[HN Gopher] Why fusion will never happen (2012)
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Why fusion will never happen (2012)
Author : CharlesW
Score : 98 points
Date : 2022-12-18 16:28 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (matter2energy.wordpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (matter2energy.wordpress.com)
| riskable wrote:
| The argument the author seems to be trying to make is that fusion
| power will never be _realistic_ because it 'll be too expensive.
| Then goes on to explain why it's expensive _today_. You could
| make the same exact argument about wind and solar a few decades
| ago.
|
| Also, there's a TON of assumptions in the arguments he's making.
| For example, he takes an existing fusion reactor design and
| assumes every one built from now until forever will be exactly
| the same or that they'll even use the heat->steam method of
| energy extraction. When it comes to fusion you can extract energy
| energy from the charged particles themselves via Aneutronic
| Fusion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneutronic_fusion) and skip
| that 1-meter-thick lithium shielding and a whole lot of other
| expensive things.
| js8 wrote:
| We already have a fusion reactor, so I don't see the point of
| building another small one here on Earth.
| selimnairb wrote:
| Title should be: "Why fusion will never happen in a market-based
| context". If fusion plants can be shown to be carbon negative
| (i.e., can be used to draw carbon out of the atmosphere by
| powering mineralization, etc.), we will absolutely try to build
| them at some point, regardless of the cost. Expecting markets
| financed by bankers to build them is ridiculous. The assumption
| is that markets factor in all costs, which they don't and likely
| never will. This is the problem with markets, they are
| fundamentally dumb, or at least naive and blinkered; they don't
| know that there are things they don't know. This is why we can't
| solve the climate crisis through market-based systems alone.
| [deleted]
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| General Fusion is building their test plant in the UK right now.
| anodari wrote:
| Overall, the reasoning in the text appears to be valid. It is
| true that the cost to build a fusion reactor may never be cost-
| effective compared to solar and wind energy, but from a human and
| scientific perspective, it makes sense to continue researching
| and developing fusion technology. It is possible that in the
| future, we may need fusion power for space exploration or other
| purposes, and it is important to continue pursuing this
| technology in order to advance our understanding and capabilities
| in this area.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Re wind being so cheap: it is currently because we have fossil
| backup. If fossil fuels and nuclear get phased out, we might wake
| up to a reality where, when the wind blows, energy is basically
| free, and when it doesn't, it is extortionately expensive.
|
| That might change the economics, for nuclear fission as well as
| fusion.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Both fission and fusion are awful at peaking. For peaker energy
| you want low capital investment and higher marginal costs.
|
| Fusion and fission are extremely capital expensive with quite
| hefty marginal costs through the steam side. They're simply
| awful at solving the last 20%. Even worse when they're undercut
| badly enough to never run for the first 80%.
| ilyt wrote:
| Why _would_ fusion be bad for peaking ? It got none of the
| fission problems regarding that.
| DennisP wrote:
| Whether fusion is good at peaking will depend on which fusion
| technologies end up working. Helion for one would be
| _fantastic_ at peaking. It 's likely to be quite cheap,
| wouldn't use a turbine, and could run fusion pulses at
| whatever rate we need.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| it's still a pretty bad peaker. it's cheaper than a tomumak
| but it still needs a ton of capacitors and incredibly
| precise machining.
| DennisP wrote:
| They claim an electricity price of $0.01/kWh even before
| mass production kicks in. If they achieve that, the
| economics will work out fine.
| pfdietz wrote:
| I'll believe that when I see it, but that price would be
| more than good enough to beat renewables.
|
| I find it amusing that Helion's approach also strongly
| depends on the cost of storage, just in a very different
| part of storage parameter space.
| bell-cot wrote:
| With the capital costs of every form of ~continuous-output
| fusion reactor, the _only_ fusion technology that would be
| good for peaking would be H-bombs.
|
| That has been looked into, in the context of propelling
| very large spacecraft. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proj
| ect_Orion_(nuclear_propuls... )
| pfdietz wrote:
| Helion's approach is I'd guess still dominated by capital
| cost, not fuel cost, so it's relatively bad at peaking.
| Granted, if they split the reactors into DD reactors making
| 3He, and field reactors burning the 3He (with reduced DD),
| it might make more sense to turn the latter up and down, if
| they have a relatively larger part of their cost from their
| fuel.
| janef0421 wrote:
| They can't peak independently, but their reliability and low
| marginal cost means that they can are well suited to
| providing peaking capacity in conjunction with storage.
| Excess power from the reactor can be used to place energy in
| the storage source, which is then discharged during peak
| load. Due to the reliability of the nuclear generator, the
| amount of storage required can be relatively small.
| Archelaos wrote:
| > when the wind blows, energy is basically free, and when it
| doesn't, it is extortionately expensive.
|
| This is why one must look at the whole spectrum not only on
| wind and solar. There is hydro, biomass[1] and geothermal as
| well. The latter is currently not so relevant directly for
| electricity in most regions, but has a hugh potential to
| replace other energy sources, including electricity, for
| heating buildings via heat pumps.
|
| [1] In the USA biomass plays a comparatively minor role in
| electricity production: 1.3% of all, 6.5% of renewables (half
| of solar). In a more advanced country like Germany the numbers
| are: 8.8% of all, 19% of renewables (a little less than solar).
| -- Sources: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Germany
| AntoniusBlock wrote:
| Depends on whether we improve battery technology, then we could
| store the excess for less windy days. Also I did a quick search
| and there are places on Earth that are consistently very windy,
| so we could maybe even set up massive wind farms there.
| Commonwealth Bay, Antartica is apparently the windiest place on
| Earth, where the average annual windspeed is 50mph, according
| to the Guinness World Record book.
| throwaway0x7E6 wrote:
| it isn't even economical to transfer electricity from north
| africa to europe
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| It's completely economical, and it's being worked on.
|
| It's difficult for political reasons, not economic or
| practical ones.
| fpoling wrote:
| UK is planing a cable from Morocco
| moloch-hai wrote:
| Battery technology doesn't need improvement, and most storage
| won't be in chemical batteries. Batteries will remain the
| expensive alternative.
| aeternum wrote:
| The way solar prices are trending, energy will also be free
| when it's sunny out, maybe even partially sunny.
|
| Then the way EVs are trending, each home should have giant
| batteries in their garage and a good percentage will likely be
| incentivized to charge their EV when the sun/wind is strong and
| potentially release it back to the grid when its not.
| nwiswell wrote:
| Not everyone lives in the suburbs with a two-car garage.
