FUSION POWER now being touted to make Green New Deal Null& Void.

Fusion Power from a company called Commonwealth Fusion Systems in Danvers Mass.is touted as being able to create fusion power plants across the country which will negate the necessity of most of the Green New Deal. They have reportedly been able to create a very high power electro magnet capable of containing the fusion. The company is an offshoot from MIT's plasma labs, and according to the article appearing in the Washington Examiner, has already drawn interest of Gates,Bezos, Musk and Jack Ma. and other billionaires.

 

I wouldn't hold my breath. So far, to my knowledge, nobody has EVER been able to create a fusion reactor that produces more energy than what is put in. This is the hurdle that this company has to overcome. Maybe high temperature superconducting magnets will reduce the hurdle, but without a demo reactor it is promise, and nothing else. I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up like another Theranos.

In any case, I do not hope for nuclear fusion to become viable. Why? With the power of the sun comes the temperature of the sun. If we get widespread fusion reactors, we have seen nothing yet with respect to global warming.

 

Fusion is a tough nut to crack, and lots of money and effort have already gone at the problem of trying to crack it, and they've reached the point of getting close to try and make some first little cracks.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6184774/



They're getting close to the point where they can maybe start testing the containment field, but actually generating power with a fusion reactor is a long way off. 2040 is timeframe that is, at best, pretty optimistic.

We'll all be dead of global warming long before then. Noted environmental scientist, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, said so.

 

As rocket technology becomes less expensive, we could just use traditional nuclear reactors and shoot the waste out into space.

I support the green new deal, but would be just as happy if we embraced nuclear power. It's not nearly as dangerous as the public seems to believe. It's not like people support the green new deal because they have a windmill fetish.

 

It's not about the cost, it is about the potential of a rocket failure (not unheard of) and spreading massive nuclear material fallout all over the world. Talk about a black swan event.

 

It's not a matter of waste.

With a fusion reactor, you're basically building a mini Sun on Earth, and that's great, because you can get a lot of power out of a mini Sun, BUT, you need to keep that Sun contained somehow, because an uncontained Sun will give you a really bad sunburn.

Figuring out a way to contain a mini Sun is a really, really, really hard technological nut to crack.

 

The only waste generated by a fusion reactor(when/if we get one working) will be harmless helium, and a little bit of Tritium, which is radioactive, but it has a really short half life.

Waste isn't a problem. Keeping a raging fusion-powered Sun beast in it's cage is the problem.

 

Thus the super powerful electromagnet !!!

 

Powered by a flux capacitor!!!

 

Yep, the activation energy is 30 GJ/mol, due to the need to bring the two positively charged nuclei into very close proximity. That's why you need T = 10^8 to 10^9 K for even a small percentage of nuclei to have enough activation energy to fuse. These are physical limitations that are not easy to overcome.

 

I apologize. I misread that the first time. I see now that you were referring to conventional fission nukes.

I agree. That's the best short-term solution until fusion becomes a reality, but the stinky hippies are always going to block fission nuke plants.

 

I can't math, but I'll take your word for it.

 

Is anyone familiar with ITER? They’re saying that should come on line in another decade.

 

The ITER was the subject of the documentary I posted above.

 

Just don't put it on the moon.

 

Just shooting things out into space will result in that eventually hitting something out there???

 

It should be understood that the ITER is not being built as a "power plant", and it almost certainly never will be a power plant. It's a test facility. It's a "proof of concept" prototype.

It's basically thee most expensive science project that humans have ever attempted, but it's still just an experiment.

Hence the 'E' in ITER. International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor

It's not something that's going to let us flip a switch ON in 20 years, and energy bills will become a thing of the past.

 

The entire subject is well beyond my pay grade .

 

My brain is hardly big enough to wrap even halfway around it, but, from what I gather, fusion reactors might just be a boon for my kid's kid's kids.

Maybe.

 

I've always been optimistic when looking at all the fusion projects taking place across the globe. It may take a lot of time and effort, but it would be a game-changer in shaking up the energy market. Imagine if electricity went down to $0.01/kWh practically overnight.

That being said, we still need the infrastructure to fully utilize a new abundant supply of power. I don't know anything about the green new deal, but if it includes major updates to our power grid, it's probably worth it.

Electric vehicles are also a big part of the picture. Fusion energy pairs well with a nation of electric vehicles. I'm ready to purchase an EV as soon as it makes financial sense, and energy costs are part of that calculus.

 

Yep, imagine what would happen if electricity prices would be cut by a factor of 1000! It's actually not hard, energy consumption would increase by a factor of 1000 -- not immediately, but within the next decades. And then, we'd be in the same boat again, everyone complaining about energy prices that make their outsized consumption unaffordable. And, in the meantime, global temperatures would go through the roof.

 

Electricity is less reliable today than it was in my childhood 80 years ago. We lose power far more and for longer than we did when I was young. Why they didn't ban planting tall trees within 100 feet of power lines over 100 years ago baffles me.

 

Have we already lost interest in this topic?

 

I wish them well with it. It’s about time we explore other ways to get energy. I still don’t get why we aren’t covering every surface with solar panels

 

Been a dream for decades, cold fusion, with many claims that turned out not to hold up. Hope this one does, I read about also. Too bad we did not go more to nuclear fission along time ago. The small localized nuclear generating plants would solve a lot of our energy problems. Look at what is happening right now in Europe with the green energy initiatives not able to supply the power they need and electricity hitting a 700% increase over last year and projections they will have to start rationing when winter hits.