Dear all
They seems to be a great amount of hope for nuclear fusion to solve our energy problems, in a relatively clean way, and long-term this may indeed be possible. However, for the time being it seems unlikely to be the magic bullet we need to get out of the current climate crisis.
Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-
They seems to be a great amount of hope for nuclear fusion to solve our energy problems, in a relatively clean way, and long-term this may indeed be possible. However, for the time being it seems unlikely to be the magic bullet we need to get out of the current climate crisis.
At present, there are two main routes to nuclear fusion. One involves confining searing hot plasma in a powerful magnetic field. The Iter reactor follows such an approach. The other – adopted at the NIF facility – uses lasers to blast deuterium-tritium pellets causing them to collapse and fuse into helium. In both cases, reactions occur at more than 100 million C and involve major technological headaches in controlling them.
Fusion therefore remains a long-term technology, although many new investors and entrepreneurs – including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos – have recently turned their attention to the field, raising hopes that a fresh commercial impetus could reinvigorate the development of commercial plants.
This input is to be welcomed but we should be emphatic: fusion will not arrive in time to save the planet from climate change. Electricity plants powered by renewable sources or nuclear fission offer the only short-term alternatives to those that burn fossil fuels. We need to pin our hopes on these power sources. Fusion may earn its place later in the century but it would be highly irresponsible to rely on an energy source that will take at least a further two decades to materialise – at best.
(source: https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-it-all-before)
Fusion therefore remains a long-term technology, although many new investors and entrepreneurs – including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos – have recently turned their attention to the field, raising hopes that a fresh commercial impetus could reinvigorate the development of commercial plants.
This input is to be welcomed but we should be emphatic: fusion will not arrive in time to save the planet from climate change. Electricity plants powered by renewable sources or nuclear fission offer the only short-term alternatives to those that burn fossil fuels. We need to pin our hopes on these power sources. Fusion may earn its place later in the century but it would be highly irresponsible to rely on an energy source that will take at least a further two decades to materialise – at best.
(source: https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-it-all-before)
Kokuu
-sattoday-
aprapti
)
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