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Frankly I in no way understand the utility of fusion. Almost every credible fuel source is difficult to obtain, and for what? The biggest fusion reactor in lig

Frankly I in no way understand the utility of fusion. Almost every credible fuel source is difficult to obtain, and for what? The biggest fusion reactor in lightyears, already fueled up for the next 15 billion years, is currently dumping energy onto the planet whether we want it or not. Solar just makes more sense than anything else.

m0zg 6y ago
That's the kind of thinking that leads to rolling blackouts and landfills full of solar batteries.
- CptFribble 6y ago
  Then instead of 100B on maybe getting to usable fusion, let's spend $XX billion on solving those problems instead. What would $100b specifically directed into panel conversion efficiency, grid improvements, and battery recycling look like vs the equivalent amount on fusion? I think we'd get a lot farther toward total clean energy conversion. That said, we absolutely should keep funding fusion research at some level - assuming we can get all the pieces working, it would be a great boon, especially for off-planet power somewhere down the road. However, the next 20 years are probably THE critical moment in stopping the worst effects of climate change, and I think betting on solar+battery tech is more likely to pan out in that timeframe than fusion, especially since we already have the tech to roll out a huge amount of solar panels RIGHT NOW if we wanted to spend the money. We're past the point of optimal solutions. We're running out of time, and compromises are necessary. Trading catastrophic sea level change in 50 years for panel+battery recycling problems today seems like a fair enough deal to me.
c1ccccc1 6y ago
Deuterium-tritium fusion produces neutrons, which can be used to turn lithium into tritium. So in some sense, the required fuels are deuterium and lithium, both of which are abundant enough to be used for fusion. The sun is a great fusion reactor, but it is also kind of far away. By the time its energy gets to Earth, it's spread out to about 1.4 kW/m^2. The actual power produced per m^2 of solar panels is about 20 times smaller, since the Earth's surface area is 4 times its cross-section, and solar panels are around 20% efficient. The United States consumes about 3,911,000,000,000 kW h / yr for an average power consumption of 446 GW. By my calculations, an area of 6.37 billion square meters would be required to supply this through solar power. According to Wolfram Alpha, this is about twice the area of Rhode Island. As well as taking up a large amount of land, that is going to require an enormously large amount of materials to make those solar panels, including some with polluting production processes. This is without worrying about storage, or any other details like that. I like solar power, and I think it certainly has its place, but I hope you see why people also want to make artificial fusion work.
Enginerrrd 6y ago
Also, there's a ton of modern approaches to fission that just work and can supply our energy needs for at least another 1000 years with arguably less environmental impact than solar panels.

m0zg 6y ago

That's the kind of thinking that leads to rolling blackouts and landfills full of solar batteries.

CptFribble 6y ago
Then instead of 100B on maybe getting to usable fusion, let's spend $XX billion on solving those problems instead. What would $100b specifically directed into panel conversion efficiency, grid improvements, and battery recycling look like vs the equivalent amount on fusion? I think we'd get a lot farther toward total clean energy conversion. That said, we absolutely should keep funding fusion research at some level - assuming we can get all the pieces working, it would be a great boon, especially for off-planet power somewhere down the road. However, the next 20 years are probably THE critical moment in stopping the worst effects of climate change, and I think betting on solar+battery tech is more likely to pan out in that timeframe than fusion, especially since we already have the tech to roll out a huge amount of solar panels RIGHT NOW if we wanted to spend the money. We're past the point of optimal solutions. We're running out of time, and compromises are necessary. Trading catastrophic sea level change in 50 years for panel+battery recycling problems today seems like a fair enough deal to me.

c1ccccc1 6y ago

Deuterium-tritium fusion produces neutrons, which can be used to turn lithium into tritium. So in some sense, the required fuels are deuterium and lithium, both of which are abundant enough to be used for fusion. The sun is a great fusion reactor, but it is also kind of far away. By the time its energy gets to Earth, it's spread out to about 1.4 kW/m^2. The actual power produced per m^2 of solar panels is about 20 times smaller, since the Earth's surface area is 4 times its cross-section, and solar panels are around 20% efficient. The United States consumes about 3,911,000,000,000 kW h / yr for an average power consumption of 446 GW. By my calculations, an area of 6.37 billion square meters would be required to supply this through solar power. According to Wolfram Alpha, this is about twice the area of Rhode Island. As well as taking up a large amount of land, that is going to require an enormously large amount of materials to make those solar panels, including some with polluting production processes. This is without worrying about storage, or any other details like that. I like solar power, and I think it certainly has its place, but I hope you see why people also want to make artificial fusion work.

Enginerrrd 6y ago

Also, there's a ton of modern approaches to fission that just work and can supply our energy needs for at least another 1000 years with arguably less environmental impact than solar panels.