4 ms·
> fusion merely has a funding problem. When you look at history of ITER failures and the real problems involved in making the whole fusion power production ope
by effie 6y ago
> fusion merely has a funding problem.
When you look at history of ITER failures and the real problems involved in making the whole fusion power production operation economically sustainable, this claim disintegrates. It is a very complex project that is hard to manage, and building and operating fusion power plant is currently much more costly than doing that for a fission power plant. The only benefit of fusion vs. fission is that fusion can give us much more energy. But fission can give enough energy now for decades, and much more cheaply.
- rossnordby 6y agoIt's worth distinguishing ITER from fusion research as a whole. While it's an interesting project, I doubt it's going to be first to market for actual power generation. Its design is fighting some pretty nasty scaling laws that newer research is bypassing. I wouldn't advocate shutting down fission plants with the expectation that they'd be replaced by fusion in the immediate future, obviously, but some of the non-ITER work might end up viable sooner than a lot of people expect.
- effie 6y agoWhich non-ITER work is closer to power generation? Can you be specific?
- rossnordby 6y agoThe most prominent example I'm aware of is the one I linked earlier in the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26674988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26674988 It's still not going to be ready tomorrow, but it doesn't require building the eighth wonder of the world.