Excellent it seems Oxford scientists have made a breakthrough in the development of nuclear fusion. Hope it's up and running before my next gas bill.
Link?
Is it still 20 years away?
I was thinking about this the other day. If electricity becomes both "free" and "emissionless" for the whole planet, what happens?
If everyone is airconning or heating themselves and their hot tubs to perfect temperatures, and ragging their tesla Y's and rivian trucks around at full power with no concern for energy usage, is that better for the planet or worse than what we have now?
If everyone is airconning or heating themselves and their hot tubs to perfect temperatures, and ragging their tesla Y’s and rivian trucks around at full power with no concern for energy usage, is that better for the planet or worse than what we have now?
Can we air condition the whole of the Cairngorms to be a constant -10’C with a base snow depth of 1m all winter long? Mega Ski season!!
The JET experiments put us a step closer to fusion power," said Dr Joe Milnes, the head of operations at the reactor lab. "We've demonstrated that we can create a mini star inside of our machine and hold it there for five seconds and get high performance, which really takes us into a new realm.
Yikes.
As a child of the 50s I recall Raymond Baxter on Tomorrow's World telling us that nuclear energy would be so cheap that it wouldn't be worth installing meters and billing it
If everyone is airconning or heating themselves and their hot tubs to perfect temperatures, and ragging their tesla Y’s and rivian trucks around at full power with no concern for energy usage, is that better for the planet or worse than what we have now?
The sun is hitting the earth with 175,000,000,000,000,000W so no, it won't actually make much difference. The problem is greenhouse gases which cause the temperature to rise, and clean energy production solves that problem.
They’ve doubled the power output achieved 25years ago. Woop woop.
Maybe I shouldn’t be so cynical but I’d be surprised if Fusion is contributing to our power supply before I reach 100 years old.
As a child of the 50s I recall Raymond Baxter on Tomorrow’s World telling us that nuclear energy would be so cheap that it wouldn’t be worth installing meters and billing it
Quite. Prob worth noting it took two 500 megawatt generators to make 11 megawatts of power. So a little way off then! Still, can't help but get a bit excited about the whole thing
If everyone is airconning or heating themselves and their hot tubs to perfect temperatures, and ragging their tesla Y’s and rivian trucks around at full power with no concern for energy usage, is that better for the planet or worse than what we have now?
Yep, I have no doubt we'll find a way to be an absolute bell end about it all.
If everyone is airconning or heating themselves and their hot tubs to perfect temperatures, and ragging their tesla Y’s and rivian trucks around at full power with no concern for energy usage, is that better for the planet or worse than what we have now?
Oh, me, me, me, I know the answer to this one.
The sun is hitting the earth with 175,000,000,000,000,000W so no, it won’t actually make much difference. The problem is greenhouse gases which cause the temperature to rise, and clean energy production solves that problem.
thats good news. I was thinking too small. How much of the appearance and usablilty of our current built environment is related to energy costs (directly affecting the financial costs)?
Choice of materials for construction of anything from buildings to clothes. Take energy cost out of the equation and the balance of everything changes.
Seawater purification, cloud seeding, food production...
China have made progress that might be why the uk is pushing a bit more. It's all good news as long as the tech is made global.
DR octo seem interested
Even if they did find a way to produce limitless energy as zero cost, does anyone think they let the public have any of it at that price?
The next stage of this is being built in France and we aren't invited I'm afraid.
It's only a matter of time before we all have mini-stars in our domestic boilers.
I have no doubt we’ll find a way to be an absolute bell end about it all.
I struggle to get excited about fusion. Mainly because all it will do is usher in a new age of energy monopolism. Is anyone actually naive enough to think that it will one day provide 'free' energy? No, the fusion plants will be handed to private companies, and a very small number of people will get very rich from them in the same way they did with oil. The rest of us will still be paying through the nose for our 'free' energy and almost nothing will have changed.*
*Yes the carbon free element of it will be beneficial, but it'll come way too late to prevent catastrophic climate change.
