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OK so with fusion everybody loves it because the fuel would be clean and nearly endless. Isn't that what solar power offers? Nobody wants to deploy solar due
by formvoltron 5y ago
OK so with fusion everybody loves it because the fuel would be clean and nearly endless.
Isn't that what solar power offers?
Nobody wants to deploy solar due to high upfront cost. However, wouldn't the startup on a fusion reactor be much greater?
- fvold 5y agoThe thing is, a commercial-scale fusion reactor could produce the same energy as a truly vast solar array, and also produces power at night, does not need to be exposed to wind and rain to operate and can be scaled directly instead of with costly battery arrays. Solar has the upside of actually producing a power surplus already, though.
- formvoltron 5y agoHow about putting panels in space?
- gtirloni 5y agoSolar panel manufacturing and disposal is far from clean though.
- elric 5y agoAnd you think this is going to be any different for fusion plants?
- gtirloni 5y agoYou seem to think it's not going to be any different (or maybe even worse). Could you elaborate?
- kolinko 5y agoWhat disposal? Less than 1% of the solar plants have been ever decommissioned. It's hard to set up recycling plants if you have nothing to recycle yet.
- gtirloni 5y agoLifespan is 25-30 years, they don't last infinitely. What's your point?
- kolinko 5y agoThe point is that it's hard to expect industrial processes for recycling solar panels now, since there is no market for them yet, and won't really be any for the next decade. Also, the lifespan is 25-30 years, but after that time the panels will still maintain 50-80% efficiency - so they can be reused for different purposes (or shipped to Africa, where there is a plenty of cheap space, sunlight, and they will work well).
- socialdemocrat 5y agoYou can easily throw solar panels in a land fill. It isn't a big problem. Slag heaps from coal is already a much larger problem than a solar panel landfill would ever be. A single coal mine has a bigger slag problem than all the worlds solar panels combined. Yes, we should take the problem serious, but it is also grossly overrated. It is certainly not a reason to avoid solar panels. https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/recycling-solar-panel-waste/ https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/recycling-solar-panel-wa...
- okuntilnow 5y agoSolar takes up quite a lot of space, but most importantly only works for a portion of a 24 hour cycle.
- vcdimension 5y agoThe Chinese & Japanese governments are investing in space based solar which solves the nighttime problem: https://wonderfulengineering.com/china-is-aiming-to-build-a-massive-space-based-solar-power-station/ https://wonderfulengineering.com/china-is-aiming-to-build-a-... https://nextrendsasia.org/japan-pioneer-of-transferring-solar-energy-from-space-to-earth/ https://nextrendsasia.org/japan-pioneer-of-transferring-sola... But we really need more energy storage, and there are plenty of good ideas in this area too: better batteries, gravity bases systems, crowd sourced storage, etc.
- AniseAbyss 5y agoIdeas are great however even a small country like the Netherlands is looking at a trillion € bill to switch to 100% renewable by 2050.
- thothamon 5y agoI don't know much about the physics, but it seems like you'd want square miles of solar panels, even in space, and then there's the problem of getting that energy back to earth. On the other hand, in space you'd get a lot of light frequencies that are rarer on Earth. It's not clear to me if those could be harnessed somehow. Regardless, it's a creative idea.
- cnasc 5y agoImagine you live in a smallish, not-so-sunny country like the UK. How much of your land area do you have to cover with solar panels in order to completely rid the nation of fossil fuels?
- spuz 5y agoApparently, about 12% of the land or 29,690 sq km in order to meet current energy demands (electricity, petrol, oil and gas). Apparently, only 6% of the country is currently built on which suggests that for any country of a similar latitude, you can estimate a land total of double that currently used per person. This does not take into account energy storage and assumes no energy is generated at night. https://www.finder.com/uk/solar-power-potential https://www.finder.com/uk/solar-power-potential
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rlt 5y agoOf course that 6% only counts land usage by humans. How many (additional) non-human habitats would you have to decimate to cover 12% of the land with (ugly) solar panels? Maybe thats acceptable in some deserts, but pretty terrible in other places. 1 step forward, 1 step back. Plus that figure is for our current energy usage, which is only going to increase over time.
