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Fusion isn't a silver bullet even if it works. If it costs more than solar+battery then it's worthless.
by sacrosancty 4y ago
Fusion isn't a silver bullet even if it works. If it costs more than solar+battery then it's worthless.
- Teever 4y agoNot at all. There will always be places where solar+battery isn't viable. Northern Canada and Alaska come to mind.
- eftychis 4y agoAlso we are talking about totally different load over time characteristics. And we don't want time plus weather to dictate our industrial and shipping power needs. Solar is great but not simply alone. (Latitude is less of an issue as (proper) power systems are interconnected markets that sell/buy excess load.)
- Digital28 4y agoDon't forget that we're perpetually one temper tantrum away from nuclear winter now, which would cripple all solar infrastructure for years. I'm actually a little surprised the DoD hasn't deeply invested in fusion for this reason alone.
- adventured 4y agoAlong with small and or very high population density nations. India is going to end up with perhaps two billion people and will have extraordinary population density/spacing problems. They're going to desperately need huge numbers of nuclear fission power plants or fusion plants to provide for that. They will not have the space for epic scale solar farms. Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Philippines, Vietnam, Israel, Belgium, Netherlands (among others) are in the same space vs population situation. And given the population explosion across parts of the Middle East and Africa, it's a certainty nations in those regions will have the same problem as well.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago> They will not have the space for epic scale solar farms. ...space vs population situation. Your math is totally wrong, space was never an issie for solar. It tales 100x less space for a coutry to cover it's power needs with solar, than it does for a country to grow it's own food and feed it's own people. So every country thats not a city-state, like Vatikan, is fine. All the challaneges of Solar are around intermittency, cost and ofcourse it's less viable in northern lattitudes. But none of them are around space.
- Kon5ole 4y agoThere are solar panels in use on svalbard island, Norway. Far north of Alaska Solar needs more space in such locations but space is abundant and also nobody lives there so you dont need much power anyway. The sun shines 24 hrs a day during summer, so you can generate lots of hydrogen for use during winter.
- pfdietz 4y agoThose markets are far too small to support a nuclear industry. If solar dominates and those places are hurting for energy, the rest of the world will shrug and tell them to deal with it as best they can.
- danaris 4y agoSolar + battery isn't much help for - under the earth - under the ocean - deeper into space Granted, we don't need a lot of power in these places right now. But if we have the option...then maybe we'll find some good ways to use it.
- freemint 4y agoI don't understand the udner the earth part. We've been able to transport power into mine shafts for pretty long.
- LegitShady 4y agoits not worthless either way. plenty of places that dont get large amounts of solar radiation during some seasons where fusion could be useful
- grej 4y agoTotally disagree. Solar + battery will never match the energy density of fusion.
- seanmcdirmid 4y agoSolar is basically indirect fusion.
- ksaxena 4y agoWell, with that logic, coal is also indirect fusion
- gruturo 4y agoYeah. And Wind, Gas, Hydro, etc. Basically everything except fission, tidal and a portion of geothermal. Admittedly it's not a terribly useful classification.
- seanmcdirmid 4y agoSolar is less indirect than they. It’s like if we made our own fusion reactor and rather than using it to boil water close by to generate steam, we put the water a few miles out.
- Ekaros 4y agoSo is all other energy production methods we use... Apart from some fraction of geothermal.
- paconbork 4y agoOne advantage of other technologies over solar is space efficiency. Obviously we're not physically lacking in space to install solar, but when even solar farms installed in the desert can be shut down by "climate activists" [1], then we really need all the help we can get [1] https://apnews.com/article/technology-government-and-politics-environment-and-nature-las-vegas-nevada-9bf3640dfefbc6f7f45a97c6810f5ff7 https://apnews.com/article/technology-government-and-politic...
- boomskats 4y agoThe article you linked to states this as the reason for the project being scrapped: > But a group of residents organized as “Save Our Mesa” argued such a large installation would be an eyesore and could curtail the area’s popular recreational activities — biking, ATVs and skydiving — and deter tourists from visiting sculptor Michael Heizer’s land installation, “Double Negative.” I also searched the page and the word 'climate' doesn't appear even once. Why do you consider this to be an example of 'climate activists' shutting down a solar farm project, and do you have any other (actual) examples of it happening?