Maybe I shouldn’t be so cynical but I’d be surprised if Fusion is contributing to our power supply before I reach 100 years old.
@J-R as soon as that! Wow 😉
Can we air condition the whole of the Cairngorms to be a constant -10’C with a base snow depth of 1m all winter long? Mega Ski season!!
Thats what happens if it all goes wrong 😆
Kids are taught about fusion in detail in GCSE physics these days.
Are they not making a second experimental reactor near Marseille now the Paris reactor project is completed?
Even if it does become viable at large scales it won't be free, in the same way that wind and solar and wave aren't free now. The fuel is free, but there is still a lot of infrastructure and distribution costs to pay for.
"emmissionless" is an interesting idea. Won't a fusion reactor running continuosly be both immediately hazardous (you won't want to be in a room with a neutron bomb) and long term hazardous (the neutron bombarment will render anything inside the chamber pretty hazardous for a very long time - probably giving off all sorts of nasty decay products)?
Its not insurmoutable, but it's not strictly "clean" afaik.
I take it this latest breakthrough still consumes more energy than it produces?
but there is still a lot of infrastructure and distribution costs to pay for.
Pay who? Not trying to be being facetious, this simple statement inadvertently exposes the nonsense of our economic system.
probably giving off all sorts of nasty decay products
AFAIUI fusion reactors will have a tiny amount of nuclear waste compared to fission reactors.
Won’t a fusion reactor running continuosly be both immediately hazardous (you won’t want to be in a room with a neutron bomb) and long term hazardous (the neutron bombarment will render anything inside the chamber pretty hazardous for a very long time – probably giving off all sorts of nasty decay products)?
Believe it or not, this has been thought of during the last 70 years of nuclear experience.
1) The reaction isn't self sustaining, so if anything goes wrong it'll instantly stop. Unlike fission, which is the opposite - it runs away if anything goes wrong. It's can't explode as the conditions aren't there for that to happen (which is also true of fission by the way, the risk is meltdown or pollution from fires created by the heat of a runaway reaction. But again not an issue with fission).
2) It only makes small amounts of low grade waste, with a short half life so not the big issue that fission has.
When do we all get fusion reactors in our chests?
Pay who? Not trying to be being facetious, this simple statement inadvertently exposes the nonsense of our economic system.
Well someone has to be paid to build and maintain them, and it isn't your local council or some community energy co-operative run by well-meaning people on a Wednesday afternoon in the village hall.
The boiler light has gone out, hang on let me just try and light the tiny star
and it isn’t your local council or some community energy co-operative run by well-meaning people on a Wednesday afternoon in the village hall.
I think that we could all dig a hole in the centre of the village and go down every day with a bucket to get some energy..
Pay who? Not trying to be being facetious, this simple statement inadvertently exposes the nonsense of our economic system.
See Storm Arwen a few weeks ago causing many, many, many households to go without power for large periods of time. Planning, designing & Maintaining that sort of infrastructure costs actual money.
Similarly water is pretty abundant in Scotland, so theoretically should be near free but actually putting pipes, service reservoirs in the ground and maintaining pressure at specified levels again costs Money (and ignoring treatment costs).
Thats before you consider the mitigations, reinforcements and changes to the networks to accommodate changing city populations, new industry, new housebuilding etc.
Pay who? Not trying to be being facetious, this simple statement inadvertently exposes the nonsense of our economic system
Whoever is building and maintaining the reactors, cables, pylons, substations, fixing stuff when the storm brings down the power lines, disposing of these things at the end of their lives.
As with wind, even if the energy is free getting it to people isn't.
[EDIT] Beaten to it
Well someone has to be paid to build and maintain them
Or maybe given the enormous potential benefits of pollution-free limitless energy, governments should 'pay' (fund is a better word) for it. There's absolutely no reason why the end user should have to pay for fusion generated energy. It's a no-brainer quite frankly, but of course that won't happen because that would prevent people getting rich from it, and it would undermine the current economic system.
