Nuclear fusion: How long until this breakthrough discovery can power your house

[malibukid]

early 2100's

[Srikcir]

3 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

The more realistic version of the OP is the new "small" nuclear reactors that have been developed with proven technology. Built in a factory and transported to wherever needed. Apparently safe too.

Nuclear fusion NOT coming into the electric grid anytime in the two decades. The lab produced about a net energy of 280 watt-hours during a 100 trillioniths of a second with the government spending over $700 million per year.

If that level of funding were used right now, I bet the current US national grid would be 100% alternative energy.

[spidermike007]

People simply put too much faith in technology, or grossly over estimate how advanced we are, as a species. I believe we are 300 to 500 years away from a viable nuclear fusion technology. Nobody has even come close. An experiment that lasts a trillionth of a second barely registers. 

[Scott]

A post with unsubstantiated claim has been removed along with replies.  

 

[Tug]

Hopefully it will pan out (become usable in the real world)and become another arrow in our collective quiver to address this problem personally I’m rooting for a really good battery to store energy there’s plenty of it out there for the harvesting just mediocre ways to store it that’s the key imo

[TKDfella]

Well, as the Lab scientists said , it is a significant step forward. With Lasers they managed, '...for fractions of second...' to get an ignition and 1.5 times the energy of the Lasers was achieved. There is still a long way to go; a sustained excess output; designing a delivery system to supply communities and so on.

[Satcommlee]

Energy Propaganda to wind up Putin... 

[placeholder]

4 hours ago, Tug said:

Hopefully it will pan out (become usable in the real world)and become another arrow in our collective quiver to address this problem personally I’m rooting for a really good battery to store energy there’s plenty of it out there for the harvesting just mediocre ways to store it that’s the key imo

Actually, storage batteries for power plants have made huge progress. There's a company called Form Energy, that essentially uses iron, which is very cheap, to store power. Other companies are doing that was well. Also, zinc, another cheap metal is being used for storage. Zinc-8 is one such company. A really interesting advance comes from Influit which has created a new kind of low cost flow battery. Currently, influit claims it can hold twice as much charge as a the best lithium batteries, but they say the next generation will be able to hold 4 times as much. With that kind of power, it can greatly increase the range of electric powered aircraft. It can also be used much the same way as fossil fuel is used. The charged liquid can be pumped into a container in a plane and when it's charge is relatively depleted, the liquid can be pumped out and replaced with freshly charged liquid. I used planes as an example because it would require a huge infrastructure investment to adopt it for EVs.

[bangon04]

On 12/13/2022 at 6:12 AM, Eleftheros said:

As for fusion power, if at long last one day it does prove to be viable, I expect those same activists will have found some excuse to claim that it is "dangerous", or "discriminatory" and do their utmost to hamper it in every way possible.

"resulting in a net energy gain"  well I thought the atom bomb did that already........

[ExpatOilWorker]

On 12/13/2022 at 7:55 AM, internationalism said:

I do suspect it will be first used in military technology, later possibly for space travel. 

For civilian use it will come rather in hundred years, that tens of years.

Fossil fuels use is likely to grow for the next 20 years. Crude oil will pick around 2045 with some 45mln barrels per day. 

45 million bbls per day??

Have you been looking at a chart from 1968?

We are already at 100 million bbls per day or more than 1,000 bbls ever second!

 

[Denim]

First the coal bunker and now this !!!

[rabas]

OK, the NIF fired 550 WHr of laser energy into a spec and got 830 WHr out. Although a milestone, they forgot to mention the whopping 83,000 WHr of grid electricity used to fire the lasers. Just wait for that electric bill. I thought mine were bad.

 

Such omissions have long been a problem in the fusion industry as theoretical physicist and youtuber Sabine Hossenfelder  explains here.

 

If so, then why so much hoopla? Maybe it is to impress Mr. Putin as someone suggested above. The NIF is one of a few super high technologies the US uses to ensure it's aging nuclear weapons work. Mr. Putin has no such high technologies at his disposal. The only thing he can be certain of is that US weapons will work, he should avoid going down the nuclear road.

