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Renewables would work?? For global power?? My friend, you need to look further into this. The only solution we have, and I do mean the only solution is nuclear
by cbozeman 6y ago
Renewables would work?? For global power?? My friend, you need to look further into this.
The only solution we have, and I do mean the only solution is nuclear fusion. I understand why no one wants to throw money at this problem... cheap, unlimited power is nothing that old people running the world want, because they can't inflate their bank accounts by making that a reality, but we don't have a choice.
If we don't crack fusion, we're done as a species.
- WalterBright 6y ago> cheap, unlimited power is nothing that old people running the world want The actual problem is nobody knows how to make a fusion reactor work.
- cbozeman 6y agoGotta have money to make it go, baby... We can't crack fusion because we can't get all the first-world nations to throw 1% GDP at it. I guarantee you, if we threw $250 billion a year at fusion, we'd have it in 10 years.
- jjk166 6y agoEven if we had fusion working already, a fusion powerplant would be expensive to build - comparable to a similar sized fission plant. At a conservative estimate of $2 Billion per GW, that $250B/yr would take more than a century just to build enough reactors to replace current fossil fuel consumption. Realistically, fusion is unlikely to be cost competitive with other power sources outside of niche applications. Even if fusion winds up powering our civilization in the future, something else will have to act as a stop-gap.
- nicoburns 6y ago> If we don't crack fusion, we're done as a species. Well that's ridiculous. Using the technology we have right now we could increase provision of renewables and reduce consumption and be completely fine as a species.
- emteycz 6y agoUsing the "renewable" technology we have today we'll push the problem a little into the future, out of our direct sight, and into a different science sector while making many new unknown/unresearched/unforeseen problems in the process, but definitely not improve anything.
- adrianN 6y agoCould you be more concrete? Why do you think it Wind+Solar+storage would not "improve anything"?
- 9HZZRfNlpR 6y agoWe don't have storage to begin with?
- adrianN 6y agoOf course we have storage technology. Batteries, pumped hydro, Hydrogen, various ways of storing heat...
- imtringued 6y agoThe atmosphere stores CO2 pretty well.
- emteycz 6y agoFor example because these require vast swaths of land close to the place of consumption. That means destroying the nature near human settlements, which is often also the most unique (both humans and the nature thrive in similar environments). Manufacturing and later decommissioning the storage and solars is not nice to the nature too. I wonder if the oceans of the 22nd century will be full of plastics, or... https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-leaving-behind-toxic-trash/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/solar-panel...
- 6y ago
- adrianN 6y agoI have looked into it before reaching this conclusion. Could you provide evidence to the contrary? Nuclear fusion is most definitely not an option, because it can't be built in time to prevent catastrophic climate change. Fission perhaps, but I'm skeptical there too. I don't believe we have the capacity to manufacture enough reactors quickly enough to rely solely on fission.
- RapidFire 6y agoWe already use fusion. There is a giant fusion reactor hanging in the sky where almost all energy since the beginning of our time comes from.