Or maybe given the enormous potential benefits of pollution-free limitless energy, governments should ‘pay’ (fund is a better word) for them. There’s absolutely no reason why the end user should have to pay for fusion generated energy.
The end user is the taxpayer? Governments pay for nothing, taxpayers do.
.
(I do hate it when politicians go on about free this and free that, IT'S NOT FREE YOU MORONS WE ARE ALL PAYING FOR IT!!! Sorry, mini-rant over. Actually, they do seem to have grasped saying 'free at the point of use' for the NHS but still insist on saying 'free childcare', NO, IT'S TAXPAYER FUNDED! I know it sounds better if you say you are giving people free stuff but you really aren't.)
Governments pay for nothing, taxpayers do.
I'm afraid that's wrong. Governments pay for *everything*. Where do you think money comes from?
I’m afraid that’s wrong. Governments pay for *everything*. Where do you think money comes from?
Ooh, interesting off-topic discussion. Governments issue currencies, the populations create the wealth.
QE, or printing money as it used to be called, could be argued to be governments paying for things but they are really just doing this by devaluing the money which everyone else has and so we still end paying for it eventually and/or indirectly.
It's not going to be limitless, each power station will be limited in power. We'll also need loads, and they won't be cheap, so clearly it's not going to be free either.
okay, so a new way to look at it. You pay via taxation to the government or subscription to an energy company for the priveledge of being connected to the maintained grid. The cost to each individual and business I would imagine would vary by how much they reckon they could extract out of you.
But after that, per unit cost is tiny to the point of irrelevance. Boiling a kettle or heating a swimming pool. Charge your phone or charge your tesla.
There's also the small matter of all the research cost that has been invested over the years. Somebody somewhere is going to want that back. Whoever gets there first and makes this work is going to wrap the method and designs up in patents and licensing forever.
Ooh, interesting off-topic discussion.
It's not that off-topic. The concept of consequence free (as in zero pollution etc) limitless energy directly challenges the finite basis of our economy. Capitalism is based on scarcity. Remove that scarcity and you need a new economic system. My point is that operating fusion energy within our current capitalist economic system is not only stupid, but it would neutralise most of the potential benefits.
so we still end paying for it eventually and/or indirectly
But what do you mean by 'paying for it'? That suggests we have to suffer some form penance for having something that is hugely beneficial to everyone. I get the whole 'nothing comes for free' idea, but that's exactly what fusion energy is. Here's an idea, why don't all the governments in the world agree to build and maintain the infrastructure, and then provide free energy to everyone who needs it? It would be the ultimate economic stimulus, and at a stroke would eliminate poverty and all the societal damage that causes.
It’s not going to be limitless
To start with. But over time it would be. In fact pretty rapidly given the energy density of fusion reactions. Fusion has something like 10 million more times the energy yield as the equivalent amount of fossil fuel, and the main source of the fuel is sea water. TBF this is far off in the future, but it's still a valid point.
Even if they did find a way to produce limitless energy as zero cost, does anyone think they let the public have any of it at that price?
Nah, like so many others have said, those pylons don't come cheap. Maybe there will be a day when Mr. Fusion from Back to the Future is a reality, but not in our lifetime.
The advantage from a consumer point of view though could be that the infrastructure is broadly a fixed cost, so in the same way home internet quickly shifted from a per-min, to per-GB to a unlimited, energy could do the same. Of course, it all gets very messy then when Lord Boothby reduces the cost of his 'leccy from £500 a month to £50 and poor old Aunty Betty who used to put 50p in the meter once a week now has to cough up the same £50... whoever is in power at the time will have to work that all out. You never know, they might just pay for it all via taxation!
We're supposedly going to have a fully functional and viable fusion generator in the UK by 2040.
Current est. cost of Hinkley Point C old fashioned, basically it's a radioactive kettle, woops-a-meltdown, loads of 'em everywhere - even North Korea has got at least one, dirty, smelly fission reactor: circa: £23 billion.
