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We're realistically at a very good point in time to avert some of the worst case scenarios, I fail to see your point? We definitely want to be looking at techn

by urthor 5y ago

We're realistically at a very good point in time to avert some of the worst case scenarios, I fail to see your point? We definitely want to be looking at technologies that have a high ROI for emission reduction in the next 10 year span, mixed with longer term projects. Fission is a longer term project. Simple as that.

stormbrew 5y ago
> We definitely want to be looking at technologies that have a high ROI for emission reduction in the next 10 year span, mixed with longer term projects. This... is my point? So I think you do see it. "Fusion can't save us now so we shouldn't invest in it at all" is short-sighted. This is not an either-or proposition, and frankly people have completely out of whack ideas of the scale of money that's been invested in fusion. Tens of billions of dollars are nothing in what's going to be a trillions of dollars problem. We need to be building out renewables, and ideally fission too, now. We need to get to carbon zero asap. And then comes the project of getting things back to where we need to be, and we are just not ready for the energy we're going to need to do that.
- urthor 5y ago
  See this is the thing. People thing 10 billion dollars is a lot of money. My view is that 10 billion dollars is nothing. My view is that the total OECD investment in fusion R&D should be 10 billion. A year. For the next 50 years. The investment in the high ROI technologies, principally solar R&D and overnight energy capacity projects like water pump batteries, should be 100 billion (across the OECD). And the investment in CapEx, installing new panels, 200 billion. Our investment in STEM R&D, as a society, is just pitiful across the Western world. The portion of our tax dollars that go to long term R&D, the primary driver of productivity growth and progress in our nation's, is scrap.
  - stormbrew 5y ago
    I don't really disagree with any of this, so I guess that's confirmation that you did see my point. Certainly, the fact that solar and wind are sure things right now warrants massive investment. Just throwing endless gobs of money at a problem that's as-yet unsolved doesn't necessarily lead to good outcomes, it also takes directed goals and all that. That's in theory what ITER is all about, though I think the slowness with which it got started will hamper it and we'll see success on other projects before it even gets to the testing phase. It was an attempt to create a moonshot that kinda failed, but the private sector seems more interested now so it might not matter. That said I'd actually be surprised if there isn't already much more than $200bil going into building out solar capacity worldwide. It's just not easily enumerated because it's not special anymore, and a lot of it is on small scales (ie. I'm gonna install about $20k of solar panels to my home this spring and I'm not alone, but it's hard to tell how much that adds up to).

by urthor 5y ago

stormbrew 5y ago

> We definitely want to be looking at technologies that have a high ROI for emission reduction in the next 10 year span, mixed with longer term projects. This... is my point? So I think you do see it. "Fusion can't save us now so we shouldn't invest in it at all" is short-sighted. This is not an either-or proposition, and frankly people have completely out of whack ideas of the scale of money that's been invested in fusion. Tens of billions of dollars are nothing in what's going to be a trillions of dollars problem. We need to be building out renewables, and ideally fission too, now. We need to get to carbon zero asap. And then comes the project of getting things back to where we need to be, and we are just not ready for the energy we're going to need to do that.

urthor 5y ago
See this is the thing. People thing 10 billion dollars is a lot of money. My view is that 10 billion dollars is nothing. My view is that the total OECD investment in fusion R&D should be 10 billion. A year. For the next 50 years. The investment in the high ROI technologies, principally solar R&D and overnight energy capacity projects like water pump batteries, should be 100 billion (across the OECD). And the investment in CapEx, installing new panels, 200 billion. Our investment in STEM R&D, as a society, is just pitiful across the Western world. The portion of our tax dollars that go to long term R&D, the primary driver of productivity growth and progress in our nation's, is scrap.
- stormbrew 5y ago
  I don't really disagree with any of this, so I guess that's confirmation that you did see my point. Certainly, the fact that solar and wind are sure things right now warrants massive investment. Just throwing endless gobs of money at a problem that's as-yet unsolved doesn't necessarily lead to good outcomes, it also takes directed goals and all that. That's in theory what ITER is all about, though I think the slowness with which it got started will hamper it and we'll see success on other projects before it even gets to the testing phase. It was an attempt to create a moonshot that kinda failed, but the private sector seems more interested now so it might not matter. That said I'd actually be surprised if there isn't already much more than $200bil going into building out solar capacity worldwide. It's just not easily enumerated because it's not special anymore, and a lot of it is on small scales (ie. I'm gonna install about $20k of solar panels to my home this spring and I'm not alone, but it's hard to tell how much that adds up to).