Well done wind

[IT Minion]

It's hard for you to understand, clearly, but very easy for anyone capable of following a basic line of reasoning.

1) Fusion research has had very little funding.
2) Despite this, fusion research is on track to produce world-changing results in 30 - 50 years.

...hold on, this is the part you struggle with...

3) Fusion research would achieve this much quicker if it were funded to a greater extent.

...and gird your loins, because there's more...

4) If significant levels of funding had been available for the past 70 years, we'd likely already have fusion reactors producing our energy.

1) No, it gets Billions a year.
2) No, it might generate power in 50 years. There is no reason to think it would be absurdly cheap. That 'too cheap to meter' quote is 70 odd years old now.
3) Sure.
4) I doubt it. We'd have to provided Manhattan project/Apollo program levels of funding for that. For 70 years. And it probably wouldn't have got it working now, fusion needs cutting edge tools, material science, computing and modeling and we still can't draw up a design that would break even on electricity.

And none of that is relevant to today's power choices. Fusion isn't ready now, won't be ready soon and might never be ready.

 

[MNW67]

It's hard for you to understand, clearly, but very easy for anyone capable of following a basic line of reasoning.

1) Fusion research has had very little funding.
2) Despite this, fusion research is on track to produce world-changing results in 30 - 50 years.

...hold on, this is the part you struggle with...

3) Fusion research would achieve this much quicker if it were funded to a greater extent.

...and gird your loins, because there's more...

4) If significant levels of funding had been available for the past 70 years, we'd likely already have fusion reactors producing our energy.

The consensus is that is extremely unlikely.

 

[Si_]

1) No, it gets Billions a year.
2) No, it might generate power in 50 years. There is no reason to think it would be absurdly cheap. That 'too cheap to meter' quote is 70 odd years old now.
3) Sure.
4) I doubt it. We'd have to maintained Apollo program levels of funding for that.

And none of that is relevant to today's power choices. Fusion isn't ready now, won't be ready soon and might never be ready.

1) It has historically had around 20 - 30 million a year. For the past two years it's barely scraped a billion. A billion is nothing when compared to overall government spending. The absurdity of spending hundreds of billions to effect best case a change 40 times below that scientifically detectable whilst spending essentially nothing on a technology that could solve the problem globally is blatantly clear.

2) I didn't mention the word 'cheap'. But since you bring it up, once the implementation overheads are paid off, it will be essentially free. The only costs will be in infrastructure maintenance and admin.

3) Glad you can see that.

4) And again. Good to see you're seeing sense. The Apollo program was very important, but nowhere near as important as clean, unlimited energy.

 

[IT Minion]

2) I didn't mention the word 'cheap'. But since you bring it up, once the implementation overheads are paid off, it will be essentially free. The only costs will be in infrastructure maintenance and admin

Liar liar pants on fire.

It would be cheap, too. A couple of generations after the initial investment, it would be basically free. Free energy

Also wrong, fuel costs are a small proportion of the costs of Fission, it's mostly infrastructure and maintenance. Fusion is going to need similar infrastructure and maintenance but with more expensive components and a higher power consumption. The backup generators would have to be another fission power plant and they'd never manage a black start.

 

[IT Minion]

And again. Good to see you're seeing sense. The Apollo program was very important, but nowhere near as important as clean, unlimited energy.

Yep, solar power for the win.

 

[Si_]

Liar liar pants on fire.

"Despite this, fusion research is on track to produce world-changing results in 30 - 50 years."

Maybe if I phrase it like this -

myQuote.find("cheap")=0

Also wrong, fuel costs are a small proportion of the costs of Fission, it's mostly infrastructure and maintenance. Fusion is going to need similar infrastructure and maintenance but with more expensive components and a higher power consumption. The backup generators would have to be another fission power plant and they'd never manage a black start.

Why are you comparing fusion with fission? One of the biggests costs of fission is waste management and decommissioning. It's cited to take over 100 years and £140bn to revert Sellafield to greenfield, which will likely turn into 200 years and £400bn when all's done.

 

[JohnD]

Yes there are also straw burning power stations too. More CO2 - bigger yields = more straw to burn = more renewable energy another climate warming bonus

You don't have much grip on reality.

Don't pretend you know anything about the topic. It's embarrassing to witness.

Tell me what effect you think growing straw, then burning it, has on atmospheric CO2.

 

[JohnD]

once the implementation overheads are paid off, it will be essentially free. The only costs will be in infrastructure maintenance and admin.

That's solar you're describing.

And windfarms

And tidal.

How many billions does it take to discover how to build them?

 

[Si_]

That's solar you're describing.

And windfarms

And tidal.

How many billions does it take to discover how to build them?

The storage alone would take billions to spec and implement. The technology doesn't even exist for 100% implementation. We won't even go into the thousands of square miles of countryside needed to house the windmills and the mirrors.

And then what do we have? Non-scalable, unreliable energy sources that barely cover our current energy uses, never mind the vast increases we'll need to power future technologies.

Renewables are fine, but to think they can be a primary energy source is madness.

 

[JohnD]

We won't even go into the thousands of square miles of countryside needed to house the windmills and the mirrors.

Please do.

How many thousands of square miles did it take to achieve "only" 38%?

Over the last year renewables could produce only 38.3 per cent of our electricity

 

[Si_]

Please do.

How many thousands of square miles did it take to achieve "only" 38%?

Not that this has anything to do with the topic, but since you're interested.

"If you count the total area of wind farm sites (including the spacing between turbines), the figure is around 1,930 square miles - though most of this land remains usable for agriculture or other purposes...

...As of September 2024, ground-mounted solar farms in the UK cover an estimated 21,200 hectares, or approximately 82 square miles"

So currently only 2,012 square miles of UK countryside blighted by monstrosities.

 

[aveatry]

Tell me what effect you think growing straw, then burning it, has on atmospheric CO2.

I think they put the emissions through scrubbers

 

[Brigadier]

So given that scientific consensus is that we'll see fusion power generation within 30 years, despite the fact it has received almost no government funding, would you like to reconsider your statement that 'Fusion is just a dream'?

You missed the bit where it depends on "technological advancements".

As far as our lifetimes are concerned, I'm happy with my statement

 

[Brigadier]

I think they put the emissions through scrubbers

I think you missed the point.
Utterly.

 

[IT Minion]

"Despite this, fusion research is on track to produce world-changing results in 30 - 50 years."

Maybe if I phrase it like this -

myQuote.find("cheap")=0

Why are you comparing fusion with fission? One of the biggests costs of fission is waste management and decommissioning. It's cited to take over 100 years and £140bn to revert Sellafield to greenfield, which will likely turn into 200 years and £400bn when all's done.

In 50 years time we might have some very uneconomical first of kind plants. It won't be changing the world.

And im glad you've changed your mind and no longer think it will be cheap energy. Even the second generation are expected to be more expensive than fission plants.