undefined | Better HN

0 pointscivilized4y ago0 comments

Unfortunately, a lot of the same environmental interest groups that halted the scaling up of fission also hate fusion.

It's best to think of fusion as a way to generate effectively unlimited amounts of energy, kicking in 50-100 years from today. This could be super useful for the long-term ambitions of human civilization - energy has been such a hard constraint for so long that people have barely thought about the amazing stuff we could do with an effectively unlimited energy supply.

For addressing climate change, it's likely to be too-little-too-late to bank on. But a century from now it'll be nice for cheap fresh water / agriculture / climate control anywhere on this planet, space elevators, interplanetary/interstellar travel, terraforming, cheap fresh water / agriculture / climate control on other planets, etc. This sort of stuff is incredibly energy-hungry and it's unlikely that renewables will be able to supply the requirements alone.

(It'd be awesome if one of the private fusion start-ups gets us there a lot faster, but this is what I'm projecting for now!)

0 comments

simiones4y ago

> generate effectively unlimited amounts of energy

I don't understand where this concept is coming from. The best ever fusion power experiments so far have not even produced 1 miliwatt net electrical power. ITER, if it succeeds in its 30 year timeline, will not be even close to engineering breakeven (net power generation) - they estimate 0.57 output power/input power ratio - with DEMO hoping to break even 20 years later.

Why is there this bizarre idea that we'll jump from <massive effort to get even one miliwatt> to <unlimited power> with fusion?

arcanon4y ago

It’s not unlimited power, it’s unlimited fuel.

The hype is coming from REBCO tape magnets which aren’t in ITER. Many consider ITER to already be obsolete.

This is like how computers used to take up whole rooms in the 50s but later could sit in the corner. Fusion takes up whole buildings (ITER) but the MIT ppl proved a magnet so that it can fit in just a room.

As our magnets get stronger the tokamaks can get smaller. Room sized tokamak is manageable for commercialization. Commonwealth Fusion Systems has a pretty clear path it seems.

civilizedOP4y ago

There's a nearby fusion reactor that generates quite a lot of power. You may have heard of it.

Jokes aside, fusion would provide way more energy per fuel mass than any other source if we could only contain sufficiently hot plasma. Better magnets may be the key, as the other comment alludes.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse