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For less than 15 billion euro you could buy enough solar to power a country the size of the Netherlands. With 5 billion to spend on batteries you might even mak

For less than 15 billion euro you could buy enough solar to power a country the size of the Netherlands. With 5 billion to spend on batteries you might even make it through night time usage. Or in other words: Fusion is too expensive at this point to be useful.

jahnu 3y ago
That seems amazingly cheap! Are we really down to that low level of cost?
- sp332 3y ago
  Grid-scale solar is $33/MWh (+) https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/utility-scale-solar-2022-edition https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/utility-scale-solar-2022-ed... and the Netherlands uses 1,000,000,000 MWh/year https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/netherlands https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/netherlands so it's only off by a factor of ~2. (+) These numbers are for the USA. I found a mention of a cheaper project in Chile https://about.bnef.com/blog/cost-of-new-renewables-temporarily-rises-as-inflation-starts-to-bite/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/cost-of-new-renewables-temporari... but I don't know what the situation is in Europe. And wind might be even lower.
  - aeyes 3y ago
    Chile is an outlier, the plants are in remote locations in the Atacama desert where you have two compelling reasons to build solar plants: There is a lot of space where nobody lives and the sun is always shining. There are mountains but there are also lots of places which are flat for as far as the eye can see, an example would be the Cerro Dominador plant which probably didn't require any ground preparation. On http://generadoras.cl/tipos-energia/energia-solar http://generadoras.cl/tipos-energia/energia-solar scroll down to "Capacidad por región", Antofagasta and Atacama are the desert regions in the with over 90% of installed capacity. In Germany or the Netherlands it is a bit harder to find space for large solar plants.
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      Chile is cheaper, and in a solar-powered world energy intensive industries will move to such places. If (say) Sweden wants to try to preserve industries by building nuclear power plants, they'll find the expensive power from nukes competing against the dirt cheap power from Chilean (or Namibian, or Australian, or Saudi Arabian) solar.
      - worik 3y ago
        > in a solar-powered world energy intensive industries will move to such places. And to windy places. Happening already in Europe, building new industrial plant close to the huge and fast growing offshore North Sea wind power plants
- t0mas88 3y ago
  1 euro per kW of capacity isn't that low, residential systems can get below that and it includes installation cost and an inverter which would both scale better for a bigger system.
b112 3y ago
The first plant is going to be more expensive, and the next gens after that will benefit from things learned. The first TVs were for the very rich, and had 4" bw screens. Now they're 80", thin, and insanely cheap.
peteradio 3y ago
How exactly is that calculated?
- aeyes 3y ago
  From listening to the episode I'd say that it isn't much more than a gut feeling derived from their experience building the experimental reactor, coming from the head of W7X I'd give it at least some credibility. Without sufficient political will this isn't feasible at all.
fizigura 3y ago
The same was said 20 years ago about solar power. Then some countries stepped up the subsidies game and booom, prices fell dramatically since suddenly everybody wanted a piece of the cake. And competition drove this all down. All you need is for somebody to start. Or we just keep telling ourselves that it's too expensive, shrug, and move on. Also note how the goal posts changed. Until recently, everybody made fun of fusion by basically saying it's too hard, it's too far in the future. Now it's not too hard anymore, it's just too expensive. What's next? Too loud? Too big? Induces headaches with the esoterically minded?
- pfdietz 3y ago
  And it was pointed out 40 years ago that DT fusion will be inherently expensive (specifically, more expensive than fission, which itself has demonstrated it cannot compete.) https://orcutt.net/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/The-Trouble-With-Fusion_MIT_Tech_Review_1983.pdf https://orcutt.net/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/The-Tro...
- sercand 3y ago
  Solar has the advantage of scaling down. 1000 people can give 1M US dollar which can produce approximately 1GW of power on a thousand of power plant in a year. You can scale down as low as 400W of energy production and distribute the financial cost to many people.
cyberax 3y ago
You'll freeze to death in winter, but that's a minor thing. Living is overrated.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  Not with a properly design energy system. The conclusion of 100% RE research is that such a system will have costs similar to fossil fuels.
  - cyberax 3y ago
    No. Right now there is no reasonable way to have a 100% renewable and reliable grid in Northern Europe, excepting classic hydro. I specifically studied the German grid, and it needs about a MONTH of storage to compensate for a once-in-a-century Dunkelflaute (a period with little wind, no sun, and cold temperatures).
    - cesarb 3y ago
      > Right now there is no reasonable way to have a 100% renewable and reliable grid [...] and it needs about a MONTH of storage to compensate for a once-in-a-century Dunkelflaute If you accept slightly less than 100% renewables, you could use diesel or gas backup for these once-in-a-century events.
      - the8472 3y ago
        That drives up costs because you have to maintain many gigawatts of backup capacity sitting idle most of the year. It's better to have more flexible solutions that provide value the whole year. That's either baseload (fission, fusion) or grid-scale, seasonal storage (unsolved problem).
        pfdietz 3y ago
        The backup capacity is cheap (in capital cost) compared to nuclear providing the same output. Like, an order of magnitude cheaper. Combustion turbines are remarkably compact and inexpensive for their power output (this is why they power our aircraft). It's wonderful what happens to machinery when you can reduce the need to transfer heat across fluid-solid boundaries. Rocket engines are an even more extreme example of this.

jahnu 3y ago

That seems amazingly cheap! Are we really down to that low level of cost?

sp332 3y ago
Grid-scale solar is $33/MWh (+) https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/utility-scale-solar-2022-edition https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/utility-scale-solar-2022-ed... and the Netherlands uses 1,000,000,000 MWh/year https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/netherlands https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/netherlands so it's only off by a factor of ~2. (+) These numbers are for the USA. I found a mention of a cheaper project in Chile https://about.bnef.com/blog/cost-of-new-renewables-temporarily-rises-as-inflation-starts-to-bite/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/cost-of-new-renewables-temporari... but I don't know what the situation is in Europe. And wind might be even lower.
- aeyes 3y ago
  Chile is an outlier, the plants are in remote locations in the Atacama desert where you have two compelling reasons to build solar plants: There is a lot of space where nobody lives and the sun is always shining. There are mountains but there are also lots of places which are flat for as far as the eye can see, an example would be the Cerro Dominador plant which probably didn't require any ground preparation. On http://generadoras.cl/tipos-energia/energia-solar http://generadoras.cl/tipos-energia/energia-solar scroll down to "Capacidad por región", Antofagasta and Atacama are the desert regions in the with over 90% of installed capacity. In Germany or the Netherlands it is a bit harder to find space for large solar plants.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    Chile is cheaper, and in a solar-powered world energy intensive industries will move to such places. If (say) Sweden wants to try to preserve industries by building nuclear power plants, they'll find the expensive power from nukes competing against the dirt cheap power from Chilean (or Namibian, or Australian, or Saudi Arabian) solar.
    - worik 3y ago
      > in a solar-powered world energy intensive industries will move to such places. And to windy places. Happening already in Europe, building new industrial plant close to the huge and fast growing offshore North Sea wind power plants
t0mas88 3y ago
1 euro per kW of capacity isn't that low, residential systems can get below that and it includes installation cost and an inverter which would both scale better for a bigger system.

b112 3y ago

The first plant is going to be more expensive, and the next gens after that will benefit from things learned. The first TVs were for the very rich, and had 4" bw screens. Now they're 80", thin, and insanely cheap.

peteradio 3y ago

How exactly is that calculated?

aeyes 3y ago
From listening to the episode I'd say that it isn't much more than a gut feeling derived from their experience building the experimental reactor, coming from the head of W7X I'd give it at least some credibility. Without sufficient political will this isn't feasible at all.

fizigura 3y ago

The same was said 20 years ago about solar power. Then some countries stepped up the subsidies game and booom, prices fell dramatically since suddenly everybody wanted a piece of the cake. And competition drove this all down. All you need is for somebody to start. Or we just keep telling ourselves that it's too expensive, shrug, and move on. Also note how the goal posts changed. Until recently, everybody made fun of fusion by basically saying it's too hard, it's too far in the future. Now it's not too hard anymore, it's just too expensive. What's next? Too loud? Too big? Induces headaches with the esoterically minded?

pfdietz 3y ago
And it was pointed out 40 years ago that DT fusion will be inherently expensive (specifically, more expensive than fission, which itself has demonstrated it cannot compete.) https://orcutt.net/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/The-Trouble-With-Fusion_MIT_Tech_Review_1983.pdf https://orcutt.net/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/The-Tro...
sercand 3y ago
Solar has the advantage of scaling down. 1000 people can give 1M US dollar which can produce approximately 1GW of power on a thousand of power plant in a year. You can scale down as low as 400W of energy production and distribute the financial cost to many people.

cyberax 3y ago

You'll freeze to death in winter, but that's a minor thing. Living is overrated.

pfdietz 3y ago
Not with a properly design energy system. The conclusion of 100% RE research is that such a system will have costs similar to fossil fuels.
- cyberax 3y ago
  No. Right now there is no reasonable way to have a 100% renewable and reliable grid in Northern Europe, excepting classic hydro. I specifically studied the German grid, and it needs about a MONTH of storage to compensate for a once-in-a-century Dunkelflaute (a period with little wind, no sun, and cold temperatures).
  - cesarb 3y ago
    > Right now there is no reasonable way to have a 100% renewable and reliable grid [...] and it needs about a MONTH of storage to compensate for a once-in-a-century Dunkelflaute If you accept slightly less than 100% renewables, you could use diesel or gas backup for these once-in-a-century events.
    - the8472 3y ago
      That drives up costs because you have to maintain many gigawatts of backup capacity sitting idle most of the year. It's better to have more flexible solutions that provide value the whole year. That's either baseload (fission, fusion) or grid-scale, seasonal storage (unsolved problem).
      - pfdietz 3y ago
        The backup capacity is cheap (in capital cost) compared to nuclear providing the same output. Like, an order of magnitude cheaper. Combustion turbines are remarkably compact and inexpensive for their power output (this is why they power our aircraft). It's wonderful what happens to machinery when you can reduce the need to transfer heat across fluid-solid boundaries. Rocket engines are an even more extreme example of this.