 

The NIF role in nuclear stockpile stewardship

 

Edited December 14, 2022 by rabas

[ExpatOilWorker]

11 hours ago, rabas said:

whopping 83,000 WHr

83 kWh, that will cost them about 375 baht. I am sure they can afford that.

[Tropposurfer]

If one day in the future this limitless source of energy can be harnessed and produced readily it will usher in a period of humanity beyond any imagination (well maybe Star trek imagined it as it will be).

No need to dig/drill anything up for fuel ever again. Zero pollution, the power of a star 'in a bottle' so to speak. Completely clean limitless power and at levels of magnitude that are mind boggling.

Edited December 15, 2022 by Tropposurfer

[TKDfella]

12 hours ago, rabas said:

OK, the NIF fired 550 WHr of laser energy into a spec and got 830 WHr out. Although a milestone, they forgot to mention the whopping 83,000 WHr of grid electricity used to fire the lasers. Just wait for that electric bill. I thought mine were bad.

 

Such omissions have long been a problem in the fusion industry as theoretical physicist and youtuber Sabine Hossenfelder  explains here.

 

If so, then why so much hoopla? Maybe it is to impress Mr. Putin as someone suggested above. The NIF is one of a few super high technologies the US uses to ensure it's aging nuclear weapons work. Mr. Putin has no such high technologies at his disposal. The only thing he can be certain of is that US weapons will work, he should avoid going down the nuclear road.

 

The NIF role in nuclear stockpile stewardship

 

There are always lots of omissions in these things...take the cost of building materials and maintenance for a start. Nonetheless, trying to recreate conditions similar to reactions in the Sun in a controlled situation is no simple feat and brings fantasy a little closer to being reality.

[ExpatOilWorker]

1 hour ago, Tropposurfer said:

If one day in the future this limitless source of energy can be harnessed and produced readily it will usher in a period of humanity beyond any imagination (well maybe Star trek imagined it as it will be).

No need to dig/drill anything up for fuel ever again. Zero pollution, the power of a star 'in a bottle' so to speak. Completely clean limitless power and at levels of magnitude that are mind boggling.

The utopian dream of free energy will never happen. Fusion power plants will probably be so huge and expensive that only a few wealthy nations can afford them.

The rest of the world will still be hooked on cheap fossil fuels for generations to come.

[placeholder]

13 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

 

The rest of the world will still be hooked on cheap fossil fuels for generations to come.

I guess it's in your immediate interests to ignore contrary information. Still, I'm sure you've looked into the issue carefully. And you've thoroughly familiarized yourself with the information the link below connects to:

https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/

 

[ExpatOilWorker]

52 minutes ago, placeholder said:

I guess it's in your immediate interests to ignore contrary information. Still, I'm sure you've looked into the issue carefully. And you've thoroughly familiarized yourself with the information the link below connects to:

https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/

 

"When U.S. government subsidies are included, the cost of onshore wind and utility-scale solar continues to be competitive with the marginal cost of coal."

 

Rich countries can and often do subsidies their way to a greener future. They can afford it and that is great ????,  but poor countries, which is the majority will take cheap fossil fuel any day.

[placeholder]

1 minute ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

"When U.S. government subsidies are included, the cost of onshore wind and utility-scale solar continues to be competitive with the marginal cost of coal."

 

Rich countries can and often do subsidies their way to a greener future. They can afford it and that is great ????,  but poor countries, which is the majority will take cheap fossil fuel any day.

That was for the cost of building and running a renewable plant vs just running a fossil fuel plant that's already built. And this doesn't take account of the huge amount of the amount of subsidies for fossil fuel. The IMF estimates that amounts to about 5% of global gdp. Which dwarfs 

This chart shows unsubisided costs:

https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/

Solar and wind are both cheaper than fossil fuels. And keep in mind, that this chart dates from before the huge runup in fossil fuel prices.

