, Japan just announced that they're building 33 new coal plants to replace their atomic power stations. How on earth does one reconcile this with the game-over-renewables-are-already-cheaper-than-everything popular narrative? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/climate/japan-coal-fukushima.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/climate/japan-coal-fukush...
  - m0zg 7y ago
    If the climate change situation was really as dire as we're being told, we'd have nuclear coming out of our ears by now, and nothing whatsoever would be able to stop it. It doesn't have to be ultra-expensive if it's not bespoke every time you build it. The investment into fusion would also be 10x what it is today, and we'd already have a viable version of it, after a Manhattan-project style, do-or-die effort. What's puzzling to me is why the opposite seems to be happening: some parts of the world shut down completely carbon neutral stuff and build things that are going to emit gigatons of CO2 for decades to come. If we are to reach point of no return (or worse, have already reached it), the focus should be on building such an abundance of energy generation capacity that it would not only replace all carbon-emitting energy generation, but also help power atmospheric carbon capture at a scale that we'd need to avert the climate disaster.
    - chrisco255 7y ago
      CO2 has a logarithmic effect on temps. Doubling the current PPM will have half as much of an effect. I don't think the situation is dire or critical at all. It's mild. And people instinctively believe this even if they overtly signal that they don't.
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        > And people instinctively believe this even if they overtly signal that they don't. I think it's rather condescending to literally claim you know people's beliefs, even when they vehemently voice otherwise.
        chrisco255 7y ago
        Yes, because I look at what people do rather than what they say.
        pfdietz 7y ago
        For your next trick, you will claim that what people really did before the Clean Air Act proves they want air pollution. Or, maybe, individual actions and collective actions are different things.
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    > Lots of people still in fission and fusion are assuming trouble with renewables related to intermittency, land use, grid integration, EROI, raw materials That's whistling past the graveyard, I think. Land use is demonstrably not a problem. Grid integration has long history of naysayers drawing a line in the sand and renewables blowing past it. EROI is just fine and getting better. Raw materials are also not a problem (lies that solar uses rare earths notwithstanding). Intermittency remains an issue, but it looks easier to solve than making fission (or, to an even greater extent, fusion) practical. Combinations of storage, transmission and dispatch technologies are likely to get us to 100% renewable at a cost fission will have trouble matching, especially if industrial users of thermal energy (which is highly storable) can be brought on board.
    - AstralStorm 7y ago
      I wouldn't say 100%, best case economically is somewhere closer to 60% unless you build huge hydropower. With that, 100% is feasible. That said, do you know what's the highest uptake (in percentage power capacity) of renewables not including hydroelectric nor biofuels in your country? Here in Poland it is laughably low. Germany is not doing much better either. So "we theoretically could" does not mean we will.
      - pfdietz 7y ago
        No, you can get to 100%. A key is hydrogen (or perhaps ammonia) to handle rare long lulls in production. The round trip efficiency on that is lousy, but the capital cost is low (which is more important for that segment). A simple cycle gas turbine plant is only 5% of the cost of a nuclear plant of the same rated power. Try playing with this online modeling tool: https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ With the plausible numbers there, new nuclear is optimized out of the mix. This will be more expensive than fossil fuels with free CO2 release, but presumably CO2 taxes get ramped up to the point that's no longer true.
    - awshepard 7y ago
      > Raw materials are also not a problem Knowing very little about the topic, I recently saw an article talking about how the first wave of wind turbine blades was starting to be decommissioned, and running into difficulties with what to do with them. While they're no longer useful on the tower, since they're designed to withstand incredible forces, it's difficult to destroy, recycle, or otherwise dispose of them, and indicated they're ending up in storage. Do you happen to know more about this particular phenomenon and what the end game is for that? Granted, this is likely less of a concern than the waste that coal creates, or the long term storage of spent nuclear fuel. I'm just curious about it.
sien 7y ago
There was a list posted of the companies around working on fusion recently: https://www.fusionenergybase.com/organizations/ https://www.fusionenergybase.com/organizations/ And an article about why this is the case from the same person: https://www.fusionenergybase.com/article/the-number-of-fusion-energy-startups-is-growing-fast-heres-why/ https://www.fusionenergybase.com/article/the-number-of-fusio...

pfdietz 7y ago

Fusion used to be aiming at being better than fission, because that was the default post-fossil energy source. But now renewables are cheaper than that. So the competition has gotten better since then, and continues to improve rapidly, and it's not clear fusion can ever get cheap enough to compete with them. Another argument is that fusion reactors will require robots to maintain them (even the aneutronic ones will become too radioactive for hands on maintenance). But if you require robots that can do that, why not just develop and sell those robots, which would be generally useful?

