4 ms·

Can someone explain to me the 2nd order effects if we made energy 10x cheaper? Do we ever have to worry about waste heat? I'm not an EE or physicist (maybe in r

by breck 4y ago

Can someone explain to me the 2nd order effects if we made energy 10x cheaper? Do we ever have to worry about waste heat? I'm not an EE or physicist (maybe in retirement).

llsf 4y ago
I am also interested by this question. Energy => machine/labor => GDP So, my first naive take would be that we could extract/build/ship more for less, and then potentially keeps the "growing" economy humming. Maybe due to my past education/experience, I still feel uncomfortable about more waste (if energy is cheap, why not like in Quatar build stadiums with AC ? keep AC stores doors open in summer, and in winter when the heat is on, etc.) I have a sense that increasing energy waste will come to 2nd order cost on other resources (water, minerals, etc.). Thoughts ?
pstrateman 4y ago
At least for a while fusion isn't about being cheaper. It's about being abundant.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Neither one.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  There is no world where fusion would be more abundant without being cheaper. Sure, it's nice that you only need water to get half the fuel of a fusion power plant, but even for fission, uranium is a fraction of the cost. The reason fission isn't already providing us with abundant power is the huge cost of the extremely advanced fission reactors - which look like lego blocks compared to a fusion reactor. And 1 fusion reactor will generate nowhere near the power of the largest fission reactors we already have, in any design considered realistic today. Not to mention, the extraordinarily expensive fusion reactor you build will become too brittle to hold itself up in the span of 10 years at best, because of the neutron bombardment - turning your massive investment mostly into highly radioactive waste that you'll need expensive robots to disassemble and replace.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    On the bright side, it would be low-level waste in a century. If you built it underground to begin with, you wouldn't need to bury it.
zdragnar 4y ago
Resistive heating for homes in cold climates becomes economical, so many can more easily move off of natural gas / propane in northern climates. Battery advancements and supply logistics become the only holdup to clean transportation (right now, there isn't sufficient renewable generation or storage to completely replace fossil electricity). Atmospheric CO2 scrubbing becomes more economical, so waste heat is not an issue I suspect. Completely moving off of fossil fuels makes petroleum extraction much more expensive, as the primary products are not used as much, so anything currently relying on petroleum (plastics, makeup, asphalt, etc etc) becomes more expensive until renewable synthetic production becomes mainstream.
mpweiher 4y ago
"However, the long-term (hundred years) global warming by CO2-caused radiative forcing is about twenty-five times stronger than the immediate effects, being responsible for around 92% of the heat-up caused by electricity production." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544210005694 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605...
- a3w 4y ago
  This seems to be in the ballpark, although the podcast "methodisch inkorrect" cited (years ago and in german) a perhaps too ideal number of 99%. Lets agree on a factor of 20 between burning fossils and using fission as an energy source for a further guesstimate. Solar and wind are better than that, since they have primary energy requirements for production, but no warmth is generated: the albedo of solar panels is as good as grass, the warmth generated by a wind turbines would be generated by the wind slowing down on a tree, house or mountain as well. As which is cheapest, that could vary between those three technologies. None are regulated as fast as gas turbines, but fission power output is perhaps faster to scale than fusion or even coal. Having energy at one tenth the cost (solar/wind is supposedly already half to on fifth to cost of fusion) we could feasibly consume ten times the energy by replacing fossils, traveling more, consuming more and giving 80 % of mankind the final lift to 90s-level western accommodations. So perhaps no net change at all in the ecological balance of heating our space ship if we really switch to fission and keep the our mind set on growth by more technology.
rgbrenner 4y ago
It will never be 10x cheaper, at least not to you. Half of the cost of electricity is from distribution costs. So even if it was completely free to generate electricity, it would only reduce your bill by half.
- m0llusk 4y ago
  Extensive deployment of renewables is already changing the grid substantially. Smaller grids with more local sources may be cheaper than the large generator and grid model that has so far dominated.
- throwaway821909 4y ago
  Of course greed ruins everything but part of the distibution cost is paying for energy (to make equipment, transport it around, feed the people involved, etc.)
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  It gets a lot cheaper all of a sudden if you have space for 10kW of solar, 2 weeks of storage and tell the distributer to go f themselves
ncmncm 4y ago
Fusion will absolutely not be "10x cheaper", in any possible circumstance. Rather, it would necessarily be at least 10x as costly as fission; and fission is not now competitive, and gets less competitive all the time. Solar and wind cost are still falling sharply, so you may well find power substantially cheaper in the future. There won't be any fusion plants at all, because no one will put up money to build any.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  There will be a fusion plant in space, because to build an interstellar vessel you need a source of power that is not dependent upon wind (which is absent in space), nor solar (which decreases in power the further you are away from stars).
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    Unstated premise: there will be an interstellar vessel. Unstated premise: you can't use a fission plant.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      By the time a proper interstellar vessel is to be designed, we will no longer be dependent upon the hoary '50s plans of Project Orion.
      - temphypercube 4y ago
        There's no need to fling bombs; much better to just superheat gas and expel it.
tuatoru 4y ago
Energy is about to become 10× cheaper, thanks to the rapidly advancing state of PV, wind turbines, and batteries. There is no problem of waste heat with these. Some obvious things: carbon capture and storage, synthesis of plastics from air-captured carbon, large-scale desalination. We'll know at least some other new applications in 2070 - 2090. One possibility is direct synthesis of carbohydrates and amino acids from the air.
thrown_22 4y ago
Not until 2,500 at current energy growth rates.