 

[ExpatOilWorker]

8 minutes ago, placeholder said:

That was for the cost of building and running a renewable plant vs just running a fossil fuel plant that's already built. And this doesn't take account of the huge amount of the amount of subsidies for fossil fuel. The IMF estimates that amounts to about 5% of global gdp. Which dwarfs 

This chart shows unsubisided costs:

https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/

Solar and wind are both cheaper than fossil fuels. And keep in mind, that this chart dates from before the huge runup in fossil fuel prices.

 

Oil is net taxed through the roof. Whole governments are living of the tax they skim of oil.

Say when the Thai government is subsidizing diesel,  it is actually only a tax rebate.

[ballpoint]

If you had been in Kittyhawk on December 17th 1903 watching a heap of wood, canvas and wires briefly hop across a field, and claimed that 65 years later someone would fly to the moon, they probably would have laughed at you.

 

When Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch discovered nuclear fission in December 1938 - something requiring neutrons, which were themselves only discovered in 1932 by James Chadwick -  who would have guessed that, just four years later on December 2nd 1942, Enrico Fermi and his team would  produce the first controlled fission chain reaction, and on June 27th, 1954, the first nuclear power station to supply a national grid would open in Russia?

 

Never underestimate the speed of technology development once a major barrier has been crossed.  (Especially one that was crossed in December).

[Credo]

11 hours ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

The utopian dream of free energy will never happen. Fusion power plants will probably be so huge and expensive that only a few wealthy nations can afford them.

The rest of the world will still be hooked on cheap fossil fuels for generations to come.

Fossil fuels are not cheap.  They are not easily accessible either and most get subsidies and other benefits from governments.

 

[ozimoron]

18 hours ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

"When U.S. government subsidies are included, the cost of onshore wind and utility-scale solar continues to be competitive with the marginal cost of coal."

 

Rich countries can and often do subsidies their way to a greener future. They can afford it and that is great ????,  but poor countries, which is the majority will take cheap fossil fuel any day.

Pretty soon they won't be allowed to without major sanctions.

[Hummin]

On 12/13/2022 at 11:46 AM, Eleftheros said:

I don't think I've seen any serious scientists say that climate change is an existential threat.

 

The only people I've heard say anything like that are Prince Charles, Bono, Greta Thunberg, people like that, though probably Gwynneth and Leo have said something similar.

Climate change is a threat to people who live in areas who will be greatly affected by climate changes. Not so hard to understand is it?

[Scott]

A post with a graphic has been removed.  You must post a link to the source.  

 

[placeholder]

On 12/15/2022 at 11:27 AM, ExpatOilWorker said:

Oil is net taxed through the roof. Whole governments are living of the tax they skim of oil.

Say when the Thai government is subsidizing diesel,  it is actually only a tax rebate.

Just to be clear. The taxes you are referring to are sales taxes. Not taxes paid by the petroleum industry. So I don't see why you've set that against the way that oil is effectively subsidized.

Edited December 16, 2022 by placeholder

[ExpatOilWorker]

19 minutes ago, placeholder said:

Just to be clear. The taxes you are referring to are sales taxes. Not taxes paid by the petroleum industry. So I don't see why you've set that against the way that oil is effectively subsidized.

Huh??

[placeholder]

2 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

Huh??

Retail outlets of whatever stripe, gasoline/petrol stations included, collect sales taxes from consumers and relay them to governments. Those taxes do not come out of their income.

[cleopatra2]

To the OP

The description of breakthrough is disengenious. 

The ability to produce more energy than supplied was always going to be achieved. 

This marks a milestone in reaching that point. 

However the real challenge is overcoming the parasitic energy required to reach that state. 

Some 300MJ was needed to power the lasers. Thus the actual energy produced represented under 1% of the total  required. 

[ExpatOilWorker]

16 hours ago, placeholder said:

Retail outlets of whatever stripe, gasoline/petrol stations included, collect sales taxes from consumers and relay them to governments. Those taxes do not come out of their income.

When a product that is produced for $10 is sold for $300 because of royalty tax, windfall tax, green taxes, CO2 taxes, punitive taxes, we are a little beyond your average VAT tax rate.

Cheap fossil fuel is paying for a lot of the benefits we take for granted, whether we like it or not.