Fusion power start-ups go small in effort to bring commercial reactors to life

[OnlinePoker]

For decades, the quest for nuclear fusion energy has been driven by giant government-led projects — with giant price tags to match.

Just as spaceflight companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin have built upon NASA technology, a handful of fusion startups are building on government-funded fusion research, with the goal of firing up the first commercial fusion power plant as early as the 2020s.

"Fusion is poised for a “SpaceX moment,” says Christofer Mowry, CEO of General Fusion, a British Columbia-based firm that’s among the companies staking a claim in the fusion field. “We’re in a position today to combine new, enabling technologies to make something that was possible but not practical into something that’s commercially viable.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/fusion-power-start-ups-go-small-effort-bring-commercial-reactors-ncna998451

[The_jackalope]

1. While technophiles gather in nano-groups to toast each other with GMO champagne...

some among us are repulsed by the thought that fusion energy may be used to inflict yet more human damage on our long-suffering planet.

I hope commercial fusion power remains just 10 years away ... forever.

I refuse fusion.

[Thunderbeast]

2. So...said another way:

You seem to have such distrust of science that you will discount, out of hand, a technology that just might make our fossil fuel economy obsolete.

The development is still a ways off, but if they can make fusion work at economic scale, we can meet energy needs of the planet without producing carbon emissions or hazardous wastes. The byproducts are not part of the war machine fuel cycle.

So...why not use our brains to create a way to innovate?

The alternative is to further bifurcate the world's population based on access to deadly fossil fuel sources.

[The_jackalope]

3. It's not science I distrust

It's our ability to restrain ourselves in the name of the common good when there's profit to be had.

Industrial-scale energy use despoils the planet in order to extract that profit. More energy use results in more destruction, regardless of its source. Climate change is only one of many ways we are wrecking the biosphere through our profligate use of energy.

Here is a high-level list of biosphere problems the world faces today:

Climate change
Ocean acidification
Methane tipping points (permafrost and oceanic hydrates)
Species extinctions due to over-exploitation and the destruction of habitat
Deforestation
Desertification
Fresh water depletion
Soil fertility depletion
Land and water pollution by chemicals, heavy metals, radioactive wastes, eutrophication, oceanic debris fields etc

Of these only the first three are due to CO2 in the atmosphere. The others are directly enabled by energy consumption, and would continue regardless of the source of that energy.


Of course nothing I say will stop the march of "human progress" - only limits imposed by nature will do that. Fortunately we are near that point.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. Looking quickly at your list

Climate Change is in large part due to our use of fossil fuels.
Ocean Acidification is in large part due to our use of fossil fuels.
Methane tipping points are due to global warming (i.e. climate change) which is in large part due to our use of fossil fuels.
Species extinction was accomplished long before the industrial revolution (seen many woolly mammoths lately? Dodos?)
Deforestation seems to have been accomplished long before the industrial revolution (are you familiar with the Sahara desert?)
Desertification … well I already covered that.
Fresh water depletion …
Soil fertility depletion … (you're familiar with slash-and-burn agriculture I trust…)
Chemicals, heavy metals … yeah we've been doing that for a while too.

Energy use is not the problem.

[The_jackalope]

6. Let's take a closer look, shall we?

No matter how hard you try to pull the wool over our eyes, these pictures don't lie. Humans damage their niche, and energy consumption is the primary enabler of most of this damage.

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. No, it's not energy use; it's what we did with it.

Much of it was done in ignorance. We've lessened our level of ignorance.

As for other species, we're their best hope.

[The_jackalope]

8. Energy use

We use energy in agriculture, fishing, forestry, mining, manufacturing, transporting raw materials and finished goods, building and heating, and infrastructure maintenance. It's generally used as efficiently as possible to keep costs low and productivity high.

Which sector would you have us cut back globally?

We are driving other species to extinction and replacing them with cows and pigs. We are other species worst nightmare - a predator that doesn't even see them as food, but as resources, impediments or irrelevant to our needs.

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. So, your proposal is what exactly?

Shall we all commit suicide?

That will still leave the ecosystem in a bad way.