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| revnode wrote:
| Not everyone is necessary. You just need a critical number
| to balance the grid.
| aeternum wrote:
| Cities are already energy efficient compared to the
| suburbs. Most cities have plenty of suburbs around them,
| and lots (arguably too many) large parking garages that can
| be used for the same purpose.
| jghn wrote:
| Indeed. Where I live most people are limited to street
| parking. It wasn't so bad keeping an EV charged using
| public chargers, but as more people are getting EVs the
| public chargers are becoming harder to access.
| persedes wrote:
| checkout ubricity, have not used them but the concept is
| pretty neat: use street lights for ev charging.
| theptip wrote:
| Or public chargers will see higher utilization and
| therefore be more prevalent. Supply/demand - neither is
| static.
| akira2501 wrote:
| And supply and demand still have to deal with physical
| constraints and the current layout of the grid. You can
| only install so many chargers in a given area before you
| find blocking issues.
| thinking4real wrote:
| Sounds like a dystopian reality where we revert back to only
| really functioning when the sun is in the sky.
| moloch-hai wrote:
| You will completely forget that you ever predicted such a
| thing.
|
| After there is enough renewable generating capacity to
| charge it from, storage will be built out, and NG turbines
| will be used decreasingly often. Many will be converted to
| burn ammonia instead, which will be fixed at solar farms in
| the tropics and shipped wherever it is wanted.
|
| If there is dystopia it will be via failure to build out
| fast enough.
| The_Double wrote:
| Society already slows down a lot when the sun is down. Is
| that dystopian too?
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Luckily, between CO2 emissions and climate catastrophe,
| toxic energy waste of various kinds, air quality issues,
| and geopolitical instability largely caused by resource
| wars, our current reality isn't dystopian at all.
| api wrote:
| This already kind of happens in places with a lot of solar
| around noon. Not the extortionate part but the almost free when
| the system is saturated part.
| audunw wrote:
| > If fossil fuels and nuclear get phased out
|
| Don't you realise the consequences of phasing out fossil fuels?
| So much of that is used for, well fuels.. and even when it
| isn't, like fertilisers, it's still something that's produced
| in bulk in large quantities and stored. We'll have to produce a
| HUGE amounts of hydrogen, ammonia, etc. .. and in the absolute
| worst case scenario we can store some of that hydrogen and use
| in in existing natural gas power plants (yes, running a turbine
| on 100% hydrogen has been demonstrated already).
|
| We're already seeing the prices swing more due to renewables,
| and we're already seeing that it's creating a lot of solutions
| for shifting energy consumption. Right now I can connect my EV
| directly to my electricity provider and they'll stop or start
| charging based on prices. There's an entire parking garage in
| the Netherlands full of EV rental cars that can deliver power
| back to grid when prices are higher.
|
| People seem to think nuclear will let us avoid solving the
| energy storage problems. No. You _might_ be able to run some
| big ships on nuclear, but not much else. If we solve the
| problems we need to solve to stop climate change (in a
| sustainable way.. don 't get me started on CCS), then we'll be
| doing energy storage at just around the same scale needed to
| balance renewables. BEVs is a pretty good illustration of that,
| where, if you have one you suddenly have enough energy storage
| to run your house a day or three. If we're making enough
| batteries for all cars to be EVs, we're making battery at a
| scale where a doubling could give most households dedicated
| battery storage. I'm not sure exactly that will be the
| solution, maybe it'll be more specialised grid-level batteries
| like Ambri.. point is, we're moving towards a world where we
| HAVE to become experts at transforming and storing energy.
| Cause we're not getting "free" storable/transportable energy
| from the ground for eternity.
| WaxProlix wrote:
| Batteries are a thing, and continue to improve & diversify. The
| same arguments about pace apply here, too.
| captainmuon wrote:
| Would that be a showstopper? Then we would just produce less
| stuff when energy is expensive, and more when it is cheap. We'd
| build houses to keep a pleasant temperature for longer. We'd
| combine local energy generation with a strong grid to transport
| energy over longer distances.
|
| Stuff will become more expensive, economic activity might be
| somewhat dampened, but that might be offset by the cheapness of
| wind and solar, and by the fact that building the new
| infrastructure will create a lot of growth. And in the end, it
| will literally save the planet. I'd choose a bit slower
| economic activity over accelerating climate change any time.
| pifm_guy wrote:
| You're assuming energy companies switch to hourly priced
| billing.
|
| But nationwide nearly everyone is on a fixed price per kWh
| deal, and current electricity meters don't usually even
| support pricing that chances every few minutes, as would need
| to happen to incentivize people to only use power when the
| wind blows.
|
| The cost of simply upgrading every electricity meter to a
| modern one is many years of profits for most energy
| companies.
| fulafel wrote:
| This seems pretty pessimistic. Weather forecasts exist and
| things work quite well already today eg for day ahead
| hourly pricing model, lots of end user energy contracts are
| like that.
| titannet wrote:
| Interesting Argumentation. But why can't China build a fusion
| reactor?
| bell-cot wrote:
| Just like China building lead balloons - they can. But, beyond
| prestige- and research-level efforts, they may have better uses
| for their money.
| [deleted]
| moloch-hai wrote:
| Note that solar PV cost has come down by 3x since that was
| written, and wind similarly. There is no expectation that those
| will bottom out soon.
|
| It does mean that to keep the cost of full systems falling, we
| need cheaper installation methods, such as rolling out rather
| than bolting up frames.
| russdill wrote:
| I think we've come to accept the externalities of wind and
| solar (land area, visual changes to landscape, etc) because the
| costs of those externalities are so much less than the
| alternatives. They still exist though. Fusion is probably too
| late to solve climate change, but I think it's a laudable goal
| to one day replace renawables such as hydro, wind, and solar
| farms with fusion.
| geysersam wrote:
| Yes, indeed. Compared to drastically altering the planets
| climate, drowning most coastal cities, causing a mass
| extinction event and disrupting the freshwater supply of
| billions, visual changes to the landscape does seem like the
| minor issue.
| Decabytes wrote:
| Anytime alternative sources of clean energy come up there are
| always comments about the problem with using them (What happens
| if there is no wind, water, sun etc), or about storing excess
| energy (we can't create a reliable battery network). The reality
| is that the fossil fuel sources we currently use had tons of
| engineering issues that had to be solved for it to work at scale.
| It took decades but we got there.
|
| I'm confident with enough bright minds we can solve all of these
| problems with clean energy. It will just require time and energy
| and actual investment that isn't lobbied against by big oil. For
| example I'm confident that if we commit to nuclear energy we can
| find a way to get reactors built in under five years. And even if
| we didn't if enough were being built in parallel you could have
| one being onlined every year in every state just like how a new
| phone comes out every year, even though it takes years of
| development to make the next one.
