How close is nuclear fusion power?(youtube.com)
youtube.com
How close is nuclear fusion power?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ4W1g-6JiY
44 comments
TFV says that key metric is ratio of output energy over input, Q. Q> 1 and you have generated energy.
TFV picks apart reported successes by fusion experiments that say they have Q ~= 0.7 when in fact they are reporting the ratio of energy delivered to plasma (laser cost only) over heat measured (not electricity).
TFV says actual Q values are closer to 0.1 or 0.01.
Yes, that's silly of them to hype. The question is who is fooled. Do policy makers know? General public? The community? Sometimes context matters when reading tech papers but at any rate honesty and clarity matters.
TFV picks apart reported successes by fusion experiments that say they have Q ~= 0.7 when in fact they are reporting the ratio of energy delivered to plasma (laser cost only) over heat measured (not electricity).
TFV says actual Q values are closer to 0.1 or 0.01.
Yes, that's silly of them to hype. The question is who is fooled. Do policy makers know? General public? The community? Sometimes context matters when reading tech papers but at any rate honesty and clarity matters.
This has been a fumble of communication by the fusion science community. The window for fusion power being a saving grace from climate change passed decades ago yet it has been the claimed raison d'etre for the research.
The important thing to note is that even though all climate projections end after 2050, the world does not. Better late than never. A carbon-neutral, virtually-limitless fuel, on-demand baseload energy source will still be handy even if it's "too late to reverse climate change". It will likely have a longer term of being handy than than the internal combustion engine will.
The argument this video makes at the end about "needing to spend research dollars wisely" is the exact thing the fusion researchers fear when overselling the state of the art to the public. They've been continually defunded and in spite of that still make progress. If they didn't tell the politicians what they wanted to hear do you think any fusion program wouldn't be mothballed by this point? The reality of the long-term value of the research should be enough.
We, as a society, can and should afford fusion energy research. We can also afford solar panel research, energy storage research, scaling up of carbon-neutral energy sources, and still have plenty left over to address aging infrastructure and wealth inequality. The issue is how the effort of society is actually being spent is not really beneficial to society. Whether we fund fusion research or not will not change that. Fund the research.
The important thing to note is that even though all climate projections end after 2050, the world does not. Better late than never. A carbon-neutral, virtually-limitless fuel, on-demand baseload energy source will still be handy even if it's "too late to reverse climate change". It will likely have a longer term of being handy than than the internal combustion engine will.
The argument this video makes at the end about "needing to spend research dollars wisely" is the exact thing the fusion researchers fear when overselling the state of the art to the public. They've been continually defunded and in spite of that still make progress. If they didn't tell the politicians what they wanted to hear do you think any fusion program wouldn't be mothballed by this point? The reality of the long-term value of the research should be enough.
We, as a society, can and should afford fusion energy research. We can also afford solar panel research, energy storage research, scaling up of carbon-neutral energy sources, and still have plenty left over to address aging infrastructure and wealth inequality. The issue is how the effort of society is actually being spent is not really beneficial to society. Whether we fund fusion research or not will not change that. Fund the research.
> They've been continually defunded and in spite of that still make progress.
In previous discussions here several times I’ve seen comments that not enough is spent of fusion research, and what we need is a fusion power Manhattan project.
Manhattan cost about $22bn in 2021 dollars, but ITER by itself will cost around $18bn to $22bn, although some third party estimates come to more than double that. The project was supposed to cost $6bn, so this is hardly a case of defunding. Vast sums of money have been and still are being spent on fusion.
I read plenty of SF with cheap powerful fusion reactors back on the day. I shared the dream, but the fact is there’s no guarantee fusion power will ever be practical. Let’s finish ITER, see where the alternate projects take us and see how it goes.
In previous discussions here several times I’ve seen comments that not enough is spent of fusion research, and what we need is a fusion power Manhattan project.
