the long way downunder
Well-Known Member
I throw those "human scale" depictions in the recycling … either the report includes units of measure or it doesn't. You can't submit your science paper in cups of boiled water or baked brownies … there's conversion losses and who knows what … "standard temperature and pressure" is out the window. I tried to work through the boiled monkey bottoms example and it didn't make sense … I think fusion is ten times more potent than described, but so what …?Something seems amiss with the energy quantities above. A Joule is a pretty tiny unit of energy 59 megajoules to boil 60 kettles seems possibly correct but 11 megawatts to boil 60 kettles seems way to large, no? Either way technical feasibility is only the first hurdle, economic feasibility may prove just as tricky. While we are waiting for economic net positive fusion here on Earth we can continue to harness the clean already economic byproduct of fusion occurring in our local star.
Thinking of solar and wind rather than fossil fuels which could technically be considered a byproduct of our suns fusion as well. It could turn out that humans can generate enough clean sustainable power without fusion so I wouldn't recommend we put to much emphasis on any one technology. I'm also not convinced that electrochemical battery cells will ultimately prove to be sustainable. As you (or someone?) just mentioned the quantities required are very large.
The problem with nuclear is not just the energy yield of fusion or the catastrophic annihilation of the human race and life on Earth with fission, it's the time it takes to build a reactor plant … 5 to 15 years to acquire the site, 10-15 years to build the plant, 5 years to bring the power on line … another 5 to 15 years to process the waste … these are quarter century projects based on technology that doesn't exist today … !
Conversely, solar-battery, wind-battery and geothermal-battery are all existing technologies that can be implemented in a matter of weeks or months, not years, and have no downside other than being cheaper every year.
Sponsored