| Veedrac wrote:
| This article is good in some ways and mistaken in others.
| Particularly, as a criticism of the ITER/DEMO path to fusion, it
| is correct. That was never a viable path to commercial fusion.
|
| The mistakes made, or else those allowed for but not predicted,
| listed without particular order,
|
| * Not all fusion requires turbines. Eg. Helion's designs don't.
|
| * Most if not all renewables require either energy storage, or
| much better energy transport, which must be factored into their
| price.
|
| * The size of commercial magnetic confinement plants is not well
| represented by DEMO, given new high temperature superconductors.
|
| * (Personal opinion) The cost of fission plants is mostly a
| consequence of regulation, and this dominates the financial
| aspect.
|
| That said, the idea that fusion has extremely tough cost
| competition from solar and wind, and that it will get
| increasingly tougher over time, is (and has turned out to be)
| absolutely true.
| qayxc wrote:
| I wouldn't think of wind and solar as competition to fusion.
| Fusion power would have a different role in future electricity
| grids. Both would be complementing each other, rather than
| being a replacement.
|
| Solar and wind are comparatively cheap and quick to deploy and
| are great solutions for decentralised power generation.
| Wherever reliable continuous power is required, however, other
| methods of power generation have to step in. This could also
| still change of course, depending on how storage technology
| progresses. But the cheap super-battery is probably just as
| ambitious as fusion power is today.
| guilamu wrote:
| I think we are not that far away from the "cheap super-
| battery": https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/10/catl-will-
| mass-produce... Does this qualify as "super-battery", you
| tell me, but it's pretty good and cheap and could easily
| scale for storage of solar and wind.
| pfdietz wrote:
| They really are competitors, in the sense that intermittent
| sources, and fixed cost dominated sources, are both
| inflexible, and compete with each other on that basis. Cost
| optimized solutions for the grid typically contain a lot of
| one and little or none of the other.
| danpalmer wrote:
| > Most if not all renewables require either energy storage, or
| much better energy transport, which must be factored into their
| price.
|
| This was the big one for me. Many people underestimate the
| complexity of energy transport over long distances. At some
| scales, this is still a materials science research topic, but
| even when it has been commercialised it's exorbitantly
| expensive over the international distances that would be
| required.
|
| As for storage, despite the medium scale battery deployments
| we've seen in the last ~5 years, and pumped hydro, I'm
| remaining unconvinced that storage is something we'll rely on
| for industrial-scale grid usage in a post-fossil fuel world.
| These solutions need to be able to power a country, with all
| its industry, for ~days while wind and solar aren't running at
| necessary levels.
| cycomanic wrote:
| >> Most if not all renewables require either energy storage,
| or much better energy transport, which must be factored into
| their price.
|
| >This was the big one for me. Many people underestimate the
| complexity of energy transport over long distances. At some
| scales, this is still a materials science research topic, but
| even when it has been commercialised it's exorbitantly
| expensive over the international distances that would be
| required.
|
| There's plenty of long distance electricity links that
| operate commercially, and they are cash positive simply due
| to price differentials between regions. To give you some
| examples, both Sweden and Norway are connected to
| Denmark/Germany and essentially power countries like Italy or
| France when the demand is there. Essentially much of the
| European energy grid is already integrated and it is
| profitable to build extra links simply because of price
| differentials due to weather. So if you have different
| evidence, please provide it.
|
| > As for storage, despite the medium scale battery
| deployments we've seen in the last ~5 years, and pumped
| hydro, I'm remaining unconvinced that storage is something
| we'll rely on for industrial-scale grid usage in a post-
| fossil fuel world. These solutions need to be able to power a
| country, with all its industry, for ~days while wind and
| solar aren't running at necessary levels.
|
| Again if your grid is large enough you really don't need to
| power the whole country, but even so unlike nuclear and
| fusion, storage solutions are on an exponential cost
| reduction curve (however you are correct that they are
| currently still expensive).
| cycomanic wrote:
| > * (Personal opinion) The cost of fission plants is mostly a
| consequence of regulation, and this dominates the financial
| aspect.
|
| Do you have any evidence to actually back that up? This is
| being brought up every time we talk about nuclear and every
| time someone asks for evidence there's nothing. All the serious
| analyses of the cost, actually show this is not the case. I
| mean this very article explains why, nuclear reactors are
| thermal plants based on a steam engine. The article directly
| mentions even if the reactor is free they are more expensive
| than wind or solar, in other words just the steam engine is
| already too expensive.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| "Why X will never happen (xxxx)" is always ballsy or stupid, and
| usually the latter.
| fantyoon wrote:
| It seems to me that this article is not wrong, yet. Unless I
| misread, it argues that there will never be profitable power
| plants using fusion, rather than fusion being impossible.
| deltree7 wrote:
| This is exactly the reason why we need lots of Billionaires.
|
| Sure, Fusion may be risky for Bankers. It won't be for
| Billionaires or even ultra-rich eccentric Billionaires.
|
| Billionaires can also take lots of risk with their capital.
|
| Once again the Author dismisses human ingenuity and singular
| obsession of people to make things happen.
|
| Money is the worst reason. You can always print Money (We printed
| $10 Trillion of them). What Next? Is there anything fundamentally
| expensive about the raw materials used? If not, you can reduce
| the cost to it's commodity prices. The commodity prices itself
| will collapse to ~$0 if energy and labor is ~$0. Finally you need
| labor. With ChatGPT and Robots, labor is also ~$0
|
| So, _never_ is absolutely the wrong choice of word
| dale_glass wrote:
| That's silly.
|
| Say, Musk is worth 169 billion. UK's Hinkley Point C is
| somewhere around 25 billion. Now, maybe that particular plant
| is a special problem child, but I wouldn't expect to have a
| new, untested yet technology built for cheaper than a
| troublesome nuclear one.
|
| So Musk can build a total of 6 of those, probably a good deal
| less because that's just theoretical wealth -- he'd have to
| sell everything he owns, and wouldn't get the full price for
| that.
|
| To build more he'd need more money. To get money, those plants
| need to make a profit, and pay off their loans. At that
| construction price it's virtually certain they never will.
|
| So the attempt would probably die at that -- at most 6 plants,
| producing power at a price nobody wants to pay. They either
| idle since nobody's buying, or sell at a huge loss until money
| runs out.
| compsciphd wrote:
| I'd note that this is being somewhat obtuse on my part, but one
| could argue that all solar energy is really a fusion byproduct.
| [deleted]
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| There are straight up inaccuracies in this article which makes
| the know-it-all tone even more insufferable.
