Fusion energy device sets a record by running for 20 seconds

[LukeTbk]

And solar and wind are perfectly fine ways to produce power, what's terrible is the fact people demand that power be as constant as the proverbial wind blows (no pun). Also power is typically someone one else's problem, they need to invest in infrastructure, they need to invest in storage (if it's not constant), and people in general want to basically buy it as they use it they don't want to (or can't) invest in it.

I could be wrong if it changed recently, but isn't current form of storage are yet to be possible for most, pumping water back up for an hydro installation is by far the best (and pretty much the only energy storage currently used on earth) and that not something that is possible to do for most people, that a someone else solution.

That said it seem that you are right, that recently solar and wind achieved to become nice way to produce energy in some location, but it is something that was often claimed in the past as well.

 

[sfsuphysics]

I could be wrong if it changed recently, but isn't current form of storage are yet to be possible for most, pumping water back up for an hydro installation is by far the best (and pretty much the only energy storage currently used on earth) and that not something that is possible to do for most people, that a someone else solution.

Hydro storage is used at what is called "utility scale storage", because that's what it is storage for the masses and the utility is the one who pays for it, and that largely was my point. Energy has become such a wide area long reaching thing that most people have taken for granted and "that's the way things should be" that it's hard to comprehend energy being locally produced, extremely locally in the case of solar on your roof, and that takes some level of cost, however at the home scale batteries like the Tesla Powerwall (and others) are perfectly fine for storage, albeit a bit pricey of an option, but again people don't want to invest in THEIR future when it comes to energy, it's just easier to write a check to the local power company and let them deal with all the costs associated with it.

That said it seem that you are right, that recently solar and wind achieved to become nice way to produce energy in some location, but it is something that was often claimed in the past as well.

And that's the thing, too much argument goes against solar/wind because it doesn't work well in their location, as if they're the only ones who matter. Different areas may need different solutions, same with storage. Me living in an area that requires (has) no A/C, and heating of my house and water is done via natural gas, which if you think about it is a way for me to produce my own energy in my home, then my electric needs when the sun isn't up (or in general) could be quite low and not much storage would be needed ... if it wasn't for the 400 odd gallons of salt water I keep fish and coral in . That said, someone who lives in areas which have gone full balls to the wall electric, heating, cooking, and cooling, then they'd need a different solution than me.

If Fusion becomes a reality, it could make energy so cheap that mining bills could be close to zero

No way it'll ever happen. Human greed runs too deep for anything that benefits humanity to be super cheap. Someone needs to pay for the plant, well if that's a company they will have stockholders that demand return on their investment. Fusion requires deuterium as a fuel source (possibly even tritium... not sure what they'll end up using), and as soon as there's a need for something someone will find a way to buy futures, or trade in that fuel source and costs will shoot up. This ignores all the manpower costs associated with it too, not just in the fusion plant, but that power has to get to homes somehow and that's via power lines which will require maintenance. Yeah the utopia clean cheap energy is nothing but a dream... at least in this country.

 

[doz]

Sim City 2000 becoming a reality.

 

[LukeTbk]

however at the home scale batteries like the Tesla Powerwall (and others) are perfectly fine for storage

Depend what you mean by fine, imagine the impact of building 500 millions of those (if it is even possible to start with), considering their giant cost I would imagine they require a lot of costly/rare item in them and if it would work for most home of the world, I doubt it is remotely sensical for an industry with heavy energy use. Looking at the know world reserve lithium, if that solution ever get popular it seem like it would quickly cost even more of a fortune than now with how rare and precious it would quickly become.

Energy has become such a wide area long reaching thing that most people have taken for granted and "that's the way things should be" that it's hard to comprehend energy being locally produced,

But with the current state of battery or other way to store electricity and pumping water up being so so much better than them and cheaper, it seem just logical to use that over anything else (that are way way more costly, less efficient and polluting).

No way it'll ever happen. Human greed runs too deep for anything that benefits humanity to be super cheap.

That sound a bit pessimistic, if we look at some of the most recent giant beneficial thinks for humanity:
1) Running water
2) Child Vaccination

Those 2 are supercheap in a lot of place, same could be say for electricity even, place that has electricity under 6 cent the kw/h is quite extraordinary humanity history wise, same could go for lot of foods now.