Manhattan cost about $22bn in 2021 dollars, but ITER by itself will cost around $18bn to $22bn, although some third party estimates come to more than double that. The project was supposed to cost $6bn, so this is hardly a case of defunding. Vast sums of money have been and still are being spent on fusion.
I read plenty of SF with cheap powerful fusion reactors back on the day. I shared the dream, but the fact is there’s no guarantee fusion power will ever be practical. Let’s finish ITER, see where the alternate projects take us and see how it goes.
I support ITER with the caveat that whoever decided it should take decades to complete should be fired. There's no rationale for taking decades to build a fairly straightforward design Taking longer to build it actually dramatically increases the project cost while dramatically reducing the payback (i.e. solving fusion quick enough to be relevant to addressing climate change). They won't even do full fusion (i.e. payback) until 2035, and the actual power generation prototype plant isn't planned for operation until 2051, and I don't understand why people in charge have no sense of urgency here.
I'm skeptical of alt-fusion projects, but... MIT's Commonwealth Fusion SPARC reactor uses a similar Tokamak design but with much higher magnetic field superconductors to be much more compact and thus is planning on a much earlier first full fusion date of 2025, i.e. a full decade earlier and actually potentially relevant to addressing climate change: https://cfs.energy/news-and-media/cfs-commercial-fusion-powe...
I'm skeptical of alt-fusion projects, but... MIT's Commonwealth Fusion SPARC reactor uses a similar Tokamak design but with much higher magnetic field superconductors to be much more compact and thus is planning on a much earlier first full fusion date of 2025, i.e. a full decade earlier and actually potentially relevant to addressing climate change: https://cfs.energy/news-and-media/cfs-commercial-fusion-powe...
Then we should fire Nixon for taking the wind out of the sail of every non-military public works project. The delays are due to the US backing out of what it originally agreed to. First plasma was nominally 20 years ago. The schedule was rewritten constantly for over a decade while the world wondered if it would ever be funded.
If it were not scheduled to take decades to build, there would be no purpose in the project at all. Like other big public-works projects, the true purpose is the gravy train of money delivered with no required result. The will'o'th'wisp "fusion" is just a distraction. Taking less time would mean cutting off the gravy early. Nobody involved wants that.
All of this would be garden-variety corruption, wholly legal under modern norms, except that a rapidly unfolding existential disaster looms: global climate disruption, and the project steals money from work that could actually help.
All of this would be garden-variety corruption, wholly legal under modern norms, except that a rapidly unfolding existential disaster looms: global climate disruption, and the project steals money from work that could actually help.
I don't believe that. Researchers and managers working on ITER fusion are not moustache-twirling evil villains. The fusion they're attempting to do is not will o the wisp, it's real, and they're likely to succeed at it. They'd get much more funding and prestige if they succeeded earlier.
The reason is likely just incompetence and management failure, not conspiracy to swindle money.
The reason is likely just incompetence and management failure, not conspiracy to swindle money.
The managers and researchers at ITER are not swindlers. But they are obliged to do as they are told. The corruption is at the government level, where the patronage and kickbacks are arranged.
The same process occurs anywhere billions of public dollars/euros are involved, and it is not easy to track what they are supposed to buy, or how quickly results should be expected.
Since commercially competitive fusion power is already known not to be possible, no actually-useful result need ever be achieved. The longer it takes to get to the ultimate failure, the better it is for everybody actually involved. Taxpayers excepted, of course.
The same process occurs anywhere billions of public dollars/euros are involved, and it is not easy to track what they are supposed to buy, or how quickly results should be expected.
Since commercially competitive fusion power is already known not to be possible, no actually-useful result need ever be achieved. The longer it takes to get to the ultimate failure, the better it is for everybody actually involved. Taxpayers excepted, of course.
> Since commercially competitive fusion power is already known not to be possible
I missed that law of physics which says commercial fusion power is impossible.
I missed that law of physics which says commercial fusion power is impossible.
You also somehow missed the word "competitive".
