6 ms·

> we could probably solve some really fundamental world problems (i.e. energy, climate change) in the near future I have a feeling that if we had fusion plants

by wcoenen 13y ago

> we could probably solve some really fundamental world problems (i.e. energy, climate change) in the near future I have a feeling that if we had fusion plants providing limitless cheap power, we'd get back on an 8% yearly growth track for energy consumption, like with oil consumption before 1970. Then within a century or so, we'd be producing an amount of power equivalent to 20% of what the earth receives from the sun. It would give a whole new meaning to "global warming".

yaur 13y ago
An old article on exactly that which I found interesting http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-e... To sum it up "Free energy" buys us about 300-400 years of growth before thermodynamics kicks our ass.
- DennisP 13y ago
  Fortunately, if we had a lot more cheap energy we could probably get to space pretty easily too. So a lot of the growth wouldn't be happening on this planet.
  - yaur 13y ago
    Covered by the linked article to an extent and Asimov IIRC. Exponential growth requires FTL travel within a period shorter than recorded history even with free energy + space travel.
    - DennisP 13y ago
      Right, I wasn't suggesting it could continue indefinitely, just that the limit is well beyond this planet. Solar system at least, maybe nearby stars.
- YokoZar 13y ago
  It is a tiny bit unreasonable to project continuous exponential growth in human energy usage on such a ridiculously long timescale. It's like arguing that Moore's law will continue for another 200 years.
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    However that growth is precisely what the present human civilization and economic system are predicated on. That growth will stop sometime and a considerable amount of present pain seems to be that global growth is slowing markedly (and has been since the 1970s). Globally, economic activity and energy consumption are still tightly correlated: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1vlksg/economic_decoupling_the_recent_relationship/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1vlksg/economic...
    - YokoZar 13y ago
      Yes, and when you're a child your caloric intake and your yearly increase in height are very tightly correlated too. Lots of society is built around this growth, such as the expectation of having to buy bigger clothes every year. But even a child can understand that one day they will stop growing and eat approximately the same amount of food for the rest of their life. It would be "strange" to argue that, as a teenager, you were doomed to a life of misery because in order to keep up with this so-far exponential growth rate you'd have to eat entire planets by the time you were 1000 years old. It is similarly bizarre to argue that human society is in some sort of trouble because we can only double our energy consumption a few dozen more times. This isn't even bringing up economic concepts like diminishing returns to utility: a person who makes 100k per year does not spend twice as much energy as someone who makes 50k per year. There are plenty of other things to buy that make us happy, and that can only get even more true when we're living in some hypothetical future with hundreds of times the economic productivity of today.
      - dredmorbius 13y ago
        Humans run through a well-understood lifetime cycle of growth, maturity, and decline. Contemporary orthodoxy neoclassical economics doesn't generally recognize this, though it's beginning to. See Tim Worstall at the Telegraph UK: "Infinite growth on a finite planet? Easy-peasy!" http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/timworstall/100017248/infinite-growth-on-a-finite-planet-easy-peasy/ http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/timworstall/100017248/i... On the other side, Robert Gordon's "End of Growth" paper: http://www.voxeu.org/article/us-economic-growth-over http://www.voxeu.org/article/us-economic-growth-over Your assertion that a person earning 100k doesn't have twice the energy (or environmental) footprint of someone earning 50k really needs some sort of factual support. And your hypothetical future with 100s of times today's economic productivity flies in the face of the law of diminishing returns which you've invoked yourself.
- bcoates 13y ago
  Free energy buys us a century or more of energy growth. Nobody has any idea what anyone would use that much per capita energy for -- how much A/C, food and transportation are you capable of consuming?
arethuza 13y ago
I don't think fusion power plants are going to be that much cheaper to run than current nuclear power plants. Fuel costs are a small part of the operating costs of a nuclear plant (16% to 28%) and the capex costs probably won't be that different (e.g. they will still be based on heating water to create steam to power turbines to turn generators). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plan...
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  I totally agree with you, but now I'm wondering what the upside to fusion is over fission, besides being a great science landmark. No radioactive inputs or outputs?
  - arethuza 13y ago
    I guess availability of fuel is one big advantage, along with the cleanup of a fusion plant hopefully being a lot easier and cheaper than a fission reactor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power#Waste_management http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power#Waste_management A lot safer too!
    - vinceguidry 13y ago
      Isn't the primary cost of fission complying with safety regs? In that case, a safer design would directly translate to lower costs.
      - arethuza 13y ago
        According to Wikipedia the cost of electricity from modern nuclear stations is roughly comparable with sources like coal - which surprised me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source What I don't know is how much of the cost of nuclear power is the much higher level of safety precautions they need. I haven't seen any projected costs for DEMO which might well be the first fusion power plant (DEMO is the proposed successor to ITER): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO
AnthonyMouse 13y ago
> Then within a century or so, we'd be producing an amount of power equivalent to 20% of what the earth receives from the sun. It would give a whole new meaning to "global warming". Assuming we don't use the new energy in significant part to colonize other planets, with the colonies representing a significant part of the growth in human energy consumption.
graylights 13y ago
An abundance of energy would result in new technologies, engineering and infrastructure to use it. Water shortages could be addressed with large scale desalination. Shipping/transportation would become real cheap without significant fuel costs. Food issues could be addressed by commercial hydroponics.
- wcoenen 13y ago
  Exactly. There is so much incentive to keep using more and more power that we'd eventually cook ourselves in waste heat. You can't beat thermodynamics.

by wcoenen 13y ago

yaur 13y ago

An old article on exactly that which I found interesting http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-e... To sum it up "Free energy" buys us about 300-400 years of growth before thermodynamics kicks our ass.

DennisP 13y ago
Fortunately, if we had a lot more cheap energy we could probably get to space pretty easily too. So a lot of the growth wouldn't be happening on this planet.
- yaur 13y ago
  Covered by the linked article to an extent and Asimov IIRC. Exponential growth requires FTL travel within a period shorter than recorded history even with free energy + space travel.
  - DennisP 13y ago
    Right, I wasn't suggesting it could continue indefinitely, just that the limit is well beyond this planet. Solar system at least, maybe nearby stars.
YokoZar 13y ago
It is a tiny bit unreasonable to project continuous exponential growth in human energy usage on such a ridiculously long timescale. It's like arguing that Moore's law will continue for another 200 years.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  However that growth is precisely what the present human civilization and economic system are predicated on. That growth will stop sometime and a considerable amount of present pain seems to be that global growth is slowing markedly (and has been since the 1970s). Globally, economic activity and energy consumption are still tightly correlated: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1vlksg/economic_decoupling_the_recent_relationship/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1vlksg/economic...
  - YokoZar 13y ago
    Yes, and when you're a child your caloric intake and your yearly increase in height are very tightly correlated too. Lots of society is built around this growth, such as the expectation of having to buy bigger clothes every year. But even a child can understand that one day they will stop growing and eat approximately the same amount of food for the rest of their life. It would be "strange" to argue that, as a teenager, you were doomed to a life of misery because in order to keep up with this so-far exponential growth rate you'd have to eat entire planets by the time you were 1000 years old. It is similarly bizarre to argue that human society is in some sort of trouble because we can only double our energy consumption a few dozen more times. This isn't even bringing up economic concepts like diminishing returns to utility: a person who makes 100k per year does not spend twice as much energy as someone who makes 50k per year. There are plenty of other things to buy that make us happy, and that can only get even more true when we're living in some hypothetical future with hundreds of times the economic productivity of today.
    - dredmorbius 13y ago
      Humans run through a well-understood lifetime cycle of growth, maturity, and decline. Contemporary orthodoxy neoclassical economics doesn't generally recognize this, though it's beginning to. See Tim Worstall at the Telegraph UK: "Infinite growth on a finite planet? Easy-peasy!" http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/timworstall/100017248/infinite-growth-on-a-finite-planet-easy-peasy/ http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/timworstall/100017248/i... On the other side, Robert Gordon's "End of Growth" paper: http://www.voxeu.org/article/us-economic-growth-over http://www.voxeu.org/article/us-economic-growth-over Your assertion that a person earning 100k doesn't have twice the energy (or environmental) footprint of someone earning 50k really needs some sort of factual support. And your hypothetical future with 100s of times today's economic productivity flies in the face of the law of diminishing returns which you've invoked yourself.
bcoates 13y ago
Free energy buys us a century or more of energy growth. Nobody has any idea what anyone would use that much per capita energy for -- how much A/C, food and transportation are you capable of consuming?

arethuza 13y ago

I don't think fusion power plants are going to be that much cheaper to run than current nuclear power plants. Fuel costs are a small part of the operating costs of a nuclear plant (16% to 28%) and the capex costs probably won't be that different (e.g. they will still be based on heating water to create steam to power turbines to turn generators). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plan...

sliverstorm 13y ago
I totally agree with you, but now I'm wondering what the upside to fusion is over fission, besides being a great science landmark. No radioactive inputs or outputs?
- arethuza 13y ago
  I guess availability of fuel is one big advantage, along with the cleanup of a fusion plant hopefully being a lot easier and cheaper than a fission reactor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power#Waste_management http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power#Waste_management A lot safer too!
  - vinceguidry 13y ago
    Isn't the primary cost of fission complying with safety regs? In that case, a safer design would directly translate to lower costs.
    - arethuza 13y ago
      According to Wikipedia the cost of electricity from modern nuclear stations is roughly comparable with sources like coal - which surprised me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source What I don't know is how much of the cost of nuclear power is the much higher level of safety precautions they need. I haven't seen any projected costs for DEMO which might well be the first fusion power plant (DEMO is the proposed successor to ITER): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO

AnthonyMouse 13y ago

> Then within a century or so, we'd be producing an amount of power equivalent to 20% of what the earth receives from the sun. It would give a whole new meaning to "global warming". Assuming we don't use the new energy in significant part to colonize other planets, with the colonies representing a significant part of the growth in human energy consumption.

graylights 13y ago

An abundance of energy would result in new technologies, engineering and infrastructure to use it. Water shortages could be addressed with large scale desalination. Shipping/transportation would become real cheap without significant fuel costs. Food issues could be addressed by commercial hydroponics.

wcoenen 13y ago
Exactly. There is so much incentive to keep using more and more power that we'd eventually cook ourselves in waste heat. You can't beat thermodynamics.