[The_jackalope]

10. My proposal

My proposal is to do as little harm as possible to the planet while Mother Nature sorts us out. But even that isn't possible, because there are over 7.5 billion other people sharing the globe, each with their own idea of what would be the best thing to do.

I have no big problem with people puttering around with fusion research. There are far worse things to be doing. My aim is more to inject a cautionary, if contrarian, note into the discussion. In my personal view, adding yet more energy to an already energy-rich civilization is unlikely to resolve much of the predicament we're in.

But I'm fully in favour of people doing whatever they believe to be right. Even if that is just building a bigger house or stock portfolio to give their children a better life. In the end we'll all just keep doing what we want to do, and we'll see how it turns out.

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. So, you would prefer fracking? Mountaintop removal mining?

Are you in favor of growing and cutting tremendous monoculture forests to produce "biofuels?"

If we are to cut down on atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ in any meaningful way, in a time frame that will avoid the worst effects of climate change it will require a great deal of non-carbon energy above and beyond the amount we will use in our day-to-day lives.

[The_jackalope]

14. My preferences are utterly irrelevant.

I would prefer to see the world's CO2 output drop to to 0 within 10 years, but it's not going to happen.

I'd prefer to see global energy consumption drop to 20 gigawatts from the 20 or so terawatts it is now, but that's not going to happen either.

I'd prefer global population to drop below 50 million by 2050, but again nobody's going to make my preferences come true.

Regardless of my preferences, fracking and mountaintop removal will continue, as will industrial agriculture, mining, over-fishing, general overconsumption and population growth.

[OKIsItJustMe]

15. OK, so you have nothing positive to add to the discussion.

Got it. Thanks.

[The_jackalope]

16. I think realism is positive.

I also think that a world where human activities dont interfere appreciably with the lives of "wild" animals is positive. And that humans taking an equal place in web of life is likewise positive.

I don't think that the things you and other anthropocentric technophiles advocate are positive.

[Thunderbeast]

5. A very pessimistic outlook for certain

Why would we forgo addressing the carbon-caused cataclysm just because the other important issues require different solutions.

Eighty percent of the world's population lives in poverty. They want a better life for their children. Economic security and access to energy are tightly linked. If clean energy sources are not available, cheap and dirty ones will be used.

I am willing to simplify my lifestyle, and reduce my impact. I assume you are too. Asking someone who lives with a constant threat of starvation and poor health to do the same, when alternatives are possible, is unfair and cruel.

I am optimistic that the human condition can still bend toward equity and prosperity. The world is not a perfect place, but I propose that the human condition is far better than it was in centuries past. We can address your list of existential concerns...We must...and I believe we will.

[hunter]

12. If I invented some cheap fusion energy source the secret would die with me...

... just as if I'd created an anti-matter bomb that anyone could build in their kitchen using common household materials.

The end result of either innovation would be the same. Humans would destroy the earth.

The nice thing about fossil fuels is that the end is gradual enough for us to see it coming.

We can choose to do something about that.

Or not.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. What, exactly, do you propose we do?

Shall we all commit suicide? It's not going to happen.

Shall we stop using energy? That won't happen either.

[hunter]

17. We'd commit suicide just as well with fusion power.

I can easily imagine gigantic fusion powered mining machines the size of football stadiums doing something silly like digging up gold that will be stored uselessly in vaults or cast into toilets for wealthy oligarchs.

Or worse, processing tar sands to make gasoline for people who refuse to drive anything but humongous four wheel drive SUVs with 500 horsepower engines, just in case they might have to tow an entire house up a mountain or across the country someday.

We have everything we need now to feed everyone, make sure everyone has safe comfortable housing and appropriate medical care, eliminate illiteracy and innumeracy, etc., all with a smaller environmental footprint than humans now have. We have safe, effective, birth control.

At this point cheap clean fusion would just makes all the world's problems worse. It would simply acelerate our ability to consume what's left of earth's natural environment.

Maybe humanity dodged a bullet that things like fusion power and nuclear weapons proved difficult for us. Imagine if the first World War had been fought with nuclear weapons...