by breck 4y ago

Can someone explain to me the 2nd order effects if we made energy 10x cheaper? Do we ever have to worry about waste heat? I'm not an EE or physicist (maybe in retirement).

llsf 4y ago

I am also interested by this question. Energy => machine/labor => GDP So, my first naive take would be that we could extract/build/ship more for less, and then potentially keeps the "growing" economy humming. Maybe due to my past education/experience, I still feel uncomfortable about more waste (if energy is cheap, why not like in Quatar build stadiums with AC ? keep AC stores doors open in summer, and in winter when the heat is on, etc.) I have a sense that increasing energy waste will come to 2nd order cost on other resources (water, minerals, etc.). Thoughts ?

pstrateman 4y ago

At least for a while fusion isn't about being cheaper. It's about being abundant.

ncmncm 4y ago
Neither one.
tsimionescu 4y ago
There is no world where fusion would be more abundant without being cheaper. Sure, it's nice that you only need water to get half the fuel of a fusion power plant, but even for fission, uranium is a fraction of the cost. The reason fission isn't already providing us with abundant power is the huge cost of the extremely advanced fission reactors - which look like lego blocks compared to a fusion reactor. And 1 fusion reactor will generate nowhere near the power of the largest fission reactors we already have, in any design considered realistic today. Not to mention, the extraordinarily expensive fusion reactor you build will become too brittle to hold itself up in the span of 10 years at best, because of the neutron bombardment - turning your massive investment mostly into highly radioactive waste that you'll need expensive robots to disassemble and replace.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  On the bright side, it would be low-level waste in a century. If you built it underground to begin with, you wouldn't need to bury it.

zdragnar 4y ago

Resistive heating for homes in cold climates becomes economical, so many can more easily move off of natural gas / propane in northern climates. Battery advancements and supply logistics become the only holdup to clean transportation (right now, there isn't sufficient renewable generation or storage to completely replace fossil electricity). Atmospheric CO2 scrubbing becomes more economical, so waste heat is not an issue I suspect. Completely moving off of fossil fuels makes petroleum extraction much more expensive, as the primary products are not used as much, so anything currently relying on petroleum (plastics, makeup, asphalt, etc etc) becomes more expensive until renewable synthetic production becomes mainstream.

mpweiher 4y ago

"However, the long-term (hundred years) global warming by CO2-caused radiative forcing is about twenty-five times stronger than the immediate effects, being responsible for around 92% of the heat-up caused by electricity production." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544210005694 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605...

a3w 4y ago
This seems to be in the ballpark, although the podcast "methodisch inkorrect" cited (years ago and in german) a perhaps too ideal number of 99%. Lets agree on a factor of 20 between burning fossils and using fission as an energy source for a further guesstimate. Solar and wind are better than that, since they have primary energy requirements for production, but no warmth is generated: the albedo of solar panels is as good as grass, the warmth generated by a wind turbines would be generated by the wind slowing down on a tree, house or mountain as well. As which is cheapest, that could vary between those three technologies. None are regulated as fast as gas turbines, but fission power output is perhaps faster to scale than fusion or even coal. Having energy at one tenth the cost (solar/wind is supposedly already half to on fifth to cost of fusion) we could feasibly consume ten times the energy by replacing fossils, traveling more, consuming more and giving 80 % of mankind the final lift to 90s-level western accommodations. So perhaps no net change at all in the ecological balance of heating our space ship if we really switch to fission and keep the our mind set on growth by more technology.

rgbrenner 4y ago

It will never be 10x cheaper, at least not to you. Half of the cost of electricity is from distribution costs. So even if it was completely free to generate electricity, it would only reduce your bill by half.

m0llusk 4y ago
Extensive deployment of renewables is already changing the grid substantially. Smaller grids with more local sources may be cheaper than the large generator and grid model that has so far dominated.
throwaway821909 4y ago
Of course greed ruins everything but part of the distibution cost is paying for energy (to make equipment, transport it around, feed the people involved, etc.)
Schroedingersat 4y ago
It gets a lot cheaper all of a sudden if you have space for 10kW of solar, 2 weeks of storage and tell the distributer to go f themselves

ncmncm 4y ago

Fusion will absolutely not be "10x cheaper", in any possible circumstance. Rather, it would necessarily be at least 10x as costly as fission; and fission is not now competitive, and gets less competitive all the time. Solar and wind cost are still falling sharply, so you may well find power substantially cheaper in the future. There won't be any fusion plants at all, because no one will put up money to build any.

Apocryphon 4y ago
There will be a fusion plant in space, because to build an interstellar vessel you need a source of power that is not dependent upon wind (which is absent in space), nor solar (which decreases in power the further you are away from stars).
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  Unstated premise: there will be an interstellar vessel. Unstated premise: you can't use a fission plant.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    By the time a proper interstellar vessel is to be designed, we will no longer be dependent upon the hoary '50s plans of Project Orion.
    - temphypercube 4y ago
      There's no need to fling bombs; much better to just superheat gas and expel it.

tuatoru 4y ago

Energy is about to become 10× cheaper, thanks to the rapidly advancing state of PV, wind turbines, and batteries. There is no problem of waste heat with these. Some obvious things: carbon capture and storage, synthesis of plastics from air-captured carbon, large-scale desalination. We'll know at least some other new applications in 2070 - 2090. One possibility is direct synthesis of carbohydrates and amino acids from the air.

thrown_22 4y ago

Not until 2,500 at current energy growth rates.