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Ctrl+f fusion. > "Fusion is therefore a complicated and not particularly cheap way to generate electricity. Meanwhile, we are not running terribly short on ren

Ctrl+f fusion. > "Fusion is therefore a complicated and not particularly cheap way to generate electricity. Meanwhile, we are not running terribly short on renewable ways to produce electricity: solar; wind; hydroelectric; geother- mal; tidal." Fusion is the key to long term success for humanity. It paves the way to essentially unlimited cheap burstable power. In the even longer term plasma fusion offers a way to create the heavier elements that we are running out of here on earth. Forged in a manmade nuclear furnace. These pesky climate problems can be solved. We just have to mine ideas out of nature now instead of minerals. If you're trying to think about humanity's long term prospects fusion should be the crown jewel, not an after thought you handwave away. I believe today we spend somewhere on the order of 1% of what we should be spending on fusion research.

bsedlm 5y ago
disagree essentially because I believe we'd get into a situation where the problem becomes heat dissipation. the problem is the human psique, not technological capabilities.
- stouset 5y ago
  If we find a cheap new way to generate orders of magnitude more energy, we'll use orders of magnitude more energy. And you're right. We're only a bit over two hundred years away at 2.3% annualized growth in energy use from noticeably raising Earth's surface temperatures just from a thermodynamic perspective. And that's completely ignoring the effects of greenhouse gases.
  - saiya-jin 5y ago
    You and parent project this in some theoretical universe where these effects would be ignored. Why on earth do you think so? With semi-unlimited energy at our palms, we can do serious geoengineering. We can put these furnaces into high orbits, or moon and beam down just raw output energy with lasers. Or whatever, even the sky isn't a proverbial limit.
    - root_axis 5y ago
      Fusion isn't magic, more energy doesn't suddenly obviate the burden of practical engineering constraints, we won't be "geoengineering" our way out of climate change for the foreseeable future.
      - willis936 5y ago
        A world where energy consumption increases by a factor of 10,000 is a far fetched fantasy. If we're starting with such premises, should they not be followed?
        stouset 5y ago
        A world where energy consumption increases by a factor of 10,000 would already be a world where the surface is lava thanks to basic thermodynamics. Earth can only radiate so much heat into space, and its ability to do so will not outpace energy production for much longer. A world where energy consumption increases fiftyfold is a century and a half away and would be brushing up against the point where we are noticeably increasing the equilibrium temperature of Earth sans any greenhouse gases. Hitting the thermodynamic limits of Earth's ability to radiate heat into space isn't a far-fetched fantasy, it's terrifyingly close.
        willis936 5y ago
        This is very wrong. Humans produce about 30 TW of heat. The sun imparts 10 trillion times this amount. If we increased our production by 10,000 then we need to put a small umbrella in space to slightly dim the sun the smallest amount to maintain power balance.
        stouset 5y ago
        Feel free to do the math yourself. You’ll forgive me for trusting in the calculations of UCSD professor of physics Tom Murphy, who’s written about this extensively. Edit: Also, your numbers are quite simply incorrect. The 70% of sunlight that doesn’t bounce back into space is about 35,000TW, far from the hundreds of trillions of terawatts you claim. At 2.3% energy growth for the next 275 years, we’ll be adding 7,000TW to this number. That is easily enough to noticeably increase Earth’s equilibrium temperature, and far less than this will be necessary to do so given greenhouse gases which reduce our ability to radiate heat into space. https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/
- willis936 5y ago
  That is an overwhelmingly good problem to have. We would have truly mastered the planet for that to be a concern. As it stands, keeping society above water for the next hundred years seems like the grand challenge to accomplish. Do not assume victory is given. Nothing is a given. We are always on the edge.
- wilkommen 5y ago
  I agree. I don't think humanity is happier given more resources, above a certain relatively small amount. But humanity's desires are limitless. If we are able to invent a free energy machine we'll just use it so much that it causes new problems.
deltaonefour 5y ago
It's still sort of a gamble.
philipkglass 5y ago
In the even longer term plasma fusion offers a way to create the heavier elements that we are running out of here on earth. Forged in a manmade nuclear furnace. The only heavy element that we actually "use up" to any significant degree is uranium, which is consumed for energy, but if we had cheap fusion energy uranium consumption would plummet. Even if we could make artificial uranium it would be a net-energy-losing process to make artificial uranium with fusion power instead of using fusion power directly.
- adamsmith143 5y ago
  >The only heavy element that we actually "use up" to any significant degree is uranium Helium would like a word with you.
  - philipkglass 5y ago
    The only heavy element. Helium is the second lightest of all elements. I didn't think that the post I responded to meant helium because it said heavy elements (plural) and it referred to the far future, after mastering fusion as an energy source.
ttiurani 5y ago
> These pesky climate problems can be solved. The thing is, it's not just climate that's the problem. The "pesky" problem is that we've crossed or are soon crossing most planetary boundaries[1] at the same time. Fusion doesn't stop and reverse biodiversity loss, chemical pollutants, land-system change, biochemical flows, ocean plastic buildup and ocean acidification. To stop the ecological collapse, the necessary condition is that the global North drastically reduces material flows and energy consumption. With less energy use, fusion also becomes less critical. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries

bsedlm 5y ago

disagree essentially because I believe we'd get into a situation where the problem becomes heat dissipation. the problem is the human psique, not technological capabilities.

