The scientists used lasers to fuse two light atoms into a single one, releasing 3.15MJ (megajoules) of energy from 2.05MJ of input – roughly enough to boil a kettle.
Why do we even study this? Renewables are the only way. This is a waste of money which is a finite resource.
So 1. This is newable. Green, almost waste free, and unlimited.
If we can refine fusion, we will stop global warming and energy insecurity, virtually overnight.
It’s not a waste to invest in clean tech R&D. At one point, people said the same thing about solar, and look where we are now
While this is exciting and there are many reasons to continue to research fusion, fighting climate change is very much not one of them. It has all of the real problems of fission, namely high cost, low scale, and difficult construction, but exacerbated to an extreme degree. If new fission projects struggle to get investor funding becuse of low profitability and difficult construction times dispite nearly a century of development, it is unlikely that a technology so complex and expensive that we don’t even had a plan for a power plant yet will do better.
We might have a fusion pathfinder plant by 2050 or 2060, we need to be off fossil fuel by 2030 to 2035. We might be able to built sufficient fission by then if we started now at scale, national average construction times tend to be between 5 to 10 years, but fusion is a tool that might at best replace the power plants we build today, not the coal and natural gas plants we built yesterday.
I bring this up not because I oppose funding fusion and pure science, but because any argument that calls it an answer to climate change is going to fall apart the second you consider any alternative on a cost or time basis.
Fission requires insanely costly wastes management. It is very dangerous and security is a huge costs-contributing factor. This is not the case with fusion, so costs might be lower despite complexity.
Fusion also produces most of the nuclear waste that a fission plant does thanks to undergoing the same nutron activation process, and while it lacks spent fuel rods, thouse are already infinitely recyclable, so the only real waste saveings would be in low grade waste like dust covered clean suits and such.
This also doesn’t help the case for Fusion very much given that even with these disposal costs ITER has costs four to six times any average fission plant for a donor reactor that has no generating capacity and which is mearly to prove that the physics work, something we did for fission with the Chicago pile in 1942 at an estimated inflation adjusted cost of 53 million dollars.
If it’s this expensive for a proof of concept, it is very unlikely that any full plant would be much cheaper. Compare it to things we can actually deploy at scale today like onshore wind or battery backed solar, and it is pretty clear that Fusion is an expensive but important science project, not a serious proposal to power the electrical grid.
Do you really think PV cells and nuclear fusion are in any way comparable? What a strange take.
Fusion is constant, wouldn’t require large amounts of batteries to store energy. There are advantages to each.
It’s not though, not withstanding stars. We’ve managed 17 minutes so far. We’re so far away from turning this into a useable power source that it’s absurd.
So? The trick is to keep developing the technology, not give up because it doesn’t immediately deliver unlimited energy.
We’ve been working on fusion in one form or another for nearly 100 years. We’re still nowhere near turning it into a useable energy source. I don’t really care if research continues or not, I’m sure the research can be useful in other areas but fusion is not going to save us.
In the way the other poster compared them? Yes, in so far as people who complain “the new, developing technology isn’t immediately as optimised and refined as I want it to be” for both.
Do you have a basic understanding of the challenges of getting electricity from a fusion reaction vs the challenges of manufacturing PV panels?
So we should just give up? No.
We can carry on throwing money at it, I’m fine with that. Thinking that fusion is going to save us is dangerous though. We need to be taking action now to get us off fossil fuels and the most cost-effective way to do that is renewables + storage.
Seeing as you deliberately seem to be missing the point in order to try and feel smarter I’m going to leave you to it. Have a good one.
I asked a question, a relevant one. Your reaction to that question is your problem.
Why do you have multiple post of breakthroughs in nuclear tech with negative criticism?
In fact multiple posts appearing to concern troll renewables with statements like “coal is here to stay”??
Id you’re going to judge me on my post history, then read ALL of them.
Creep
Post history is public, why would it make you a creep?
is it not creepy to photograph children in a public park?
just because things are in the public, doesn’t mean what’s happening is not creepy
Oh uh uh mate. I was happy to not reply but as others have pointed out I noticed by seeing multiple posts with your username in all. I then checked your post history to confirm my suspicion.
Your commenting history is public by design, it was programmed that way, for the very reason I used it. So someone can see if a poster has history of posting bad faith shit. The fact that you’re trying the whole “creep” angle means you’re intentionally being disingenuous about it or have no idea how the internet has worked since forums.
you’re such an intelligent person, why engage?
A sad reply but I’m glad to see you’ve given up the pretending. Your post, the replies and the downvotes are probably cause for some introspection, though given this reply you don’t strike me as the type. Have a good one.
Only your hatred can destroy me
It’s more comparable to the past things an author has written as opinion pieces.
It’s your own choice to post on a public forum.
imagine I’m reading through all of your comments and posts for the next hour or so of my life. all of my thoughts are centered on you. what you think, how you articulate, your sense of humor, what memes you like, everything you’ve made public. it’s creepy.
Um, no, it’s not. That’s why it’s public. Feel free to read mine, if you want to waste your time.
I don’t care lol
The very reason I post things on Lemmy is so that people read them.
See that can be solved as easily as just not putting that information publicly online.
If you make information public then someone is going to read it. That’s generally how that works.
Because they’re all solar punk enthusiasts. Basically modern day hippies but without the common sense.
They really really like renewable energy but they don’t have a clue what they’re talking about so anytime anyone comes up with anything that isn’t solar panels or wind turbines they throw a fit.
Money is neither finite nor a resource
Exactly.
(It’s made up, can be changed, value is what is agreed upon)
Renewables are the only way.
You’re right! We should power everything by burning charcoal.
Some downvotes I saw, I am not sure if people can tell sarcasm.
I wasn’t being sarcastic at all. OP wants renewables, and charcoal is renewable.
Well call me a dumbasses for thinking that was sarcasm. Charcoal is not renewable bro. Wtf.
It absolutely is. Charcoal comes from wood. You can plant more trees. Renewable.
This is a 100%+ efficiency reactor with the capacity to basically make itself run all on its own with automation. How many electrical generators can run on their own 24/7?
Morpheus, holding up a AA: “7 billion”
The comment by op kind of feels weird…
But. More options are always good, and this provides more options, with the added benefit of creating helium (which is a limited resource, and gets mainly harvested when mining fossil fuels at the moment).
So this actually helps solve more than 1 problem, if they can get it to work
this lemmy gets it