- paconbork 4y agoThe article mentions both "conservationists" and "endangered species advocates", who I believe tend to consider themselves (and are considered by others to be) environmentalists. Here's an example of a wing of the Nevada Democratic Party (who according to their bio, want a #GreenNewDeal) also being against the development: (edit, forgot the link: https://twitter.com/LeftCaucus/status/1374527780034015244 https://twitter.com/LeftCaucus/status/1374527780034015244) For another actual example of this happening, see the scaling back of the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility
- Schroedingersat 4y agoThat's the biggest reach I've ever heard. Those are NIMBYS who want their view. Maybe with a mix of oil lobbyists.
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- otikik 4y agoI agree the cost is important. I disagree in the breaking point at witch it’s “not worth it”. To me, assuming our battery tech doesn’t find a similar breakthrough before, if fusion reaches one order of magnitude above the cost of solar, it is worth it, as a backup. Better to have it and use it when there’s clouds instead of coal or gas
- jayd16 4y agoThey did say solar and battery.. So taking it literally I think they're correct that if we had a battery technology such that it provided consistent cheaper energy we wouldn't need a hypothetical nuclear backup.
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- Schroedingersat 4y agoIf you plug your solar panel into some water when you have surplus sun you get hydrogen which burns fine in a combined cycle plant. If that's too annoying to store you can get it hot and squeeze it over some nickel to get methane. Electrolyzation becomes cheaper than mining methane for hydrogen (and thus ammonia) production if solar hits the $0.2-0.3/Watt threshold somewhere (which is predicted to happen in 3-7 years). It's complicated and expensive, but I'm not sure I'd bet on a sabatier reactor (or hydrogen storage if it gets cheap), an electrolyzer and 4x the solar panels being more expensive than a fusion reactor with the average output of 1 unit of solar. Plus the sabatier thing means we don't have to upgrade all the heating furnaces and expand the grid to have 8x the capacity. Fusion will be real handy where power density is king though. And if there's some non thermal way of getting work out of it, I can see it being cheaper.
- belorn 4y agobattery for solar installation is at the point where between 2-6hrs of capacity can be economical viable. Maybe in a few more years/decade/s we will reach a point where in some places in the world it will be economical viable to have exclusive solar and battery, and that assuming prices will continue to drop and that there won't be any resource or physical limitations. Then we got colder climates where solar + battery is unlikely to ever become viable. Exports of solar generated green hydrogen could solve that assuming that the technology for that becomes cheap enough. Multiple different directions where specific technologies could be economical dominant in the future.
- tremon 4y agoNo, this is way too shortsighted. Fusion allows us to use other energy sources than our own sun, which means it's essential for viable space missions, and we won't need to compete with the rest of nature (including agriculture!) for our energy needs. Hydroponics with fusion technology allows us to produce food without relying on the sun at all. I'd say that alone is worth the investment.
- sacrosancty 4y agoI totally agree in the long term for space travel. But for our current energy use, it could be useless if it costs even a little bit too much. Kind of like solar concentrators are worthless because PV got too cheap.
- pfdietz 4y agoDT fusion, which most of these efforts are focusing on, utterly sucks for use in space. It produces heat in materials, just like fission, except at far lower power/mass and with way more complexity. As for the future, beamed power will work out to interstellar distances, so energy sources other than our Sun (and other stars) aren't necessarily required.
- willis936 4y agoDoes beamed power also work for return trips?
- pfdietz 4y agoSure. And beamed power also potentially allows one to cool a vehicle more effectively than radiating from a black body, by exploiting anti-Stokes scattering of laser light. (From your question you might have been thinking of laser propelled light sails. These are best at speeds high enough that fusion is out of the picture.)
- edem 4y agoFalse. At this point environmental impact trumps everything else in my mind.