|
| For example, they claim the sole reason nuclear is declining in
| the West is because of capital. This is straightforwardly not
| true. Politics have played a huge role, most notably in Germany.
| fpoling wrote:
| Sweden shut down one of nuclear reactors due to raising
| maintenance cost. In France two reactors were put off-line for
| more than a year due to unexpected cracks in piping after just
| 25 years of operations.
|
| Even in Germany the decision to shutdown the reactors was
| partly economical. 10 years ago assumption about using cheap
| Russian gas until renewables catches up was not entering
| unreasonable.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| > makes the know-it-all tone even more insufferable
|
| Oh, you mean that he refers to actual business costs where no
| one else does?
| willnonya wrote:
| "There are straight up inaccuracies in this article which makes
| the know-it-all tone even more insufferable."
|
| They call that "the internet".
|
| To be fair politics are a factor in the economics. Looking at
| the US the politics. Especially in California, make building or
| expanding nuclear power much lore expe since than it really
| should be.
| vajrabum wrote:
| Politics includes history which none of this discussion has.
| It's more than a little scary how many nuke plants in
| California were built in seismically active spots no sane
| engineer would have chosen if the risks were properly
| understood at design and construction time, and California
| likely doesn't have the plants most at risk.
| https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna42103936
| wewxjfq wrote:
| That's the stab-in-the-back myth of nuclear energy. When
| Germany banned new nuclear power plants, they hadn't built one
| for 20 years.
| dale_glass wrote:
| Politics are hugely related to economics. If nuclear was making
| bank, the industry would have the capital to beat the political
| problems.
|
| Eg, suppose for a second we make a nuclear power plant that can
| profitably sell power for half the price that anything else on
| the market does. Well, you're a smart business person, so you
| don't price yourself at 50% of the competition. You price
| yourself at say, 90% of the competition, so you're still the
| cheapest, but now have a crazy profit margin.
|
| And with that huge profit margin you can do things like having
| elaborate security systems to reassure people, donate to
| politicians, run PR campaigns, build cool stuff to buy people's
| love, etc. You'd have a very straightforward comeback of "shut
| us down and everything gets more expensive".
|
| There's a reason why oil despite being a nasty, dirty and
| accident prone business isn't going anywhere.
| cycomanic wrote:
| That's simply a myth. Even Germany's decision to phase out
| nuclear was largely economical (it was the business friendly
| CDU who made the final decision). Currently a kWh of nuclear
| cost 3 times as much as wind in Germany (sorry the source was a
| paper magazine, I will update if I find an online source), that
| is for existing reactors which are >25years old. Nobody wants
| to build new plants.
|
| To contribute to the discussion you could have maybe brought
| some evidence if it was so clear cut.
| TreeRingCounter wrote:
| The article seems to blame "the bankers" for not investing in
| nuclear fusion, while completely ignoring the fact that most of
| the cost of new nuclear construction is from regulatory changes
| that happened in the last 50 years.
| prewett wrote:
| His point is that even if the reactor is _free_ , it's not
| competitive because of everything required to convert the heat
| to electricity makes it more expensive. That part has nothing
| to do with regulation.
| nosianu wrote:
| The "key point" according to the article itself is:
|
| > _Now here's the key point I'm trying to make: it's not that
| fusion is expensive, it's that everything else is cheaper._
| Gwypaas wrote:
| TMI, Fukushima and Chernobyl are acceptable events which we
| should simply deal with every 10th year when they happen?
| theironhammer wrote:
| mjhay wrote:
| Those events killed orders of magnitude less people than coal
| plants do every year, from normal operation. Fukushima, in
| particular, only had one death attributable to radiation.
|
| Fission is the only operational technology that can replace
| fossil fuels for base load. Grid storage for solar and wind
| is just so under-developed and difficult to scale. We have to
| stop emitting CO2 ASAP, we can't wait for tech that may or
| may not work. Ruling out fission because of these
| demonstrably small risks is wildly irrational, when the
| alternative is total global social and ecological collapse.
|
| Humans tend to judge unfamiliar but small risks as being much
| larger - think of how there are annual panics about razor
| blades/fentanyl/whatever in Halloween candy, but not the cars
| that kill over 70 children each Halloween on average. This
| same tendency is exactly why there is so much irrational fear
| around nuclear.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| The great thing is that coal is not the alternative
| anymore, renewables are.
|
| https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-
| energy-...
|
| Base load on the producer side is an outdated term. It
| simply came into existence because the most inflexible
| plants used to be the cheapest, that is not the case
| anymore. You can talk about base demand, but that can be
| fulfilled using any source.
|
| Or as Wikipedia puts it:
|
| > The base load (also baseload) is the minimum level of
| demand on an electrical grid over a span of time, for
| example, one week. This demand can be met by unvarying
| power plants, dispatchable generation, or by a collection
| of smaller intermittent energy sources, depending on which
| approach has the best mix of cost, availability and
| reliability in any particular market.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load
|
| > This same tendency is exactly why there is so much
| irrational fear around nuclear.
|
| Or because you still have to measure the radioactivity of
| wild game and mushrooms in northern Sweden and Bavaria.
|
| > Although game is considered a delicacy in Bavaria, large
| amounts of meat are disposed of. Because many wild boars
| are still contaminated with radioactivity - even 35 years
| after the Chernobyl reactor accident.
|
| https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2021-04-26-35-years-
| after-...
| mjhay wrote:
| I've seen people make these semantic arguments you're
| making to confuse the situation around base load. The
| reality is that you have not offered any alternative, and
| your post only muddies the waters.
|
| > Base load on the producer side is an outdated term. It
| simply came into existence because the most inflexible
| plants used to be the cheapest, that is not the case
| anymore. You can talk about base demand, but that can be
| fulfilled using any source.
|
| Oh really? _What 's this more flexible power?_ Is it
| perhaps _natural gas_? It 's interesting how anti-nuclear
| people always gloss that over.
|
| > Or because you still have to measure the radioactivity
| of wild game and mushrooms in northern Sweden and
| Bavaria.
|
| Having to test some mushrooms and game meat is nothing
| compared to the damage fossil fuels do in their intended
| use. Rivers and soils in many places have been poisoned
| by fossil fuel extraction, including from natural gas.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Given your answers, I suspect you have a quite dogmatic
| view of the world, but we can nonetheless look into
| research and other sources.