Current est. cost Of "Mr Fusion", Back to the Future, star powered, NEW, never even been fully tested-never mind built, shiny fusion reactor in France (ITER): circa £22 billion.
Contract lawyers, you do earn your money! 🙂
I get the whole ‘nothing comes for free’ idea, but that’s exactly what fusion energy is.
It's always going to require resources to make and distribute.
Anyway, the idea that we would have commercial-scale nuclear fusion electricity in the next few decades is fanciful, to say the least. The challenges we face today will need to be solved with the technology we have today.
Current est. cost Of “Mr Fusion”, Back to the Future, star powered, NEW, never even been fully tested-never mind built, shiny fusion reactor in France (ITER): circa £22 billion.
Now work out the cost per MWh 🙂
The sun is hitting the earth with 175,000,000,000,000,000W so no, it won’t actually make much difference. The problem is greenhouse gases which cause the temperature to rise, and clean energy production solves that problem.
@flaperon - don't forget the contrails. You'll need to fly higher - they're practically eliminated at 60kft even in direct burn hydrogen.
*Yes the carbon free element of it will be beneficial, but it’ll come way too late to prevent catastrophic climate change.
Hey, hands off my doom monger title, I worked hard for that.
It’s always going to require resources to make and distribute.
Of course, but they're a fixed, mostly upfront cost which will be negligible compared to the wider economic benefits. What's the point of making end users 'pay' for something which costs next to nothing (relative to the whole economy) to produce? The only reason would be to make money out of it. It's a bit like charging people for the air they breathe.
My sister's best friend works on that project.
I sat next to her at my sister's wedding last year, the groom's family are very 'business' oriented and the father of the groom was fishing around for people who could 'further' his family:
"And what Doo youuu doo?"
"My daughter works at Cheltenham school for girls don't youuu know"
"I go shooooting with prince Charles from time to time"
He didn't really know what to say when gorgeous waif of a girl tried to explain how she was trying to create a star in a lab.
Anyway, I’m not sure fusion is ambitious enough. Why create tiny stars when we can just use the massive one we’ve got?
The concept of consequence free (as in zero pollution etc) limitless energy directly challenges the finite basis of our economy. Capitalism is based on scarcity.
The error lies in the combination of these statements, in that economics is about scarcity, it is the study of how to allocate scarce resources. Capitalism is one method of making these allocations, by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
The concept of consequence free (as in zero pollution etc) limitless energy directly challenges the finite basis of our economy. Capitalism is based on scarcity.
Lots of other things will still be scarce. Until the entire process of extraction and manufacturing becomes automated. Then robots will mine raw materials and manufacture things including more robots. Then, all humans will have to do is design robots to do things like grow, pack and distribute food, and we will all be free from drudgery. Or design a robot designing robot.
It's not that far away, IMO.
Your error lies in the combination of these statements
Whatever. Doesn't change the fact that the benefits of fusion will probably be squandered at the altar of economic and political ideology and the greed of those who stand to profit from it.
Anyway, I’m not sure fusion is ambitious enough. Why create tiny stars when we can just use the massive one we’ve got?
Will they bury the cable or will we have a line of pylons?
Of course, but they’re a fixed, mostly upfront cost which will be negligible compared to the wider economic benefits.
Why are you so sure that the cost is negligible? Assuming the ticklish problem of producing more energy that it consumes is solved, I suspect that the capital required to build the necessary infrastructure is going to be very significant. If you're going to advance the idea of nuclear fusion being free, then doesn't the same apply to solar and wind?
I've got one of those Dyson Spheres, it just falls over if you try to pull it round a corner and the filter clogs up in about an hour.
dazh
Full MemberOf course, but they’re a fixed, mostly upfront cost which will be negligible compared to the wider economic benefits. What’s the point of making end users ‘pay’ for something which costs next to nothing (relative to the whole economy) to produce? The only reason would be to make money out of it. It’s a bit like charging people for the air they breathe.
Tritium is around €30000 per gram. Decidedly not cheap.