This ignores all the manpower costs associated with it too, not just in the fusion plant, but that power has to get to homes somehow and that's via power lines which will require maintenance.

Yes that a good point, transport is often where most of the cost are (that why that industry that require very little transport cost can have ultra low price and still be where 100% of the profit are made while the regular population is getting electricity at a lost (even if they more the kw/h) in socialist place energywise like Quebec), but the industrial use of said energy that require little complexity between the energy source and them in comparison to cities (like Aluminium factory) could be a game changer for them and their customer.

 

[DukenukemX]

Depend what you mean by fine, imagine the impact of building 500 millions of those (if it is even possible to start with), considering their giant cost I would imagine they require a lot of costly/rare item in them and if it would work for most home of the world, I doubt it is remotely sensical for an industry with heavy energy use. Looking at the know world reserve lithium, if that solution ever get popular it seem like it would quickly cost even more of a fortune than now with how rare and precious it would quickly become.

The key thing here is that it can be done with lithium batteries, while fusion cannot. We also don't need to use lithium as a means of storage either. Besides that battery technology is evolving and that we may find a way to get way from lithium, but we can also use molten salt like in the photo bellow. It wouldn't work for people at home, but it would work for large scale solar farms. Hydro storage has also been mentioned, but the key thing here is that it can be done with enough money where as Fusion cannot. You can throw an infinite amount of money at Fusion and you'll get nowhere, and I think that's the idea. The people who work on Fusion are probably the biggest con men in the modern world.

That sound a bit pessimistic, if we look at some of the most recent giant beneficial thinks for humanity:
1) Running water
2) Child Vaccination

Those 2 are supercheap in a lot of place, same could be say for electricity even, place that has electricity under 6 cent the kw/h is quite extraordinary humanity history wise, same could go for lot of foods now.

Sorry but we live in a capitalist society and that means anybody who does get Fusion working will charge you an arm and leg to use it. The only reason anybody is interested in pursuing this technology is to keep the power industry going as long as possible. Coal is dirty, no matter what anybody says, and nuclear is well nuclear. Most homes can be outfitted with solar power and battery storage to the point where 70% of their power needs can be done by solar. Even modern solar is an act of desperation where you can't run off solar when the power grid goes down, but you can if you have battery storage. The excuse for this is that if people are working on the power grid to fix it, it could damage things and injure employee's. I guess they never heard of something like a FUCKING RELAY. Most solar panels produce AC straight from the panel, and not DC, which is a mistake as we should be trying to convert homes to use DC power since most appliances use DC. Otherwise we waste energy going from AC to DC, but in reality since solar is inherently DC then we're converting DC to AC from the solar panel, and then your desktop PC is converting AC to DC from the PSU. It's so inefficient I cannot even, and this is somehow orchestrated by the power industry. Capitalism ruins things because someone wants to make more money.

 

[drescherjm]

ac is more economical to transfer long dostances

There is HVDC now which has substantial advantages over HV AC in long distance transmission.

 

[SunnyD]

This is a serious question... when fusion reactors are able to have a positive output of energy, how is it going to be captured and used? By making steam and turning turbines?

https://www.iter.org/sci/MakingitWork

 

[Mega6]

There is HVDC now which has substantial advantages over HV AC in long distance transmission.

HVDC equipment such as breakers (which in HVDC introduce transients ie. BAD) to regulate HVDC is the cost prohibitive factor -- which is why the world is still on HVAC. You need to create a Zero-Crossings Point on the breaker flip/current interrupt. This is effectively easy and cheap to do with HVAC.

NOT so with HVDC.

Therefore HVDC application on a modern power grid is difficult and expensive.

 

[Daishi123]

I still think fusion power will never happen. Rather we focus on solar and wind power since that's realistic.

Neither Solar or Wind are realistic for power generation in the future.

 

[Mega6]

Neither Solar or Wind are realistic for power generation in the future.

Solar is more realistic from a Space Based Platform of capture and then delivery to earth.

