
The fusion energy dream is inching toward planet-saving reality - starmftronajoll
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/08/fusion-energy-dream-is-inching-toward-planet-saving-reality/
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tanbog
I don't begrudge money being spent on researching fusion. It is definitely a
promising technology, but it's not coming to a power grid near you any time
soon.

Even if we can figure out how to keep a reaction going with a useful energy
surplus no one has any idea

a) How much a reactor will cost,

b) how long/hard will it be to build or

c) If there are any issues with the process - yes no nuclear fuel but there's
still some nasty crap coming out of the reaction which you will have to deal
with if you scale the technology.

Meanwhile there are a number of perfectly viable planet saving power sources -
solar, wind, solar-thermal etc - already out there providing power.

Fusion is a nice idea, but it isn't the only way to save the world...

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darkmighty
I too like the idea of Fusion reactors, (I am enamored with the dreamy
prospect of fusion for space travel), but I think Elon Musk's observation is
obligatory here:

Why spend huge sums in a fusion reactor, when we have a perfectly reliable
funsion reactor right above us, the Sun, giving power at a convenient form
(~500nm light -- far better than heat), at convenient power densities (not too
high to overheat panels and not too low to be uneconomical), is available
virtually everywhere, etc. It really is like we had already built a reactor
and only need to add the last, least expensive, bit of energy harvesting.

The only thing Solar cannot compete well with are fossil fuels, which are
essentially like discovering charged batteries buried in the ground (which is
great, but they'll run out, and are ruining our environment), or wind/hydro in
some places (where energy is begging to be harvested in the form of kinetic
energy or potential).

Our salvation (for this crisis :) ) is indeed already within our reach, we
only need to act...

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Nasrudith
The why is essentially density and availability. While solar is great for
cheapness it has other constraints. It may still be more expensive in kWHr
cost but it would certainly have its uses.

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umvi
What's the "meltdown" equivalent of fusion? What is the worst thing that could
happen given unlikely sequence of failures? Is it possible it would go from
controlled fusion to uncontrolled fusion?

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radicalbyte
Once containment fails the energy which is within the reactor escapes and the
reaction stops. Fusion only occurs at these insane pressures/temperatures
which won't be maintained if containment fails.

I wouldn't want to be in the building when it fails.

If it uses Tritium then that's going be an environmental hazard (it's
radioactive and will get everywhere).

To be honest it's all conjecture right now because we don't have a viable
reactor design and failure modes will depend what exactly we build.

~~~
CodeWriter23
Half life of Tritum is about 12.5 years, much more favorable than elements
used in fission reactions.

~~~
radicalbyte
True, but on the other side if it gets into the water system in any
significant quantities then that's going to a bad for local residents.

However I can't see that happening. You'd have to have the tanks of it very
close to the reactor. That's something you'd obviously not do.

There's probably a greater risk transporting the stuff (road accidents) or in
bad maintenance of the tanks or human error (emptying the tanks by accident).

~~~
amluto
It seems to me that one could avoid storing any tritium as a liquid. Tritium
gas is light will generally tend to rise. Insoluble tritium salts will be less
likely to enter the ground water.

Although... an inexpensive risk mitigation would be to wrap any tritiated
water tanks with sodium polyacrylate. Imagine a giant diaper. Leaks would be
absorbed.

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amilein7minutes
>> ''In contrast to its international competitors, the United States brings a
worldview that favors early involvement of industry in technology development
and a greater appetite for tackling technology risk if it leads to commercial
viability.''

As an aside, fusion technology feels like a good testbed for what economic
model is best for the democratization of a public good. Is government
investment in the ITER countries a better accelerator than the American model
of private companies being allowed to take advantage of research in govt
institutions? I suppose we will know in a few decades when fusion contributes
to the power grid.

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jaytaylor
Paywall bypass: [http://archive.is/b13zB](http://archive.is/b13zB)

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Roritharr
Tl;dr: The US tries smaller fusion reactors in partnership with industry in
parallel to ITER.

Nothing really new from a tech standpoint, or what am I missing?

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hamburglar
Well, I don't think you're wrong, but no need to be so cynical. :) This isn't
like some industries where they might just pop up with a commercially viable
product out of the blue and start making money. The nascent fusion industry
needs support from the public in the form of public policy, research funding
and investment. I wouldn't be surprised if this piece was basically fusion
industry PR machine reminding us all that they still exist and could be
interesting in the near future.

My understanding is that so far, it doesn't look like wind/hydro/solar can
scale to our needs within the timeframe that fusion might be viable (and yes,
I know, it's "always 20 years away", but hopefully that changes eventually),
so it's still a worthwhile pursuit, IMO.

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hanoz
But is this just saving the planet from only the most pressing symptom of
human over population? If we do get an abundance of cheap clean energy, what
then?

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darawk
An abundance of clean energy would solve a pretty huge amount of our problems
for quite a while. That's not to say that everything would be great
forever...but we'd have a whole lot more breathing room to figure things out.

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hanoz
More breathing room for mankind, yes, but not necessary the rest of the
natural world.

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darawk
I'm not really sure what you mean by that. Firstly, we are part of the natural
world as much as anything else is. Secondly, having access to clean and
abundant energy would allow us to do a lot of things to preserve the other
parts of the natural world that we are currently not doing because it's too
expensive.

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hanoz
I did say the _rest_ of the natural world.

If it turns out that the only way to bring down carbon emissions is to make
low carbon energy much cheaper, then why would anyone think that we'd spend
our newfound wealth on cleaning up our act in other matters?

There are a multitude of cases of human over-expansion proving catastrophic
for other natural environments which have nothing at all to do with climate
change yet have been totally eclipsed by the issue. I don't know why anyone
would think that much cheaper energy would help those cases rather than make
them worse.

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darawk
> If it turns out that the only way to bring down carbon emissions is to make
> low carbon energy much cheaper, then why would anyone think that we'd spend
> our newfound wealth on cleaning up our act in other matters?

Humans are consistently willing to devote some percentage of their wealth to
nature preservation. That percentage is probably more or less fixed. Therefore
bringing down the cost of doing so substantially increases the amount of
nature preservation that can be achieved.