Also, the plasma exhaust from the reaction destroys the tungsten/molybdenum diverters which are very expensive.
midlifecrashes
Full Member
I’ve got one of those Dyson Spheres, it just falls over if you try to pull it round a corner and the filter clogs up in about an hour.
You're using it all wrong - you're supposed to be inside it. Honestly - some people.
Why are you so sure that the cost is negligible?
I didn't say it wouldn't cost a lot. Clearly it will, but compared to the overrall long term benefit to the global economy and the wider environmental benefits the cost is insignificant. Putting a price on fusion energy doesn't make sense, because the price of something is a measure of it's scarcity. It's basic supply and demand. If the supply always outstrips demand then it should be free. Fusion isn't just a better way of generating electricity, it has the potential to completely change the way we live and organise society.
Of course, going back to my original point, none of the above will happen because like oil we'll transfer the production to private interests who will then use their monopoly to make themselves extremely rich and powerful. Instead of being a massive benefit to humanity, it could end up being the opposite.
Don't worry as long as it's in private hands you won't be getting it at cost or anywhere close to it.
Fusion. Interesting science experiment. NBG for domestic energy. Solar + storage would seem better for electricity production.
Putting a price on fusion energy doesn’t make sense, because the price of something is a measure of it’s scarcity
Nuclear fusion isn't scarce, but fusion-derived electricity will be, because making and distributing it is difficult and resource-hungry. In the same way that wind isn't scarce but wind-generated electricity very definitely is.
China have made progress that might be why the uk is pushing a bit more. It’s all good news as long as the tech is made global.
I doubt anyone would let petty nationalism get in the way of a good thing.
Interesting reading..
TL/DR: Don't hold your breath. Your grandkids might have a small chance of seeing fusion work. We can forget it. 😄
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2017.0444
If i created a mini sun fusion reactor in my shed i wouldn't power appliances with it, I'd be too busy creating diamonds, gold, platinum and other rare earth metals.
I think it was an inside science podcast I listened to and they were saying that they were developing new metal alloys that couldn't be irradiated to reduce the radioactive waste.
We also have something like 300 million tons(or me, I can't remember) of nuclear waste and disposing of it was likely to cost between £20bn and £90bn ( I may have miss remembered the figures, I was driving at the time)
Can we air condition the whole of the Cairngorms to be a constant -10’C with a base snow depth of 1m all winter long? Mega Ski season!!
The BBC News 2021 review weather section covered that.
They had someone from the ski slopes without a hint of irony complaining about how global warming was meaning they were having to run their snow-making machines.
These arent the water spray ones they have in cold countries that spray a mist in the cold air and let it freeze, it's just a huge (several shipping-container sized) ammonia chiller units producing about 10 tonnes of frozen water an hour.
Well, they promised us all cars that can fly.
Now, we’re one step closer;)
Free energy AND tritium:
As to paying for what will be effectively free to produce.
I read this
Power production from renewable sources again provided record levels of generation in the U.K. last year, with 43% of the nation's electricity met by sources including wind, solar, and biogas, up from 37% in 2019
Anyone noticed a 43% drop in their average bill ?. 😆 so no. No matter how free it is, we'll still be paying through the nose for it.
That's the point isn't it. 9nce the investment is paid back and the cost of transmission and distribution is covered and they're left with a choice of minimal cost energy for all, or massive profits for a few, no one is in any doubt which way it will go.
don’t forget the contrails. You’ll need to fly higher – they’re practically eliminated at 60kft even in direct burn hydrogen.
Contrails spread to form Cirrus, which in turn spread to form greater cloud cover, thus reflecting back a certain amount of solar energy, cooling things down a bit. Under certain circumstances, though.
After 9/11, when there was a global shut-down of civil aviation, the skies cleared significantly, and global temperatures rose.
In LA, they’re covering the big concrete canals that carry heavy rainfall away from the nearby hills with solar panels, stopping most evaporation when the canals are full, and creating extensive linear solar farms.
