3 ms·

At this point, I think fusion has the best chance of saving us from ourselves wrt to climate change, so long as the unforeseen consequences aren’t too bad.

kadoban 5y ago
It doesn't seem like it's quick enough. We're, at minimum, decades away from it even being built out commonly, and to _really_ save ourselves we should have already replaced a substantial portion of the world's energy generation decades ago.
- NateEag 5y ago
  Sure, it may be too little, too late. You don't know that until the failure is complete, though, and "it may fail" is a terrible reason to not try the best shots we have.
  - kadoban 5y ago
    I mean, it _will_ fail at stopping global warming, there's no "may" about it. It will probably have other positive effects though. I'm very onboard for any potential fusion power generation, I just don't think it has any hope of saving us from global warming.
    - nielsbot 5y ago
      Can we use it to put the CO2 back in the ground? I guess there are some irreversible effects once warming reaches a certain threshold however.
      - avidphantasm 5y ago
        Yes, this is part of what would need to happen: using a super abundance of essentially carbon-free energy to do geo-engineering on a massive scale (including artificial carbon sequestration).
- sandos 5y ago
  It might in the future turn out to be more efficient with a "few" reactors than, say, lots of batteries and wind turbines and solar panels, from a resource perspective. But I think not even that will come true, if we optimize stuff enough, which we will have a long time to do before fusion is here.
mrpopo 5y ago
Fusion would "solve" the climate change issue, but do nothing in regard to all other crises affecting our environment right now (biodiversity collapse, various sources of chemical and particulate pollution, fertilizer runoff...). On the contrary, unlimited energy would exacerbate the man-made crises we are having today by further pushing the potential impact of man on its environment.

kadoban 5y ago

It doesn't seem like it's quick enough. We're, at minimum, decades away from it even being built out commonly, and to _really_ save ourselves we should have already replaced a substantial portion of the world's energy generation decades ago.

NateEag 5y ago
Sure, it may be too little, too late. You don't know that until the failure is complete, though, and "it may fail" is a terrible reason to not try the best shots we have.
- kadoban 5y ago
  I mean, it _will_ fail at stopping global warming, there's no "may" about it. It will probably have other positive effects though. I'm very onboard for any potential fusion power generation, I just don't think it has any hope of saving us from global warming.
  - nielsbot 5y ago
    Can we use it to put the CO2 back in the ground? I guess there are some irreversible effects once warming reaches a certain threshold however.
    - avidphantasm 5y ago
      Yes, this is part of what would need to happen: using a super abundance of essentially carbon-free energy to do geo-engineering on a massive scale (including artificial carbon sequestration).
sandos 5y ago
It might in the future turn out to be more efficient with a "few" reactors than, say, lots of batteries and wind turbines and solar panels, from a resource perspective. But I think not even that will come true, if we optimize stuff enough, which we will have a long time to do before fusion is here.

mrpopo 5y ago

Fusion would "solve" the climate change issue, but do nothing in regard to all other crises affecting our environment right now (biodiversity collapse, various sources of chemical and particulate pollution, fertilizer runoff...). On the contrary, unlimited energy would exacerbate the man-made crises we are having today by further pushing the potential impact of man on its environment.