|
| > Much of the resistance towards 100% Renewable Energy
| (RE) systems in the literature seems to come from the
| a-priori assumption that an energy system based on solar
| and wind is impossible since these energy sources are
| variable. Critics of 100% RE systems like to contrast
| solar and wind with 'firm' energy sources like nuclear
| and fossil fuels (often combined with CCS) that bring
| their own storage. This is the key point made in some
| already mentioned reactions, such as those by Clack et
| al. [225], Trainer [226], Heard et al. [227] Jenkins et
| al. [228], and Caldeira et al. [275], [276].
|
| > However, while it is true that keeping a system with
| variable sources stable is more complex, a range of
| strategies can be employed that are often ignored or
| underutilized in critical studies: oversizing solar and
| wind capacities; strengthening interconnections [68],
| [82], [132], [143], [277], [278]; demand response [279],
| [172], e.g. smart electric vehicles charging using
| delayed charging or delivering energy back to the
| electricity grid via vehicle-to-grid [181], [280]-[282];
| storage (battery, compressed air, pumped hydro)[40]-[43],
| [46], [83], [140], [142], such as stationary batteries;
| sector coupling [16], [39], [90]-[92], [97], [132],
| [216], e.g. optimizing the interaction between
| electricity, heat, transport, and industry; power-to-X
| [39], [106], [134], [176], e.g. producing hydrogen at
| moments when there is abundant energy; et cetera. Using
| all these strategies effectively to mitigate variability
| is where much of the cutting-edge development of 100% RE
| scenarios takes place.
|
| > With every iteration in the research and with every
| technological breakthrough in these areas, 100% RE
| systems become increasingly viable. Even former critics
| must admit that adding e-fuels through PtX makes 100% RE
| possible at costs similar to fossil fuels. These critics
| are still questioning whether 100% RE is the cheapest
| solution but no longer claim it would be unfeasible or
| prohibitively expensive. Variability, especially short
| term, has many mitigation options, and energy system
| studies are increasingly capturing these in their 100% RE
| scenarios.
|
| https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910
|
| Or we can take a look at Wikipedia for an even broader
| view
|
| > 100% renewable energy means getting all energy from
| renewable resources. The endeavor to use 100% renewable
| energy for electricity, heating, cooling and transport is
| motivated by climate change, pollution and other
| environmental issues, as well as economic and energy
| security concerns.
|
| > Research into this topic is fairly new, with very few
| studies published before 2009, but has gained increasing
| attention in recent years. The majority of studies show
| that a global transition to 100% renewable energy across
| all sectors - power, heat, transport and desalination -
| is feasible and economically viable.[5][6][7][8] A cross-
| sectoral, holistic approach is seen as an important
| feature of 100% renewable energy systems and is based on
| the assumption "that the best solutions can be found only
| if one focuses on the synergies between the sectors" of
| the energy system such as electricity, heat, transport or
| industry.[9]
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100%25_renewable_energy
|
| Use power-to-x, biofuel, or even in emergencies, burn
| natural gas for the last percentage points for all that I
| care. The important part is economically solving the
| energy transition for the vast majority of cases, not
| being an absolutist.
| LastTrain wrote:
| Those exist for a reason, care to say why they aren't necessary
| before dismissing them outright? Surely you agree some amount
| of regulation is necessary?
| [deleted]
| gamegoblin wrote:
| Any set of nuclear regulations that aren't just a copy of
| France's nuclear regulations are probably too restrictive.
| France gets 3/4 of their electricity from nuclear without any
| major incidents.
|
| (Obviously this is overly simplistic, there is a set of
| natural disasters that France isn't subject to that other
| countries are, so France is just a starting point. But every
| addition should be justified by answer the question "What
| about our circumstances makes us different from France
| here?")
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Half of France's nuclear fleet is offline due to
| maintenance issues. They've gone from an electricity
| exporter to importer when it is most needed.
|
| Have a look at Flamanville 3 and try to sell another 50 of
| those to the public.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamanville_Nuclear_Power_Pla
| n...
| gamegoblin wrote:
| And yet... no major safety events and still generating a
| significant amount of electricity.
|
| Obviously, as you point out, it could be better. But I'll
| take France, issues and all, over coal plants every day
| of the week.
|
| I expect France will get their act together.
|
| Re: net importer, their amount of import is basically a
| rounding error, on the order of 0.1% of their energy
| usage. They are energy neutral.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| The great thing is that the alternative is not coal
| plants anymore, it is renewables.
|
| https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-
| energy-...
| wolfram74 wrote:
| You've made two arguments here, all are necessary and some
| are necessary. There's a record of anti-nuclear sentiment
| being stoked by fossil fuel industry[0]
|
| [0]https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2016/07/13/are
| -f...
| wfh wrote:
| Agree with the article but, to me, demonstrates the reason why
| governments and regulators (and taxation authorities) make a
| difference here. E.g. if fossil fuels get a 200% tax then maybe
| nuclear/fusion (fission now) becomes more viable.
|
| Have to concede that wind and solar seem pretty good now, if
| combined with good grid-wide battery technology.
| rob74 wrote:
| Let's say good grid-wide _energy storage_ technology -
| generating hydrogen or ammonia, pumped storage, whatever works.
| Lots of technologies, and none as challenging as fusion...
| vilhelm_s wrote:
| This is kind of silly. Yes, nuclear is more expensive than wind,
| but this is irrelevant because (as the article also acknowledges)
| you can't replace nuclear with wind, you need something that
| works when the wind is not blowing.
|
| Rather, the tradeoff is between nuclear power and carbon-based
| power (and also hydro, but most places already built all the
| hydro power that geography permits). And the problem is that
| nuclear is _also_ more expensive than natural gas power plants.
| However, those are slowly ruining the planet, and if you take the
| cost of climate change into account, the carbon is much more
| expensive.
|
| The solution is for the government to either subsidise nuclear or
| tax carbon, to account for the externalities. This still won't
| make fusion power attractive right now, but in a couple of
| centuries we will be running out of the most accessible uranium
| deposits, at which point fusion might look better.
| dale_glass wrote:
| > This is kind of silly. Yes, nuclear is more expensive than
| wind, but this is irrelevant because (as the article also
| acknowledges) you can't replace nuclear with wind, you need
| something that works when the wind is not blowing.
|
| But, nobody cares! See, because there's not a single party
| responsible for everything with sane priorities.
|
| People will build wind because it makes a profit. People won't
| build nuclear because it doesn't. This will keep going until
| you end up with a heavily wind-powered system that lacks
| stability, but nobody building plants will care about that.
| Eventually power goes out, and solutions will be sought, but
| nuclear still won't be profitable.
|
| One possible solution is overbuilding. Have lots of wind and
| solar. Another solution is interconnection -- maybe half the
| power gets burned in transmission losses, but if you need it,
| you need it. And probably there will be a lot more interest in
| grid storage.