stouset 5y ago
If we find a cheap new way to generate orders of magnitude more energy, we'll use orders of magnitude more energy. And you're right. We're only a bit over two hundred years away at 2.3% annualized growth in energy use from noticeably raising Earth's surface temperatures just from a thermodynamic perspective. And that's completely ignoring the effects of greenhouse gases.
- saiya-jin 5y ago
  You and parent project this in some theoretical universe where these effects would be ignored. Why on earth do you think so? With semi-unlimited energy at our palms, we can do serious geoengineering. We can put these furnaces into high orbits, or moon and beam down just raw output energy with lasers. Or whatever, even the sky isn't a proverbial limit.
  - root_axis 5y ago
    Fusion isn't magic, more energy doesn't suddenly obviate the burden of practical engineering constraints, we won't be "geoengineering" our way out of climate change for the foreseeable future.
    - willis936 5y ago
      A world where energy consumption increases by a factor of 10,000 is a far fetched fantasy. If we're starting with such premises, should they not be followed?
      - stouset 5y ago
        A world where energy consumption increases by a factor of 10,000 would already be a world where the surface is lava thanks to basic thermodynamics. Earth can only radiate so much heat into space, and its ability to do so will not outpace energy production for much longer. A world where energy consumption increases fiftyfold is a century and a half away and would be brushing up against the point where we are noticeably increasing the equilibrium temperature of Earth sans any greenhouse gases. Hitting the thermodynamic limits of Earth's ability to radiate heat into space isn't a far-fetched fantasy, it's terrifyingly close.
        willis936 5y ago
        This is very wrong. Humans produce about 30 TW of heat. The sun imparts 10 trillion times this amount. If we increased our production by 10,000 then we need to put a small umbrella in space to slightly dim the sun the smallest amount to maintain power balance.
        stouset 5y ago
        Feel free to do the math yourself. You’ll forgive me for trusting in the calculations of UCSD professor of physics Tom Murphy, who’s written about this extensively. Edit: Also, your numbers are quite simply incorrect. The 70% of sunlight that doesn’t bounce back into space is about 35,000TW, far from the hundreds of trillions of terawatts you claim. At 2.3% energy growth for the next 275 years, we’ll be adding 7,000TW to this number. That is easily enough to noticeably increase Earth’s equilibrium temperature, and far less than this will be necessary to do so given greenhouse gases which reduce our ability to radiate heat into space. https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/
willis936 5y ago
That is an overwhelmingly good problem to have. We would have truly mastered the planet for that to be a concern. As it stands, keeping society above water for the next hundred years seems like the grand challenge to accomplish. Do not assume victory is given. Nothing is a given. We are always on the edge.
wilkommen 5y ago
I agree. I don't think humanity is happier given more resources, above a certain relatively small amount. But humanity's desires are limitless. If we are able to invent a free energy machine we'll just use it so much that it causes new problems.

deltaonefour 5y ago

It's still sort of a gamble.

philipkglass 5y ago

In the even longer term plasma fusion offers a way to create the heavier elements that we are running out of here on earth. Forged in a manmade nuclear furnace. The only heavy element that we actually "use up" to any significant degree is uranium, which is consumed for energy, but if we had cheap fusion energy uranium consumption would plummet. Even if we could make artificial uranium it would be a net-energy-losing process to make artificial uranium with fusion power instead of using fusion power directly.

adamsmith143 5y ago
>The only heavy element that we actually "use up" to any significant degree is uranium Helium would like a word with you.
- philipkglass 5y ago
  The only heavy element. Helium is the second lightest of all elements. I didn't think that the post I responded to meant helium because it said heavy elements (plural) and it referred to the far future, after mastering fusion as an energy source.

ttiurani 5y ago

> These pesky climate problems can be solved. The thing is, it's not just climate that's the problem. The "pesky" problem is that we've crossed or are soon crossing most planetary boundaries[1] at the same time. Fusion doesn't stop and reverse biodiversity loss, chemical pollutants, land-system change, biochemical flows, ocean plastic buildup and ocean acidification. To stop the ecological collapse, the necessary condition is that the global North drastically reduces material flows and energy consumption. With less energy use, fusion also becomes less critical. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries