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I'd like to see someone, somewhere address the accounting realities of fusion, even if the science and engineering can be made to work. The various scaling law
by bradleyjg 13y ago
I'd like to see someone, somewhere address the accounting realities of fusion, even if the science and engineering can be made to work.
The various scaling laws have pushed the minimum viable power plant size higher and higher. Now we are at the point where even if ITER and DEMO work out exactly as thier designers hope we will have "commercially viable fusion" that involves a monolithic multi-gigawatt plant that requires the bulk of its TCO to be made up front before any electricity is produced. That means profitability will be highly dependant on financing rates, construction time, and above all stable or increasing demand and prices for decades after construction begins.
- bsder 13y ago> I'd like to see someone, somewhere address the accounting realities of fusion, even if the science and engineering can be made to work. Yeah, well, that's part of the problem with fusion. When it works once, it sucks all the profit out of the energy market. That's why we do need governments to step in and fund things like this.