acidburnNSA 7y ago
People say that about molten salt fission reactors too. The maintenance robots will need maintenance robots. Just sell the robots. Lots of people still in fission and fusion are assuming trouble with renewables related to intermittency, land use, grid integration, EROI, raw materials, etc. might arise as we approach deep decarb. If that doesn't happen, wonderful! If it does, then it may be nice to have some low-carbon atomic power stations on hand or in work to diversify the risk. It's basically the nuclear Pascal's wager. With a big risk like climate change, there's room for investors who choose to take an interest in nuclear. Fossil fuels still power the vast majority of the world. It's not yet clear that we're out of that woods. For instance, Japan just announced that they're building 33 new coal plants to replace their atomic power stations. How on earth does one reconcile this with the game-over-renewables-are-already-cheaper-than-everything popular narrative? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/climate/japan-coal-fukushima.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/climate/japan-coal-fukush...
- m0zg 7y ago
  If the climate change situation was really as dire as we're being told, we'd have nuclear coming out of our ears by now, and nothing whatsoever would be able to stop it. It doesn't have to be ultra-expensive if it's not bespoke every time you build it. The investment into fusion would also be 10x what it is today, and we'd already have a viable version of it, after a Manhattan-project style, do-or-die effort. What's puzzling to me is why the opposite seems to be happening: some parts of the world shut down completely carbon neutral stuff and build things that are going to emit gigatons of CO2 for decades to come. If we are to reach point of no return (or worse, have already reached it), the focus should be on building such an abundance of energy generation capacity that it would not only replace all carbon-emitting energy generation, but also help power atmospheric carbon capture at a scale that we'd need to avert the climate disaster.
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    CO2 has a logarithmic effect on temps. Doubling the current PPM will have half as much of an effect. I don't think the situation is dire or critical at all. It's mild. And people instinctively believe this even if they overtly signal that they don't.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      > And people instinctively believe this even if they overtly signal that they don't. I think it's rather condescending to literally claim you know people's beliefs, even when they vehemently voice otherwise.
      - chrisco255 7y ago
        Yes, because I look at what people do rather than what they say.
        pfdietz 7y ago
        For your next trick, you will claim that what people really did before the Clean Air Act proves they want air pollution. Or, maybe, individual actions and collective actions are different things.
- pfdietz 7y ago
  > Lots of people still in fission and fusion are assuming trouble with renewables related to intermittency, land use, grid integration, EROI, raw materials That's whistling past the graveyard, I think. Land use is demonstrably not a problem. Grid integration has long history of naysayers drawing a line in the sand and renewables blowing past it. EROI is just fine and getting better. Raw materials are also not a problem (lies that solar uses rare earths notwithstanding). Intermittency remains an issue, but it looks easier to solve than making fission (or, to an even greater extent, fusion) practical. Combinations of storage, transmission and dispatch technologies are likely to get us to 100% renewable at a cost fission will have trouble matching, especially if industrial users of thermal energy (which is highly storable) can be brought on board.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    I wouldn't say 100%, best case economically is somewhere closer to 60% unless you build huge hydropower. With that, 100% is feasible. That said, do you know what's the highest uptake (in percentage power capacity) of renewables not including hydroelectric nor biofuels in your country? Here in Poland it is laughably low. Germany is not doing much better either. So "we theoretically could" does not mean we will.
    - pfdietz 7y ago
      No, you can get to 100%. A key is hydrogen (or perhaps ammonia) to handle rare long lulls in production. The round trip efficiency on that is lousy, but the capital cost is low (which is more important for that segment). A simple cycle gas turbine plant is only 5% of the cost of a nuclear plant of the same rated power. Try playing with this online modeling tool: https://model.energy/ https://model.energy/ With the plausible numbers there, new nuclear is optimized out of the mix. This will be more expensive than fossil fuels with free CO2 release, but presumably CO2 taxes get ramped up to the point that's no longer true.
  - awshepard 7y ago
    > Raw materials are also not a problem Knowing very little about the topic, I recently saw an article talking about how the first wave of wind turbine blades was starting to be decommissioned, and running into difficulties with what to do with them. While they're no longer useful on the tower, since they're designed to withstand incredible forces, it's difficult to destroy, recycle, or otherwise dispose of them, and indicated they're ending up in storage. Do you happen to know more about this particular phenomenon and what the end game is for that? Granted, this is likely less of a concern than the waste that coal creates, or the long term storage of spent nuclear fuel. I'm just curious about it.

sien 7y ago

There was a list posted of the companies around working on fusion recently: https://www.fusionenergybase.com/organizations/ https://www.fusionenergybase.com/organizations/ And an article about why this is the case from the same person: https://www.fusionenergybase.com/article/the-number-of-fusion-energy-startups-is-growing-fast-heres-why/ https://www.fusionenergybase.com/article/the-number-of-fusio...