Massively subsidized commercial (I should qualify, here, hot-neutron) fusion power seems technically possible, and could even happen, given enough corruption. But total cost to the public will necessarily be overwhelmingly more than long mature (by then) alternatives.
It starts out many tens of $billions in the hole, before the first watt-hour comes out. And taxpayers are already paying for that, today.
Massively subsidized commercial (I should qualify, here, hot-neutron) fusion power seems technically possible, and could even happen, given enough corruption. But total cost to the public will necessarily be overwhelmingly more than long mature (by then) alternatives.
It starts out many tens of $billions in the hole, before the first watt-hour comes out. And taxpayers are already paying for that, today.
Okay, the word you’re looking for is “feasible,” not “possible.” There is no law of physics that says it’s not possible to be commercially competitive, without subsidies or whatever. Words have meaning, and hyperbole should not be rewarded.
Feasible and possible are, in this instance, identical. We are out of the domain of physics, and in the domain of economics. Physics does not get exclusive claim to the word "possible".
Mealy-mouthed wishy-washiness should not be rewarded.
Mealy-mouthed wishy-washiness should not be rewarded.
As someone who worked in fusion research for a few years for 30-50% of the salary that industry would pay for the same work: bullshit.
You're talking like someone who has no clue.
You're talking like someone who has no clue.
Maybe, as one who has clue, you can explain how a hot-neutron fusion plant could be operated much more cheaply than a fission plant of the same capacity. Because we already know fission gets less competitive each year.
(I should make clear that I make no assertion about the potential viability of aneutronic fusion. I am talking specifically about Tokamak.)
Guessing you can't, as no one else has.
(I should make clear that I make no assertion about the potential viability of aneutronic fusion. I am talking specifically about Tokamak.)
Guessing you can't, as no one else has.
>The argument this video makes at the end about "needing to spend research dollars wisely" is the exact thing the fusion researchers fear when overselling the state of the art to the public.
Intentionally deceiving the public about the state of your research in order to procure funding might work in the short term. But in the long term it is bad for science. Why should the public fund people who lie?
Intentionally deceiving the public about the state of your research in order to procure funding might work in the short term. But in the long term it is bad for science. Why should the public fund people who lie?
We have an entire political class devoted to lying to the public. I expect better of the scientists, but if you were given the choice between having a chance at securing humanity's industrial course or being able to not stretch the truth, which would you pick? Importantly, this is a stretch of the truth with technically no lies actually being said. If you sat down and really talked to any fusion researcher they would not say a bald-faced lie.
They actually don't know that they are "securing humanity's industrial course." Our global engineering capacity is finite, and we could have spent all this time, money, and brainpower on tractable problems. Regardless of whether they think they are lying to us for our own good, it's not their decision to make. If anything, time has shown that it has not been for our own good.
It is a bald faced lie. They know exactly what we think they mean when they talk about energy gains.
It is a bald faced lie. They know exactly what we think they mean when they talk about energy gains.
>They know exactly what we think they mean when they talk about energy gains.
Indeed they do. They think "the metric we've been using to gauge relative fusion reactor performance for the past 50 years". You're suggesting not changing the metric as breakeven is approached is a lie.
Indeed they do. They think "the metric we've been using to gauge relative fusion reactor performance for the past 50 years". You're suggesting not changing the metric as breakeven is approached is a lie.
Really? When talking to the laypublic, they think we know they are talking about a metric that most people don't even know exists? If you asked 10 people on the street, how many of them would even know high-energy plasma is involved in a fusion reactor?
It's so absurd when talking about an energy generation technology to talk about any energy metric other than energy in versus energy out, it's unfathomable to me that you could possibly believe it's not intentionally deceptive. Either these people can't be trusted with public communication from demonstrated incompetence or intentional deceit. Which one is worse?
They are using this metric in public communication because they know it gets them funding. Full stop. Do they not stop and wonder "why does this metric get us funding?" Your take is incredibly naive.
