Society grows strong when men plant trees in which shadow they will never sit.
Comment on Japanese experimental nuclear fusion reactor inaugurated
axo@feddit.de 11 months ago
Fusion is so dump. Were at least a couple decades away from brake even in the fusion reaction, but still people believe it will help solve the climate crisis.
Atm we put about 10 times nore energy into the whole system than we get out. And it generates nuclear waste because the wall materials absorb neutrons and get radioactive. And so many other unsolved problems… this technology is a nice research peoject, but none of us will ever see a commercial reactor in action, because it is so far away, if even possible.
themurphy@lemmy.world 11 months ago
barsoap@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Max Planck plans on building an actual power plant in the 2030s. A stellerator (just like Wendelstein 7X) which, unlike Tokmaks, don’t have scaling issues. They will still need to nail down tritium breeding (ITER not getting anywhere, it should have provided that data) and there’s also some headaches about divertor panels which get (deliberately) hit by plasma and wear down quite a bit quicker than they would’ve hoped but a failure there would only get into the way of being price-competetive with other energy sources (lots of spare parts needed), not achieving net power output. Including cooling and everything, not just plasma heating.
As to it solving the climate crisis: Certainly not on its own, but possibly on the tail end of the transition. We don’t only need to fix the climate issue but also switch to a circular economy and having plenty of cheap energy makes that way, way easier to achieve.
aphonefriend@lemmy.world 11 months ago
So what? People should stop trying for a better tomorrow because today sucks?
axo@feddit.de 11 months ago
No. Renewables are available and super cheap.
faintwhenfree@lemmus.org 11 months ago
They are, and they are good solution but they are not good all and end all solutions, both wind and solar cannot meet baseload and when you start talking about battery storage as solution, scaling it up requires more metal mining than will ever be sustainable, so pursuit of fusion, pursuit of tidal energy, pursuit of better nuclear, pursuit of better geothermal are viable exploration options as we need baseload generation substitute.
AnarchistsForDemocracy@lemmy.world 11 months ago
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You do not need batteries to store potential energy. You can pump water up a hill into a reservoir and then harvest the energy when you need it using hydroelectric energy.
elbarto777@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Imagine making this kind of comment in a technology community.
AnarchistsForDemocracy@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Imagine not explaining your position instead only using derision.
El Barto if you are who you say you are, you will explain to us WHY the aforementioned is worthy of derision.