- D-Coder 5y agoPut the solar panels over parking lots. Production is very near the usage sites (for BEVs, very near). It keeps the cars cooler in summer. And you can't make the parking lots any uglier. (I am aware there aren't enough parking lots, but this deals with a fraction of the needed space.)
- formvoltron 5y agoCurious, do you find server farms also ugly to look at? To me both server racks and solar panels look like modern technology.
- kimbernator 5y agoSolar comes with a lot of challenges for large-scale usage as a replacement for coal, nuclear, etc. Really, the only thing better about solar at the moment is that it is available. First off, the daylight cycle is an obvious concern and there still isn't a great way to store solar energy during the day for use by cities (or generally large consumers) at night. Not to say it's not possible, but people are largely still trying to figure out what the right solution for that is. Second, the startup requires a significant amount of land in advantageous locations for sunlight. There's a lot of the planet that just won't see the same advantages as others, and transporting energy long distances to them is another unsolved problem. Lastly, and this is more for fun, but solar won't be as useful when we as a species aren't exclusively on earth anymore. Fusion would be a pretty nice step forward for things like space travel. Both have a really high startup, but achieving fusion would mean 24/7 clean energy that works regardless of environment.
- belorn 5y agoAn other large drawback with solar is the required latitude. The further north it gets the fewer hours of sun light, and the energy you get is lower from the lower angle of attack. At the same time the energy needed for heating goes up during winter. Solar makes great sense for places where energy consumption is higher during the summer than during winter.
- formvoltron 5y agoI know a guy who lives in Canada pretty far north of the US border. He heats entirely with PV solar. He claims it's also way less expensive than other fossil fuel heat. Basically PV solar cost has plummeted to the point that it is conceivable this sort of thing is possible. No need for a battery here as he pumps his electrons directly into concrete slabs which then radiate heat at night.
- fragmede 5y agoPedantically, both are fusion, one's just 1 AU away.
- gtsop 5y ago
- legutierr 5y agoA fusion reactor can conceivably provide a continuous, uninterrupted stream of energy, and from any location, while solar (and wind) energy can only be harvested intermittently, from certain specific locations. The main issues with renewable energy sources today are electricity storage and transmission. If it weren't for these limitations, wind and solar would already be superior to other means of energy production. Most likely problems with storage and transmission will be solved first, before fusion energy is proven to be commercially viable. However, there is no guarantee that they will be—especially in the case of transmission, which is primarily a political problem.
- knapcio 5y agoI remember that early this autumn Sweden had to borrow energy from other countries because it relied too much on renewables which turned out to be unstable.
- Archelaos 5y agoThe electricity import and export of individual countries fluctuates constantly. A nice map with live data can be found here: https://app.electricitymap.org/map https://app.electricitymap.org/map (in German). Dealing with the instability of solar and wind energy is very complex and requires numerous measures, such as better integration of wide-area electricity grids, more electricity storage, more generation reserves, etc. But even nuclear power generation is dependent on the weather. During heat waves, nuclear power plants located on rivers in Germany and France repeatedly had to shut down because there was not enough cooling water available or the water in the rivers would otherwise have become too warm.[1] During cold spells, nuclear power plants had sometimes to be shut down because the supply of cooling water was no longer guaranteed due to ice.[2] [1] For example: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-electricity-heatwave-idUSKCN1UK0HR https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-electricity-heatwa... [2] For example: https://fortune.com/2019/01/31/ice-shutdown-new-jersey-nuclear-reactor/ https://fortune.com/2019/01/31/ice-shutdown-new-jersey-nucle...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tithonus 5y agoThe basic problem is energy storage. If your not talking gigawatt-days then it's not feasible and most storage currently is megawatt-hours... i.e. because you need to store energy made during the day to use at night, to make solar power realistic you need a way to store huge amounts energy. BTW: The England power grid is about 30 GW. So 1 GW-day is just shy of an hour of demand.