It's so absurd when talking about an energy generation technology to talk about any energy metric other than energy in versus energy out, it's unfathomable to me that you could possibly believe it's not intentionally deceptive. Either these people can't be trusted with public communication from demonstrated incompetence or intentional deceit. Which one is worse?
They are using this metric in public communication because they know it gets them funding. Full stop. Do they not stop and wonder "why does this metric get us funding?" Your take is incredibly naive.
It is easy to be so certain of things when you have no idea what you are talking about.
Please do tell me what I'm missing.
You claim a fusion scientist would not tell you a bald-faced lie to your face, and yet that's pretty much what Bernard Bigot did in that congressional hearing shown in the video. If it becomes a norm for scientists to discard or shade the truth in this way, then the public should become skeptical and stop listening to them.
Fortunately, despite what's going on with fusion, I think most scientists are forthright and don't believe that the ends justify the means as you apparently do.
Fortunately, despite what's going on with fusion, I think most scientists are forthright and don't believe that the ends justify the means as you apparently do.
What is the bald-faced lie that Bernard Bigot told congress?
“This project will produce 10x the power output we put into”.
Yes, the Congress shares some of the responsibility for following the science so loosely that point wasn’t challenge. Still folks here are arguing about the moral relativism of deception to maintain funding.
Is there any dispute that the use of Q by scientist is anything but misleading?
Yes, the Congress shares some of the responsibility for following the science so loosely that point wasn’t challenge. Still folks here are arguing about the moral relativism of deception to maintain funding.
Is there any dispute that the use of Q by scientist is anything but misleading?
The context of the quote is while Bigot is being asked about problems for a commercial fusion reactor beyond ITER. Bigot used the traditional definition of Q (relative to the plasma). He never attempted a deception. As I've said elsewhere, pushing Q from 1 to 1000 is much easier than pushing Q from 0.001 to 1. So the point of thermodynamic losses seems a strange hill to die on. It does mean a fusion reactor is more efficient if it's larger, but that's true of most thermodynamic machines. The discussion in context (not the sound byte Sabine quoted) is here (page 63[0]):
>Mr. FOSTER. Well, thank you. And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to sit on this committee hearing. I guess my first question is, assuming that ITER succeeds and that sometime around 2025, 2030, would succeed at everything including DT—the DT program, what are the—going to be the remaining unsolved problems A) to be able to design a production which—you know, something that is an energy plant, you know, what’s on the list of things that will be unsolved problems? And secondly, what will be needed to understand what the levelized cost of electricity from a tokamak of those dimensions might be? You know, those are the two things that have to succeed to make fusion succeed as—succeed scientifically and engineering-wise, and it has to succeed economically. And so what will be the unsolved problems in 2025 or 2030, assuming everything goes nominally? I’m happy to have—you two can split it.
>Dr. BIGOT. May I start? Yes. Okay. I do believe that the main problem which will have—okay, there is two main problem from my point of view. Once—okay, the ITER will have in delivery, okay, full demonstration that we could have, okay, 500 megawatt coming out of the 50 megawatt we will put in. It is materials, okay. When we will have continuous production of plasma energies, with some energy flux with neutrons which are as large as 20 megawatt per square meter, when we know, for example, when many——
>Mr. FOSTER. That’s the power density on the diverter or not——
>Dr. BIGOT. Yes, on the diverter.
>Mr. FOSTER. Right. Okay. Right.
>Dr. BIGOT. Okay. So all we could manage is some material which could be able to sustain such a flux continuously. And the second, we know if we want to take full advantage of the investment of industry or tokamak, we’ve—okay, the superconducting coils which could last for very long because there is no real use with, okay, superconducting coils because there is no energy dissipation, as you know. And so it will be the remote handling. How could we change some of the piece, for example, okay, tiles which will be facing the plasma or we could make all this remote handling properly done in such a way that, okay, we could take the best investment and have a long lifetime, okay, expectation for the delivery. So in order to come to the point you mentioned about the economy: it is a big investment, but if the operational costs in the long lifetime of the equipment are very low, it will be quite economical process."