 

[DukenukemX]

Mate, ac is more economical to transfer long dostances
View attachment 314140

We're not talking about long distances here. We're talking about solar power in your home. Most appliances already convert AC to DC, but solar is already DC. It makes sense to have the power grid use AC, but not solar. We should be converting homes to use DC and have DC outlets so that solar becomes more efficient. Power inverters are very inefficient and you lose something like 4% to 7% of the power generate by solar. Your computers power supply if crappy can lose up to 40% and if good quality will lose up to 13% if 80 Plus Gold. So if you have an 80 Plus Gold PSU on solar then you're wasting 20% of the power generated by solar, and if you have an off brand PSU then you're wasting 47%. We can still have AC come to peoples homes and convert it there to DC to make it more efficient for solar power. We'd need new power adapters that would be glorified DC to DC converters.

Neither Solar or Wind are realistic for power generation in the future.

It's not only very realistic but at some moments it produces way too much power, which at some point there are European countries who are just giving it away for free since they can't use it. That's the problem with solar and wind in that it depends on the weather to generate power and the weather is unpredictable, which is why we need to store that extra production of power for use when there are moments when we're not generating enough. Hence why we need a method to store that extra energy. Which we know we can store that energy in many different methods, which none of them are unrealistic. Just a matter of who's going to spend the money to do it? Unlike Fusion where at best we can power itself for 20 seconds. Not power a light bulb or charge a cell phone but power itself for 20 seconds. Just face it, we can't do Fusion because we don't have the infinite crushing force of gravity to produce it.

 

[Mega6]

We're not talking about long distances here. We're talking about solar power in your home.

What are we talking about here? Rooftop panels? Limited space restricts the load to "maybe" just your HVAC power - IF THAT. Depending on where you live ie. climate.

Most appliances already convert AC to DC, but solar is already DC.

One of the first things Tesla did is to invent an brushless AC motor. You're little low watt electronics runs on DC, sure - but all the high wattage motors do not. vacuum cleaner, blender, drills, ect. So now what, reconvert ac->dc->ac? Now we are talking super-inefficient for a majority of the watts used.

It makes sense to have the power grid use AC, but not solar. We should be converting homes to use DC and have DC outlets so that solar becomes more efficient. Power inverters are very inefficient and you lose something like 4% to 7% of the power generate by solar. Your computers power supply if crappy can lose up to 40% and if good quality will lose up to 13% if 80 Plus Gold. So if you have an 80 Plus Gold PSU on solar then you're wasting 20% of the power generated by solar, and if you have an off brand PSU then you're wasting 47%. We can still have AC come to peoples homes and convert it there to DC to make it more efficient for solar power. We'd need new power adapters that would be glorified DC to DC converters.

You're not saving anything when you're doing the conversion anyways at the home level vs Adapter Level. The same AC-DC conversion takes place with the same losses.

The cost of solar is land use as not everyone wants to donate their backyard to solar panels. Rooftop is applicable but limited roof space will affect the cost - benefit analysis. Also, as mentioned weather is finicky and a hookup to the power company to buy back excess power and/or battery storage is still needed to supplement. In all - DC complicates an already complicated problem and is not worth what imaginary savings being talked about. It's just not there. A lot needs to take place first such as DC standards for all the devices.

Not going to happen.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Depend what you mean by fine, imagine the impact of building 500 millions of those (if it is even possible to start with), considering their giant cost I would imagine they require a lot of costly/rare item in them and if it would work for most home of the world, I doubt it is remotely sensical for an industry with heavy energy use. Looking at the know world reserve lithium, if that solution ever get popular it seem like it would quickly cost even more of a fortune than now with how rare and precious it would quickly become.

Well that's what I mean, fine for ME. I don't care what 500 million other people are doing. I can have an energy solution in my house all the time with a solution if I pay for it, I'm not going to worry about the industry I have a roof, I don't need the industry. And don't think that it has to be a lithium battery either, I just gave a current example of existing tech that is affordable* (and yes this definition will change from person to person).
Also you'll falling into a trap with thinking everyone needs to switch over at once, not many things do that hell the requirement for seat belts in cars didn't happen overnight either, "new" technology (or ways to do things) tends to happen slowly, it rolls out at a pace that's often dictated by cost and as economies of scale bring cost down it goes more into full effect just look at solar for crying out loud.