| jseliger wrote:
| Video regarding Helion that sama just posted:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bDXXWQxK38. Note that Helion
| says it can get D + D to work, which eliminates much of the OP's
| concern about tritium.
|
| The company is also hiring: https://blog.samaltman.com/helion-
| needs-you
|
| I do not personally have the ability or knowledge to
| independently evaluate claims, but the history of "it will never
| work" for something that does not outright violate the laws of
| physics as we understand them is notable too.
| ridgeguy wrote:
| A brief look at Helion's site indicates their technology
| requires He3 in the fuel mix. He3 comprises only about 10e-6 of
| natural helium, which itself is not exactly common. Is needing
| He3 more or less of an issue than needing tritium?
| kemiller wrote:
| Their process creates the He3 from deuterium. That's the
| secret sauce. They've got an interesting model and the direct
| energy capture approach invalidates much of OPs point. We
| will see though.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Helion's CEO is doing quite a bit of outreach; I have seen him
| participate in all sorts of different videos in channels hosted
| by educational youtuber like [1], and "Real Engineering" in the
| sibling comment.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsikwXnUcBs
| pfdietz wrote:
| For a while now I've been saying Helion is the least dubious of
| all the fusion efforts. Their approach cleverly avoids or
| strongly ameliorates some of the serious engineering/economic
| issues that face the DT approaches.
|
| Interestingly, I am told Helion looked at using their scheme
| for DT fusion and concluded it would be more expensive than
| going to advanced fuels, since it would require heat ->
| electricity conversion in turbines and rotating generators.
|
| Will this still be too expensive to compete with renewables?
| Quite possibly, but I think it's more than attractive enough to
| spend the money to find out.
|
| I'm glad Helion seems to have broken into that exponentially
| increasing mindshare hype phase. It's going to be interesting
| waiting for Polaris to come online in 2024. It's also going to
| be interesting see the effect on other fusion efforts. I
| suspect this is good news for the other FRC competitors (TAE,
| Princeton Fusion Systems). Possibly it will not be good news
| for the more staid traditional approaches, like those using
| tokamaks.
| Retric wrote:
| Helicon is as far as I can tell the least likely fusion
| effort to actually succeed because they are making serious
| hype without producing any data to actually back it up. As
| well as making some wild claims that don't match up with
| reality. A single advancement is vastly more believable but
| when they are suggesting so many advantages such as not
| needing tritium or steam turbines the most likely thing is
| for them to just be lying.
|
| At a more practical level, any device actually producing non
| trivial amounts of fusion using helium 3 would quickly make
| the device extremely radioactive from all the high energy
| protons being produced.
|
| PS: DD fusion produces H3 half the time, it also produces
| tritium the other half which isn't generally going to be a
| waste product it's going to fuse in the reaction chamber
| filled with D producing very high enegry neutrons.
| pfdietz wrote:
| "Helicon". I hope that's an accidental mispelling, not
| libel.
|
| Why exactly do you think they need to provide public data?
| They're a company, not academics. They've provided data to
| their funders, who have also had external experts review
| the results, including the famous JASON physicists. The
| result of this got them $500M for Polaris and another $1.7B
| conditioned on the success of that machine.
|
| My impression of Helion is from when I thought their ideas
| didn't work. This invariably ended up being because I had
| some misunderstanding of what they were doing. When I
| thought of a concern, I would find they had already
| addressed it. This makes all of the things they're doing
| ring very true. Maybe it will end up not working, but it's
| not because of anything obvious.
|
| Your comment about high energy protons is wrong. The
| fraction of MeV-scale protons that will undergo a nuclear
| reaction in a target is very small and drops to essentially
| zero if the material has high atomic number (because the
| Coulomb barrier is too high). The induced radioactivity
| from the protons will be negligible in a properly designed
| system.
|
| About the tritium: the pulse in Helion's design is so short
| that the tritium nuclei do not have time to thermalize. At
| the energy they are initially produced the DT fusion cross
| section is about an order of magnitude smaller. So, most of
| the T (I'm estimating all but a few percent) will not fuse
| before the pulse ends. If they have a gas with a low D:3He
| ratio, DT fusion is suppressed even more. They appear to
| planning a scheme where there are DD reactors that make
| 3He, and then D3He reactors that consume it. The latter
| could be designed with a much more favorable neutron
| environment.
| nullc wrote:
| Invoking the word libel may chill valid and valuable
| criticism, can you edit your post to say "insult"
| instead?
| Retric wrote:
| They are unquestionably creating Hype without releasing
| data because that's what's best for the company. It's
| fine for a private company to maintain stealth, but the
| combination of hype and not releasing meaningful metrics
| is a very bad sign.
|
| High energy Neutrons are nasty, the issue with high
| atomic number shielding is it doesn't slow them down very
| well. Sort of like tossing a ping pong ball at a bowling
| ball it just doesn't transfer much energy. Even 1%
| Tritium would be a problem.
| schiffern wrote:
| >A single advancement is vastly more believable but when
| they are suggesting so many advantages such as not needing
| tritium or steam turbines the most likely thing is for them
| to just be lying.
|
| It's so strange to see someone use a PR logic process
| ("optics") to evaluate a technical claim, rather than using
| physics and engineering.
|
| The advanced fuel cycle and the direct conversion of plasma
| pressure to energy are connected. The former enables the
| latter, and the latter is quite clever.
| aardvarkr wrote:
| >It's so strange to see someone use a PR logic process
| ("optics") to evaluate a technical claim, rather than
| using physics and engineering.
|
| I think it's fair to apply the "smell test" in this case.
|
| We've recently see several high profile collapses of
| fraudulent companies like Nikola and Theranos that
| claimed to have miraculous technology breakthroughs.
|
| Nikola claimed to have solve problems in hydrogen
| synthesis, transportation, fueling, electricity
| generation, engine miniaturization, and more. They didn't
| have a piece of that technological chain and yet made
| some incredibly bold claims so they could continue
| inflating the hype around the company and skyrocket its
| valuation.
|
| I'm not saying Helion is in the same boat as Nikola but
| it's fair to be skeptical.
| moloch-hai wrote:
| If Helion ends up powering outer solar system probes, that
| wouldn't be so bad.
| tedd4u wrote:
| Yesterday's discussion on that video (form Real Engineering)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34029426
| pitaj wrote:
| I'm really surprised this didn't get more engagement given
| the massive engagement with pretty much any other fusion
| story here.
| tedd4u wrote:
| Agreed! AFAIK much of that video was news.
| pfdietz wrote:
| More comments on Reddit.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/fusion/comments/zo9831/the_real_eng.
| ..