>Mr. FOSTER. And is that—are there actually designed studies where you say just, okay, imagine that you’re not making one of ITER but you’re making worldwide 100 of them? You know, how cheap could you imagine making all the superconducting coils? How cheap could you imagine making all the different components? You know, you can be optimistic there, but if you find that the levelized cost of electricity doesn’t look—you know, doesn’t look attractive, then you have to actually step back and maybe reallocate between more adventurous but potentially cheaper ones and straight ahead with the current plan. And so what’s the current state of knowledge of what the economics might be, just assuming everything works technically here?
>Dr. BIGOT. Okay. Right now, there are several studies. As we know, ITER is the first of a kind, okay, and we have a lot of equipment around, the technology and so on. So the people mentioned to me very recently that when we will be moving to a real industrial facility, maybe the cost will be down compared to the cost of the ITER facility——
>Mr. FOSTER. Oh, unquestionably. And if you tell me you are optimistic it will be a factor of the—the unit cost will drop by a factor of five, it’s not unthinkable, but then you still have to do the cost of electricity calculation and see if you’re happy with the result. And that’s—I wonder if—those sort of studies must have been done for different versions of fusion machines at different levels of accuracy. What’s the current understanding for whether the ITER design point has a shot? I mean, that’s the question I’m trying to get at.
>Dr. BIGOT. Okay. From my point of view all the studies I have seen so far we expect that the cost of the electricity which will come is—from such a facility will be around, okay, what we call 100 euro—I speak in euro, okay, which will be 100, okay, dollars, okay, per megawatt, as you have now, for example, with some of the, okay, windmills or solar energy.
>Mr. FOSTER. That’s——
>Dr. BIGOT. So it would be comparable.
>Mr. FOSTER. —13 cents a kilowatt hour, right?
>Dr. BIGOT. Yes.
>Mr. FOSTER. Yes. Stu, do you have anything?
>Dr. PRAGER. I agree with everything Dr. Bigot said. I think for challenges, let me list three. I think one in the plasma science we have to learn how to hold the plasma in steady-state persistently. ITER will teach us about that but ITER will burn for about 8 minutes or so, and we need to learn how to have a burning plasma that lasts for months on end. That is in part a plasma science challenge, and there’s research underway to accomplish that, number one. Number two, as Bigot said, there’s a whole—the whole issue of materials research, both the plasma-facing component and the structural material that has to manage the neutron bombardment, and that’s a set of challenges, and there are ideas how to meet those challenges. And third, while ITER is operating, we are working on how to make the reactor concept even more attractive economically. So ITER will teach us all about burning plasma science and then maybe by the time we get that, we’ll have evolved beyond simply duplicating ITER for a reactor. So we can take that burning plasma science, ideas that have been developed in parallel maybe have a more highly optimized reactor. On cost of electricity, over the years there have been—the best engineering studies that could be done taking the cost of materials, the cost of assembly and calculating, you know, capital cost and cost of electricity, they always come out to be competitive with baseload power generation of today. However, projecting economics 30 years into the future is highly theoretical. We have an interesting data point with ITER, and we do ask ourselves the question, does the cost to construct ITER, is it consistent with the engineering calculations of what a reactor will cost? ITER is not a reactor, first of a kind, and so on. And at PPPL we had the beginnings of a study to try to quantify that, try to quantify how much extra cost is in ITER because it’s an experiment, it’s the first of a kind, internationally managed. And so we’re in the process of trying to get financial, if you like, data from the ITER partners so we can quantitatively answer your question.
>Mr. FOSTER. Well, thank you. And, you know, that’s very important to our—the strategic decisions that we’re going to have to make. I guess at this point I yield back.
The Congress does not share responsibility. It dictates exactly the form required so that money can be disbursed on a regular schedule, over decades, to select constituents.
Q is certainly misleading, but no one is misled.
Q is certainly misleading, but no one is misled.
> The reality of the long-term value of the research should be enough.
