3 ms·

Fusion is "sensational" science Much like AGI, "room temperature superconductors", "Mars colonization" and so on - the science is intense, the reporting hyped

Fusion is "sensational" science Much like AGI, "room temperature superconductors", "Mars colonization" and so on - the science is intense, the reporting hyped up and every tiny step will continue to be posted again and again as if something revolution happened. Meanwhile the world needs to many more nuclear reactors pronto if at all we stand a chance of climate change mitigation We need better web security and privacy, better engineered cities and so on But no one cares about mundane engineering that may actually work - they only like pies in the skies

ncmncm 5y ago
If averting climate disruption depended on fission or fusion, we would be doomed. Fortunately, solar and wind are up to the task.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  We would be doomed? Somebody should have told France who had a clean green grid 40 years ago. If everybody had simply done nuclear we would be 10000x better of now. The false promise of solar/wind held up by fossil-fuel and anti-nuclear people prevented green energy grids for literally decades. If anything we are doomed because it took so long to actually bring solar/wind practically into being. If we invested in nuclear and its advanced reactors decades ago, like we did in the 60s/70s we would also have high temperature reactors that could do things like provide industrial heat for chemical processes such as water desalinization, synthetic fuel production and so on. You could even do very high temperature reactors if you wanted to decarbonize even chemical process that take 1000C without going threw inefficient electricity production and heat generation. But coal plants were cheaper to build and that's why id didn't happen. Imagine a world where the US had build 100s of nuclear plants. The amount of nuclear engineers that would exists, the amount of knowledge and innovation that such an industry could have. The problem is in the 70s what mattered was price, that coal plants were horrible to human and the environments was not considered. So please explain why depending on fission would doom anybody. Germany could have replicated what France did in the 70s and simply started to build nuclear reactors when they started their green revolution 20 decades ago. In fact had Germany done so they would like be closer to fully de-carbonized now. Literally any country that wants to be 100% green can right now call South Korea and order X reactors and within 10 years all but the largest industrial nations in the world could be 100% green power.
  - freemint 5y ago
    Why doomed? Because ever person on earth needs access to energy in the end. Simplified this leads to 5 outcomes: - keep burning fossil fuels and have resulting climate change - nuclear power stations in every country including unstable countries, countries with high corruption, dictatorships ... Which means proliferation risk ~1. - nuclear power generation in "stable" countries and a world wide power grid to distribute energy - intermittent power (solar, wind) and a world wide grid (almost no) batteries (sun always shines somewhere) - decentral intermittent power and decentral storage 1&2 will be doom. I hope you agree. 3 is financially inferior to 4 due to the high capacity cost of nuclear compared to intermittent sources. 5 is 2 but with solar instead of nuclear so none of these problems apply. That seems to be the course we are on. Personally I prefer 4 because we will need to cut down trade to reduce emissions too but diverse trade seems to be a quiet effective way to prevent war. So I hope that a 24/7 energy trade around the globe and "we are literally all connected" is enough to keep us from large scale war.
    - panick21_ 5y ago
      - nuclear power stations in every country including unstable countries, countries with high corruption, dictatorships ... Which means proliferation risk ~1. Overblown issue when you think about it. And there are many reactor designs and fuel cycles that make it totally unpractical for a whole host of reasons. Neither for dictators nor terrorist are these all that relevant targets. It would take to long to get into this in detail but its certainty doable in a safe way. The reality is, its a very unlikely vector, if a nation has the finances to do it, they will just do it. ----------------------- Nuclear power with a heat-based battery driving commercial turbines places right at the location of current coal plants is likely the best possible solution. Modern nuclear power plants already have a heat battery almost by definition, if you just circulate a larger amount of salt, you basically have the same thing as a Concentrated Solar Plant. Every country has ample fertile nuclear material, once you give them a started reactor they can refuel it with domestically mined materials. So every country could be safe in assuming that they would continue to have power even if international trade was blocked.
      - 5y ago

ncmncm 5y ago

If averting climate disruption depended on fission or fusion, we would be doomed. Fortunately, solar and wind are up to the task.

panick21_ 5y ago
We would be doomed? Somebody should have told France who had a clean green grid 40 years ago. If everybody had simply done nuclear we would be 10000x better of now. The false promise of solar/wind held up by fossil-fuel and anti-nuclear people prevented green energy grids for literally decades. If anything we are doomed because it took so long to actually bring solar/wind practically into being. If we invested in nuclear and its advanced reactors decades ago, like we did in the 60s/70s we would also have high temperature reactors that could do things like provide industrial heat for chemical processes such as water desalinization, synthetic fuel production and so on. You could even do very high temperature reactors if you wanted to decarbonize even chemical process that take 1000C without going threw inefficient electricity production and heat generation. But coal plants were cheaper to build and that's why id didn't happen. Imagine a world where the US had build 100s of nuclear plants. The amount of nuclear engineers that would exists, the amount of knowledge and innovation that such an industry could have. The problem is in the 70s what mattered was price, that coal plants were horrible to human and the environments was not considered. So please explain why depending on fission would doom anybody. Germany could have replicated what France did in the 70s and simply started to build nuclear reactors when they started their green revolution 20 decades ago. In fact had Germany done so they would like be closer to fully de-carbonized now. Literally any country that wants to be 100% green can right now call South Korea and order X reactors and within 10 years all but the largest industrial nations in the world could be 100% green power.
- freemint 5y ago
  Why doomed? Because ever person on earth needs access to energy in the end. Simplified this leads to 5 outcomes: - keep burning fossil fuels and have resulting climate change - nuclear power stations in every country including unstable countries, countries with high corruption, dictatorships ... Which means proliferation risk ~1. - nuclear power generation in "stable" countries and a world wide power grid to distribute energy - intermittent power (solar, wind) and a world wide grid (almost no) batteries (sun always shines somewhere) - decentral intermittent power and decentral storage 1&2 will be doom. I hope you agree. 3 is financially inferior to 4 due to the high capacity cost of nuclear compared to intermittent sources. 5 is 2 but with solar instead of nuclear so none of these problems apply. That seems to be the course we are on. Personally I prefer 4 because we will need to cut down trade to reduce emissions too but diverse trade seems to be a quiet effective way to prevent war. So I hope that a 24/7 energy trade around the globe and "we are literally all connected" is enough to keep us from large scale war.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    - nuclear power stations in every country including unstable countries, countries with high corruption, dictatorships ... Which means proliferation risk ~1. Overblown issue when you think about it. And there are many reactor designs and fuel cycles that make it totally unpractical for a whole host of reasons. Neither for dictators nor terrorist are these all that relevant targets. It would take to long to get into this in detail but its certainty doable in a safe way. The reality is, its a very unlikely vector, if a nation has the finances to do it, they will just do it. ----------------------- Nuclear power with a heat-based battery driving commercial turbines places right at the location of current coal plants is likely the best possible solution. Modern nuclear power plants already have a heat battery almost by definition, if you just circulate a larger amount of salt, you basically have the same thing as a Concentrated Solar Plant. Every country has ample fertile nuclear material, once you give them a started reactor they can refuel it with domestically mined materials. So every country could be safe in assuming that they would continue to have power even if international trade was blocked.
    - 5y ago