cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/25441188
If God had wanted us to have nearly unlimited clean energy, He would have placed a fusion reactor into the sky.
Hey, the Helion design doesn’t require boiling water. It “uses the expansion of the plasma to induce a current in the magnetic compression and acceleration coils.”
It need not be steam. A group in China recently cracked supercritical CO2-based generators. No water needed.
Still a fluid? Idk I’m counting it
If they get fusion accomplished, solar will be a joke.
Pretty much be safe and unlimited energy with a much, much smaller footprint than solar and no need to rely on battery storage.
Solar will be ok at a personal level, but fusion would be all encompassing.
In the past I’ve been bullish on nuclear fission for a similar reason. But we’re at a point where fission is very expensive, and solar is extremely cheap - even including battery cost it’s now the cheapest form of energy production. When fusion is working it’s also going to be very expensive. Fusion isn’t going to fix all of the problems with fission either - fusion also produces radioactive waste, and IIUC Tokamak designs require a steady supply of metal to replenish the blanket. (Although I thank all that is good ITER switched their blanket material from Beryllium to Tungsten.) We should keep up the research to hopefully get to a point where fusion and fission are cheap some decades in the future. But solar is there now, so current production expansion should be solar.
Yes, solar uses a lot of land. But we have a lot of land to use. For example the US has about 30 million acres devoted to growing corn to produce ethanol. Not food - ethanol. Solar produces far more power per acre than ethanol. Here’s an article on a PNAS study with some details, including this quote:
[I]f farmers took a bold leap and covered 46% of land currently used to farm ethanol with solar panels, that would then generate enough energy to reach the 2050 decarbonization goal for the US.
There’s also a detailed Technology Connections video on renewable energy FUD that I recommend.
Stay off trying to debate ev vs ice over this. When all the vehicles are ev, you’re going to need a LOT more solar panels and batteries to keep up. A whole lot more.
As for the creation of nuclear waste from fusion; it doesn’t make radioactive waste like fission, it makes less and what it makes has a much, much, shorter half life.
Plus, imagine re-blanketing the planet in all those solar panels in a 30 year loop as they age out. Solar is great for local stuff and your house. Fusion will be the ultimate energy source, so long as it can be perfected.
The energy of the sun isn’t all encompassing for our needs?
First, that’s funny, cause fusion is the energy of the sun.
But secondly: Solar takes a LOT of real estate and materials up. Along with the batteries for storage. Then to completely be able to rely on solar, you’d have to have many more panels and battery storage than just enough for a couple days worth of power. Clouds and storms and snow and whatnot.
It would take around 15,000 acres worth of solar panels to create the same amount of power as a fusion reactor plant on 50 acres.
And the plant can do it 24\7
But like, the massively higher land use isn’t inherently a problem. For example, if we covered only the land the US currently uses to grow inedible corn for ethanol production in solar & batteries, we would produce enough to power the entire US, Canada, and Mexico 24/7/365, plus a good amount extra. Plus, by employing agrovoltaics, you could still farm actually useful crops underneath them, meaning the land use of the panels becomes in practice a fraction of the area they cover.
See also:
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I’m not anti solar, dude. I HAVE solar. Solar is a great thing. I just don’t believe it is the end all be all of power creation. I think fusion should be better. Smaller footprint. Safe, short term radioactive waste left, no battery storage needed, creates power 24 hours a day instead of 10 hours if it’s sunny. Honestly, it’s kind of a no brainer. Especially for urban areas\densely packed cities.
In itself it is, but a solar panel is only able to capture the smallest amount of it. Until we can build a Dyson sphere, making our own small sun on the earth is the next best thing.
Maybe solar adoption is so slow because the powers that be don’t understand how to generate electricity without boiling water.
Retvrn to steam