We have to decide how to apportion research funds from a limited pool. One project's gain is another project's loss. We also have to take into account that we don't know if the research is too far ahead of it's time or not. If the underlying technology just isn't there yet, we could be spinning our wheels on progress because other fields need to catch up. That money could be used for nuclear fission research instead, which it's looking more and more like we're going to need to fund in the near future.
We have to decide how to apportion research funds from a limited pool. One project's gain is another project's loss. We also have to take into account that we don't know if the research is too far ahead of it's time or not. If the underlying technology just isn't there yet, we could be spinning our wheels on progress because other fields need to catch up. That money could be used for nuclear fission research instead, which it's looking more and more like we're going to need to fund in the near future.
tl;dw: Sabine Hossenfelder explains that public is being misleaded by fusion industry touting "efficiency" as ratio of energy that goes only directly out of/into plasma.
This is not total consumption vs. usable energy output of whole plant as you might expect. That one might well be 100 times less.
This is not total consumption vs. usable energy output of whole plant as you might expect. That one might well be 100 times less.
>That one might well be 100 times less.
It might be, but it isn't.
Turn to page 170 of your copy of The Future of Fusion Energy. It goes through typical efficiencies of each subsystem then concludes:
So why are scientists lying to the public? The answer appears that they are not, but they simply are not being asked to explain the entire history and projected designs of fusion reactors. You need more than a TED talk or an audience who at least knows anything about physical sciences in order to even start that.
It might be, but it isn't.
Turn to page 170 of your copy of The Future of Fusion Energy. It goes through typical efficiencies of each subsystem then concludes:
>"Multiplying these conversion factors (i.e. eta h&cd = 0.4 from the heating/current drive systems, eta steam = 0.4 from the steam cycle, and f blanket = 1.3 from the blanket), we see that Qeng is roughly a factor of 5 smaller than Q of the plasma."
So why are scientists lying to the public? The answer appears that they are not, but they simply are not being asked to explain the entire history and projected designs of fusion reactors. You need more than a TED talk or an audience who at least knows anything about physical sciences in order to even start that.
If anyone gets that kind of money, is merely "they were not asked to explain" good excuse for you?
Anyway, what kind of error bars do these numbers have? We still aren't even at Qplasma = 1. As Sabine says it went from 0.67 to 0.7 in 24 years. For me that's clearly too soon to talk about "typical setup".
Anyway, what kind of error bars do these numbers have? We still aren't even at Qplasma = 1. As Sabine says it went from 0.67 to 0.7 in 24 years. For me that's clearly too soon to talk about "typical setup".
That was a misrepresentation by her. NIF is not MCF, it's an ICF weapons program. NIF also gets healthy funding while MCF does not. Look at PPPL's FIRE 1976 report [0]. We've been on logic 0. Given that, the progress we've made with the discovery of H-mode, integration of superconductors, MHD optimization and control, and now empirical turbulence modeling is wonderful. These advances are reflected in simultion and in real machines as triple product increases. True nuclear machines are expensive. We could have made a Q = 50 machine in 1990. We didn't. Want to fund it?
If she wanted to actually show the progress of MCF performance she would have plotted triple product vs. time, where gains have been made faster than Moore's Law when Moore's Law still applied, for a period that began before Moore's Law and is continuing past Moore's Law.
0. https://fire.pppl.gov/us_fusion_plan_1976.pdf
If she wanted to actually show the progress of MCF performance she would have plotted triple product vs. time, where gains have been made faster than Moore's Law when Moore's Law still applied, for a period that began before Moore's Law and is continuing past Moore's Law.
0. https://fire.pppl.gov/us_fusion_plan_1976.pdf
Not a VC myself but we're on startup funding platform here so I encourage you, go pitch it.
Please watch Sabine’s video. She gives numerous examples where blatantly misleading statements are made by fusion scientists.
I did watch her video. More than that I had already read the entire transcripts of a few of the DoE Fusion Energy Sciences congressional testimonies[0], where the Bigot excerpt was pulled from (or rather Sabine pulled them from another video with an agenda that pulled them from somewhere I don't know).
