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Merged How Close is power from Nuclear Fusion

Delvo said:
The joke is dumb anyway. If you're going to wisecrack about people saying X all the time, then your X is supposed to be something that somebody somewhere actually says. Otherwise, the only time that anybody will ever encounter your X is in your lame excuse for a fake wisecrack about it supposedly being said by somebody else who isn't saying it.
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I'm not making it up. This is the top result in my google search:

Why Nuclear Fusion Is Always 30 Years Away (pub. 2016)

...Still, even with these steps forward, researchers have said for decades that we're still 30 years away from a working fusion reactor. Even as scientists take steps toward their holy grail, it becomes ever more clear that we don’t even yet know what we don’t know.
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RecoveringYuppy said:
How do you know any of that will be the case?


Hasn't this been true of practically every new technology?

BTW the energy market is literally trillions of dollars.
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Government investments/guarantees.

But I would argue that tax payer money would be better spend on decentralized energy sources.
 
Still not an answer and also going off topic so I think I'll just point out that we don't what form fusion power might take in the future since none have panned out yet.
 
arthwollipot said:
But this is what they've been saying. Fusion has moved out of that category now. Apparently the goal is now a finite time away. We don't know how long, but if you come back in 5 years it will actually be 5 years closer.
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I've been ruined by magazines like Pop Science and Pop Mechanics. Along with flying cars, I'll believe it when I see it. I really hope fusion power is closer, it has the potential to bring a post scarcity future.
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
Still not an answer and also going off topic so I think I'll just point out that we don't what form fusion power might take in the future since none have panned out yet.
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At this point, it seems certain that it will either require massive magnets or massive lasers or both.
 
In the UK Politics thread I learnt that a major problem with fusion is the fuel. Tritium will be in short supply, as the link given showed:
https://www.science.org/content/article/fusion-power-may-run-fuel-even-gets-started
See also here:
https://news.newenergytimes.net/2021/10/10/the-fusion-fuel-discrepancy-the-scientific-facts/
Don't like reading? watch this quick vid:

It seems that if they run a fusion reactor (ITER or a future model like DEMO), then you could maybe breed enough tritium during the process. But in the real world, this probably won't happen, and people seem to be worried that ITER will consume far to much for future builds to be viable.

But if there is one thing I have learnt from debates about a shortage of minerals that we try to get out of the ground is that if we look harder, we'll find a way of getting what we need (usually if the value goes up).

In this case, the solution seems obvious: Build a new generation of CANDU reactors to make more tritium. I just don't get why this isn't been suggested. I mean given the timescales involved with fusion, we have enough time to design a better CANDU type process that will make enough tritium, in a safer way than we do now, and generate energy in a low carbon way.

There is probably a link somewhere that suggests this, or explain why we can't do this.


Another issue with the ITER though is that it's size and complexity doesn't lend itself to anything like a rapid development for viable fusion.

But as a non-expert in this subject I hope others will be able to expand on these points.
 
wobs said:
I mean given the timescales involved with fusion, we have enough time to...
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We don't have enough time.

We need solutions now, not in 30-40 years time. How much money will we spend trying to make fusion work that could be used for solar and wind? How much will we spend trying to fix the environmental damage caused by unchecked global warming? Even if by some miracle we manage to get fusion working much earlier, will it be competitive?

Nuclear might be the answer though, just not in the way you think. A full-scale nuclear war would nicely reduce the population and cool the planet at the same time! To bad for those who die.
 
Roger Ramjets said:
We don't have enough time.

We need solutions now, not in 30-40 years time. How much money will we spend trying to make fusion work that could be used for solar and wind? How much will we spend trying to fix the environmental damage caused by unchecked global warming? Even if by some miracle we manage to get fusion working much earlier, will it be competitive?
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That doesn't answer the question, and is a derail, but anyway....
Solar/wind cannot get us out of this climate emergency alone. We need nuclear power. Certainly we need to build many new fission reactors, but if fusion is ever to help in the future, we may need fission to also help in that (unless someone can come up with an alternative to that, that is safe*.

Nuclear might be the answer though, just not in the way you think. A full-scale nuclear war would nicely reduce the population and cool the planet at the same time! To bad for those who die.
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Thank you Pentti Linkola
He said he was for a radical reduction in the world population and was quoted as saying about a future world war, "If there were a button I could press, I would sacrifice myself without hesitating, if it meant millions of people would die."
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentti_Linkola

* - Remember that nuclear energy is the safest energy source we have.

Again, this doesn't answer the question about nuclear fusion.
 
Nuclear power won't get us anywhere, because it will take decades from deciding to build one to actually getting power out of it, having spend billions.
And the idea of small, modular reactors is dead, as they don't have enough shielding not to irradiate everything.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Nuclear power won't get us anywhere, because it will take decades from deciding to build one to actually getting power out of it, having spend billions.
And the idea of small, modular reactors is dead, as they don't have enough shielding not to irradiate everything.
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In the interest of fairness, many people, organizations and governments do nit think this is true.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactor

And for Canadians:

https://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/reactors/research-reactors/nuclear-facilities/chalk-river/global-first-micro-modular-reactor-project.cfm

and,

https://globalfirstpower.com/our-project/

Your decades estimate may be more correct but we'll see once the demonstration projects get running.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Nuclear power won't get us anywhere, because it will take decades from deciding to build one to actually getting power out of it, having spend billions.
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Isn't the actual problem failing to decide to build them? There are something like seven gen III designs approved by the NRC some of which that can be certified and built in less than a decade if someone just decides to do it.
 
Further to my question about why can't we build more CANDU reactors to supply future fusion reactors, there is an alternative fuel: helium-3, which according Kurzgesagt, is available on the moon:


So we can either mine the moon, or build some CANDU reactors in the future. Given how much energy it will take to get to the moon with mining equipment, I'd rather build nuclear reactors, which will supply us with low carbon energy. Unless someone has a reason that to go to the moon would be better.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
And the idea of small, modular reactors is dead, as they don't have enough shielding not to irradiate everything.
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The US Navy has been using small nuclear reactors for decades to power aircraft carriers and submarines. The sailors who all live in close proximity to the reactors seem to be just fine.
 
Puppycow said:
The US Navy has been using small nuclear reactors for decades to power aircraft carriers and submarines. The sailors who all live in close proximity to the reactors seem to be just fine.
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Sure, but they don't have to compete for energy costs.
The idea of a small reactor was to be something portable - which sets a limit on weight and hence shielding.
 
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