| bluedino wrote:
| We haven't even been doing controlled nuclear reactions for 100
| years yet
| Gwypaas wrote:
| The fusion question simply boils down to:
|
| How are you going to generate power with your fusion plant?
| Steam?
|
| Coal and nuclear are uncompetitive simply from the cost of the
| steam side. Today you can just about give a steam plant free
| energy and it still makes a loss.
|
| Solar or wind does not have this limitation. CCGT gas plants gets
| around it by having a turbine giving raw mechanical power and
| then utilizing the same awful steam side to get the last
| percentage points of efficiency at a much smaller required scale.
| Unless you can step around the steam turbine I am not so positive
| on fusions future outside of incredibly small niches.
|
| Coal still gets built where gas infrastructure does not exist,
| but that's about it.
| jcampbell1 wrote:
| Interestingly, China has been steadily improving in steam. US
| coal plants average around 33% efficiency, and the latest coal
| plants in China are close to 50%. The way electricity price
| controls work in China if a plant isn't at 300g per kWh or
| better, the more you generate the more you lose.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| isn't this just that China has newer plants than the US? in
| the US, no one is building new coal plants (for good reasons)
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Coal is fine with steam. Make it supercritical and do fancy
| stuff. You're simply piping water through furnace with extra
| steps. It is a material science questions.
|
| For all traditional water reactors you are using the water to
| slow down the neutrons. Enter the Pressurized Water
| Reactor(PWR). Now the entire reactor is pressurized with all
| the complications that bring and through Carnot's Theorem you
| gain some efficiency.
|
| This is nuclear's problem with trying to become more
| efficient.
| amelius wrote:
| Also, I suppose another problem with steam is that you're
| heating up the planet directly. Perhaps someone with active
| thermodynamics knowledge can say how much of a deal that is.
| dv_dt wrote:
| Steam plants are ripe for a thermal battery that can take in
| excess electrical production and store it to fire up turbines
| on demand. It's an entirely different class of battery on the
| range of energy storage separate from direct electrical grid
| batteries. One example, the reversible rust batteries:
|
| https://clearpath.org/our-take/a-reversible-rust-battery-tha...
| willis936 wrote:
| Is this true when making an apples to apples comparison. That
| is to say: are wind and solar cheaper when having enough energy
| storage for intermittent supply on the daily, weekly, and
| yearly cycles?
|
| Also, is the true cost of land being factored? The vast
| majority of "empty" land in the US is actively used for
| farming.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Helion and similar methods side-step the issue by using
| (mostly) aneutronic fusion.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bDXXWQxK38
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneutronic_fusion
|
| Also, discussing solar and wind without discussing the base
| load/storage problem skews the discussion towards solar/wind.
| Steam plants don't face those challenges in the way those two
| do; storage is as much a challenge for solar as steam is for
| nuclear.
| jmyeet wrote:
| It's always interesting to see how well older articles age. At 10
| years old, this one has aged pretty well.
|
| The article makes the main point that a lot of the costs of a
| theoretical fusion plant are the same as those for a fission
| plant, namely a way of turning heat into power. It also claims
| that 2/3 of the costs of a nuclear plant are for that conversion.
|
| If you look at energy costs by source [1] you see the wind and
| solar are _already_ 4-8 times cheaper than fission.
|
| We're not really any closer to solving the profound technological
| challenges that existed when this was written 10 years ago. The
| most optimistic estimates still put fusion at decades away.
|
| My view is that our long-term power generation will come from
| space-based solar collectors.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
| eloff wrote:
| I didn't read the article, but you could also write one about why
| you should never say never or why pessimists tend to be wrong in
| the long arc of history.
|
| My dad is fond of talking about how his Astronomy professor said
| we'll never be able to detect planets outside our solar system,
| and proceeded to prove it through optics calculations. That
| didn't age well.
|
| We'll get to fusion too. It might take a ridiculously long time
| to be economically competitive, or it might not. But it will
| happen.
| u320 wrote:
| There are opposing pessimists in the energy sector (e.g.
| renewables/nuclear), so it is very likely that at least some of
| the pessimists will be proven right.
| eloff wrote:
| That seems like a non sequitur. You want to explain what you
| were thinking here?
| Smaug123 wrote:
| You should probably at least have read the first few paragraphs
| of the article, then. The article is about the economic
| competitiveness of it. (It notes that just because MythBusters
| built a lead balloon once, that doesn't mean there will ever be
| any commercial lead balloon flights.)
| eloff wrote:
| I think that's the question with fusion right? I think we've
| already answered that we can do it in the affirmative. I
| think that will happen too eventually. It's a question of
| technology, engineering, manufacturing, and scale. That takes
| time and investment. Anyone who says it can't be done is
| being a fool. You don't know what you don't know. Betting
| against innovation with an open timeline is not a smart bet.
| 9991 wrote:
| From the HN guidelines:
|
| > Please don't comment on whether someone read an article.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| tuukkah wrote:
| Such a disclaimer is valuable when the commenter hasn't read
| the article themself.
| foobazgt wrote:
| I don't think this rule is intended to encompass comments
| about yourself.
| nkurz wrote:
| I try to avoid both commenting and downvoting, but I'll make
| an exception here. Your comment is pedantic and unhelpful.
| When the guidelines say "someone", they mean "someone else".
| This is to avoid derailing the conversation with accusations
| that one cannot prove. It's just fine to state that you
| yourself either read or did not read the article. In this
| case, I appreciate the poster's honesty, but would encourage
| them to read the article anyway so as to more accurately
| address its flaws.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Fusion is happening right now for free. Our whole planet is in
| the chamber we call the solar system and receives 1370 watts
| per square meter. About 173,000 terawatts received
| continuously. I often wonder if we need a fusion chamber on
| earth and if it is possible for it to exist as an energy
| generating device without it being a sun or a bomb.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| the earth receives the tiniest fraction of the sun's output.
| Space-based solar panels would have an almost unlimited
| amount of energy at their disposal...but how to get ithat
| energy down the well without James Bonds-ish laser beams?
| eloff wrote:
| Space based solar is dumb. Let's be generous and say you
| can get 2x output by having 24/7 sunlight, and that somehow
| we can beam it down efficiently enough that it's a wash
| with gains from not having clouds or atmosphere in the way.
| Then the cost must be less than 2x for it to make sense
| over ground based solar. That's just not realistic.
|
| Now when we have mining and manufacturing in space, and can
| use the energy there, that's a different story.
| feet wrote:
| But why are lasers a bad option?