I didn't draw my conclusions from 3 second supercuts of testimonies or TED Talks presented by someone who's making conclusions for me. Read the testimonies. Read the questions given to them by congress. Then you're at least partially equipped to pass judgment on whether or not Bigot was being deceitful. To be fully equipped you'll need to learn the history of fusion energy research and how the DoE conducts its communications.
0. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/SY/SY20/20160420/104815/HHRG...
I didn't draw my conclusions from 3 second supercuts of testimonies or TED Talks presented by someone who's making conclusions for me. Read the testimonies. Read the questions given to them by congress. Then you're at least partially equipped to pass judgment on whether or not Bigot was being deceitful. To be fully equipped you'll need to learn the history of fusion energy research and how the DoE conducts its communications.
0. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/SY/SY20/20160420/104815/HHRG...
I guess so, but these plants aren't meant to produce electricity. You'd build them totally differently if they were. Achieving ignition is a different kind of goal, and it's something that OUGHT to be pursued without trying to make the whole thing be a net positive producer of electricity. In reality, the only crime here is that fusion progress is just bloody and unnecessarily slow, and ITER folk seem to not care.
20 years away. It's been '20 years away' for the last 60 years, so I don't expect that will change much.
20 years away.
It's always 20 years away.
It's always 20 years away.
I thought it was 30 years, not 20.
20 is the new 30.
(I also recall it being 30 years, for about the past 50.)
(I also recall it being 30 years, for about the past 50.)
Now it is never.
The costs of alternatives to fusion are falling so fast that fusion cannot possibly ever catch up.
Fusion was always going to be an extremely expensive source of power--much more than fission, which is itself not now competitive. Spend as much as you like on development, construction, maintenance, each dollar spent takes you farther from commercial competitiveness. Meanwhile, each dollar spent instead of on building out solar and wind brings climate catastrophe nearer.
FRC D-He3 fusion might be a superb space drive. We don't know because dead-end Tokamak steals all the funding.
The costs of alternatives to fusion are falling so fast that fusion cannot possibly ever catch up.
Fusion was always going to be an extremely expensive source of power--much more than fission, which is itself not now competitive. Spend as much as you like on development, construction, maintenance, each dollar spent takes you farther from commercial competitiveness. Meanwhile, each dollar spent instead of on building out solar and wind brings climate catastrophe nearer.
FRC D-He3 fusion might be a superb space drive. We don't know because dead-end Tokamak steals all the funding.
Wow. I am so bummed about being lied to about this.
On top of everything you're saying, all the press about how close we are to achieving usable nuclear fusion is a huge distraction from the real problems we are facing.
Energy production is but a tiny problem to solve to keep our planet habitable by humans. It's not even a big part of fixing climate change as even if we found the miracle technology today, it would take the best part of the current century to deploy it on an industrial scale, which would be too late.
We need to fix what we _do_ with the energy, not just how we produce it. If we keep on building car parks and shopping malls and generally destroying what keeps us alive, even with clean energy, we are still doomed.
Of course, research is essential and this is good research, but it's the press enthusiasm around experimental fusion reactors that I am criticizing here.
Energy production is but a tiny problem to solve to keep our planet habitable by humans. It's not even a big part of fixing climate change as even if we found the miracle technology today, it would take the best part of the current century to deploy it on an industrial scale, which would be too late.
We need to fix what we _do_ with the energy, not just how we produce it. If we keep on building car parks and shopping malls and generally destroying what keeps us alive, even with clean energy, we are still doomed.
Of course, research is essential and this is good research, but it's the press enthusiasm around experimental fusion reactors that I am criticizing here.
https://youtu.be/JurplDfPi3U
It really nails the feel of the fusion engineering community I've been in. Little things said in passing in this video don't show up in public facing videos (such as a reactor needing to be primarily heated via ECRH) yet are regular topics with experts.