- ajuc 5y agoThe problem with solar is unpredictability and A LOT of batteries needed to bridge the mismatch between production peaking at noon and consumption peaking at late evening. Both of these are solved with fusion power. Energy market operates on the assumption that whoever unbalances the network has to pay for balancing it. Providing too much and too little energy is both bad - you have to pay someone else to use more/less or to produce less/more to balance the mess you made. There are specialized powerplants for this, they are "on standby" and jump in when needed - and they charge much more than the normal powerplants. When there's a big shortage they can charge absurd prices for energy. And if you caused the shortage by mispredicting weather - you have to pay for it. This makes the energy provided by solar panels much less valuable than the energy provided by a predictable, controllable source. Often by 1:10 factor.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Joeri 5y agoBut nuclear power is also not predictable, as plants regularly experience unexpected downtime. No power source is fully predictable, which is why you need controllable power sources to make up the difference. I would say solar’s problem is controllability. You can only turn it up to the limit of the amount of sun received, which is none at night, and sometimes very little in the day. It remains to be seen how controllable fusion power will be. Will it be for base load only, or will it also be useful to flexibly dial up and down for variable load? Much of current nuclear power is base load only. Clean base load power is still super useful, but it is not a complete solution.
- ajuc 5y agoYes, unexpected stuff happen to baseload powerplants too. Once every year on average maybe? Probably less. If that happens you may need to pay for balancing once a year. Meanwhile solar is unexpected on the scale of minutes to hours, every day. It's not the same.
- 5y ago
- ComradePhil 5y agoNo. Fusion is completely different from solar. It can provide steady energy without going down for years. Solar goes down multiple times a day.
- dymk 5y agoName a single fusion plant that has been running uninterrupted for years. Meanwhile Australia has retooled for 10% Solar and batteries in a matter of years, that number is rapidly increasing, and is turning off their coal plants.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago> Name a single fusion plant that has been running uninterrupted for years. Minutes, even. Perhaps you meant fission?
- dymk 5y agoNo, I mean fusion. The parent comment claims "[Fusion can] provide steady energy without going down for years". I want a single example of this. Meanwhile, we have massive grids of solar and battery being installed _today_, and existing installations replacing coal plants. I'm tired of people talking about fusion (or even nuclear, as it's so mired in public FUD) as if it's some panacea. We have a solution right now: Solar and batteries. It works in places with cloudcover. It works in cold and hot climates. It works at night. It's getting cheaper every year.
- spywaregorilla 5y agoWe haven't invented commercial fusion power, so none; but theoretically that is how they would function. Solar and batteries are nice but they're not yet cost effective. They're getting better. But you can't just handwave away real problems from your armchair viewpoint and assume thats all fine.
- 5y ago
- FredPret 5y agoSolar is using the fusion generator in the sky, which is out of view half the time and obscured by clouds some other times. Fusion is having our own little portable sun that can be utilized more efficiently.
- babypuncher 5y agoA fusion reactor works at night, and could produce considerably more energy per square foot of land area than photovoltaics.
- socialdemocrat 5y agoFusion power could give you power when you need it unlike solar power which would need storage. Of course Fusion power is so complex and expensive that it is likely far cheaper to simply build solar panels and add storage. While Fusion obviously has merits I think it is overhyped as a solution. Molten Salt Reactors are a much more sensible solution if nuclear power is the desired solution. Why? Because they actually generate LESS nuclear waste than Fusion power plants. The big selling point of Fusion reactors is that they don't generate any nuclear waste. Except they kind of do. Molten Salt Reactors (MSR) in contrast actually "eat up" nuclear waste. You can power them on nuclear waste and get less waste out. Thus an MSR has negative radioactive waste production. Fusion has positive waste production. Unlike Fusion reactors we have already proven that we can build MSR reactors. It doesn't mean I think we should give up Fusion research. I just think that if we want to get cheap, clean and reliable power today, then solar, wind and MSRs are probably the most sensible options, not fusion. https://erik-engheim.medium.com/yes-clean-nuclear-power-exists-ae4104cc10b https://erik-engheim.medium.com/yes-clean-nuclear-power-exis...