| orestarod wrote:
| I guess because they can be used as weapons, if the said
| lasers can transfer enough energy with enough accuracy to
| cover real energy needs.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Microwave power transmission seems like the obvious answer,
| but is fundamentally flawed due to the thinned-array curse:
|
| > _It states that a transmitting antenna which is
| synthesized from a coherent phased array of smaller antenna
| apertures that are spaced apart will have a smaller minimum
| beam spot size, but the amount of power that is beamed into
| this main lobe is reduced by an exactly proportional
| amount, so that the total power density in the beam is
| constant._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinned-array_curse
| eloff wrote:
| Of course it's possible, we've already established that much.
| The question is can it be economically competitive with solar
| and wind plus storage? I think that could take a while
| depending on how many resources we dedicate to it.
| FiatLuxDave wrote:
| Never is a very long time. And the big thing I don't see this
| article discuss is how cost curves change over time. I remember
| reading articles in the 1990s using the same logic to say how
| electric cars were never going to happen because although
| electric cars were improving, internal combustion cars were also
| improving and so electric cars would never be better. Most
| technologies have a sigmoid adoption curve and something
| resembling an inverted logarithmic cost curve. Does wind power
| beat the pants off of fusion, and even fission right now? Of
| course it does! But where is wind power technology in its
| lifetime compared to them? Is wind power going to cost 10 times
| less 200 years from now? Maybe, but I don't see that as a given.
| Wind power is really hitting its stride right now, so it's kind
| of like comparing your favorite sports team against whoever
| happens to be winning right now, and saying "oh this is
| inevitable". Of course the winning team right now happens to
| currently be the winning team. Wind wasn't the inevitable winner
| in 1920, and I have no idea how the Golden State Warriors will do
| in 2191 either, assuming they are around.
|
| So, unless "never" really means "not anytime soon", you need to
| look at what fusion can do instead of what it can do with
| existing design concepts. Fusion is fully capable of direct
| conversion, even without aneutronic fusion, as long as you are
| willing to throw away waste heat on par with internal combustion
| engines. My own D+D design included this feature back in the
| 1990s. The reason why you don't see the big projects focus on
| this is because it does you no good until you actually have
| enough fusion for ignition (or an equivalent state), and on most
| designs it would be an added cost or complication.
|
| It's too bad, because I actually agree with what the article says
| in the final paragraph (and I've been saying that since 1995).
| Fusion development does have a real issue with a need for
| funding, and how that funding is obtained and directed. It would
| be nice if we did better in this generation. But give it a couple
| of hundred years, and it's likely that will change at some point.
| Never is a very long time.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| > as long as you are willing to throw away waste heat on par
| with internal combustion engines
|
| Here in lies the problem. Waste heat on a powerplant scale is
| expensive to deal with. Ask any coal plant.
| FiatLuxDave wrote:
| That is true, but it is not the problem. Waste heat hasn't
| kept coal from being economically competitive. Things like
| specific power density and simplicity are much more important
| factors in the cost of most power generation methods. For
| example, low head water wheels are simple (thus low cost) but
| have poor specific power (thus high cost per kilowatt). The
| article posits that fusion will always have worse specific
| power and be more complex than competing modes of generation.
| I think it's way too early to be making that prediction. You
| don't try to raise specific power Trevithick-style while you
| are still trying to light a candle.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Coal is not competitive anymore. It only gets built in
| places with lackluster gas infrastructure.
|
| https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-
| energy-...
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| I'm not a power engineer, but his reasoning about the _overall_
| cost per kilowatt hour seems impeccable. He 's dealing with the
| overall costs and their likely trends. Most of the comments are
| techno-optimism: "fusion _has_ to work; therefore it will work. "
| jchw wrote:
| I suspect this equation could some day change if pollution and
| other externalities become factored into the cost. If not in the
| U.S., then maybe elsewhere.
| flatiron wrote:
| The article was singing the praises of wind and solar though
| which are much simpler to construct, won't blow up, and you can
| simply plop down in a lot of places.
|
| Honestly the nut we should be cracking is putting solar in our
| deserts and figuring out how to transmit the electricity. Tons
| of land with really not current uses and a whole bunch of sun
| shine.
| pitaj wrote:
| Has everyone forgotten that deserts are unique natural
| ecosystems as well?
| pfdietz wrote:
| So are prairies. That doesn't mean we have an ethical
| obligation to starve.
| moloch-hai wrote:
| Deserts are the dumbest place to put solar farms, but
| ignorant investors love the idea, so in the desert they go.
|
| Deserts are hot, reducing conversion efficiency and panel
| lifetime, and dusty, blocking sunlight at the surface unless
| cleaned frequently.
| _Microft wrote:
| > Honestly the nut we should be cracking is putting solar in
| our deserts and figuring out how to transmit the electricity.
|
| We have figured out the latter already. High-voltage direct-
| current transmission has losses in the low single digit
| percent per 1000km. China is transferring several nuclear
| power plants worth of power over thousands of kilometers
| already today.
|
| Edit: Wikipedia says that the Chinese connection I remembered
| has a capacity of 12GW over 3300km.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current
| jchw wrote:
| Actually though, I do agree with that bit: you really can't
| do much better than solar and wind for simplicity. And I
| believe since this article was written, it has only gotten
| better.
|
| But, battery technology has been at a standstill for a while.
| New battery technology seems as far away as cold fusion some
| days. And without battery storage, I don't think you could
| really serve the world's power needs with just wind and
| solar. (But I'm also 100% a layperson, so hell if I know.)
| slt2021 wrote:
| people forget hydro - the most sustainable and cheap energy
| source.
|
| you can use hydro power as energy storage as well, just
| pump some water back uphill into water reservoir and use it
| later to generate electricity when you need it.
|
| that way you can store energy in form of potential energy
| of water
| moloch-hai wrote:
| Battery technology has been as far from a standstill as it
| would be possible to be. New chemistries, new electrolytes,
| new anodes and cathodes. Batteries are improving faster
| than almost anything else.
|
| But most of the world's energy storage is not and will not
| be chemical batteries.
| gcheong wrote:
| How much do we spend in the US each year on military to ward off
| some supposed future threat to our existence? Is it deemed
| "economical" to do so? I think nuclear should be viewed in the
| same light given the threat we know that it solves for.
| mirzap wrote:
| You don't spend it for some future threat but to ensure safety
| of world oceans and to allow globalization and free trade
| (which benefits US the most). Without that power projection US
| wouldn't be the only tech/economic/military superpower.
| zip1234 wrote:
| If the US can make it so oil is worthless, that would be a
| truly useful strategic endeavor from a geopolitics
| perspective. How many terrible regimes survive because they
| have money from oil? An abundance of energy should be a great
| stabilizing force on the world.
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