The biggest hurdle tends to be other industries that don't wan to give up their power (no pun intended), just look at the electrical industry they've largely fought against solar because it's not something they directly control and means they could lose their customers and then you run into problems like California where now there's "too much" solar, and again this hasn't happened over night the writing was on the wall the two major power companies in California (PG&E and SoCal Edison) had decades to plan for this too but they're too busy making money to care about something messing with their business. Now it's a problem, because there's too much solar when it's not needed.

But with the current state of battery or other way to store electricity and pumping water up being so so much better than them and cheaper, it seem just logical to use that over anything else (that are way way more costly, less efficient and polluting).

An interesting watch that just popped up on my recommended list this morning, I swear Google is spying on ever facet of what I do online, related to this but by no means an argument.

That sound a bit pessimistic, if we look at some of the most recent giant beneficial thinks for humanity:
1) Running water
2) Child Vaccination

Those 2 are supercheap in a lot of place, same could be say for electricity even, place that has electricity under 6 cent the kw/h is quite extraordinary humanity history wise, same could go for lot of foods now.

Pessimistic about humanity as a whole? Yeah I am. Way too much of our economy is based on nothing but making money, and I don't mean profits, I mean the act of not even doing anything other than moving shells around which stock is going to make money, which stock is going to lose money, which resource can I buy (but ironically not ever have to hold) and then which can I sell (of which I never had). The stock market collapses the entire economy goes to fuck all, is this because places stop making goods? services are no longer offered? is food no longer available? no it's because the "value" of companies/things "changed".

As to some of those super cheap things, yeah running water is relatively cheap... considering it's water and all they're doing is pumping it from point A to B and tossing in some bleaching agents, but water itself is not cheap look how much a bottle of water cost in the store. Child vaccines can be cheap too... until you get some dill hole venture capitalist who buys a company who makes them... then the only reason they are cheap is because either government grants pay for the cost, or insurance companies do.

 

[Mega6]

Pessimistic about humanity as a whole? Yeah I am. Way too much of our economy is based on nothing but making money, and I don't mean profits, I mean the act of not even doing anything other than moving shells around which stock is going to make money, which stock is going to lose money, which resource can I buy (but ironically not ever have to hold) and then which can I sell (of which I never had). The stock market collapses the entire economy goes to fuck all, is this because places stop making goods? services are no longer offered? is food no longer available? no it's because the "value" of companies/things "changed".

As to some of those super cheap things, yeah running water is relatively cheap... considering it's water and all they're doing is pumping it from point A to B and tossing in some bleaching agents, but water itself is not cheap look how much a bottle of water cost in the store. Child vaccines can be cheap too... until you get some dill hole venture capitalist who buys a company who makes them... then the only reason they are cheap is because either government grants pay for the cost, or insurance companies do.

Stick to Physics and stay away from Economics.

 

[travm]

I still think fusion power will never happen. Rather we focus on solar and wind power since that's realistic.

Solar and wind power will never make sense economically. Not worldwide anyway.

 

[BinarySynapse]

DC in the home offers no benefit over AC. You have to keep a high voltage to keep wire size down, but most devices capable of operating directly from DC need less than 24v. So you’re going to need DC-DC converters. Also anything with an induction motor is going to need an inverter.

Say goodbye to any efficiency gains you thought you made.

 

[DWolvin]

There is HVDC now which has substantial advantages over HV AC in long distance transmission.

Whoa, learned something new today- I always thought the reason for HVAC was mostly that HVDC bleeds to much power, but it's actually more efficient as a backbone. And you prevent phase problems on either end.
Linky to learning

 

[Lakados]

The biggest advantage of HVDC is the lack of a need for the power generators to be in sync with each other, having worked in power plants I have seen what happens when somebody fucks up a start-up sequence on a generator and starts it out of sync, it usually blows up. So the ability to have multiple turbines running at different rates for things like wind or tidal is an important thing and allows for a smoother transition, at a grid level HVDC makes sense for a lot of things, but for home much less so. The distances from power stations to a house are generally short enough that any benefit from HVDC is lost and instead would require large amounts of expensive equipment to be needed in the home and maintained by the homeowners. I just don't see it really happening in the near future. Now if solar roofing becomes far more widespread than it currently is then we may need a change as much of that equipment is then needed if the solar panels are to then dump their output onto the grid in a sustainable way but converting the grid, installing the equipment... That would be a large undertaking that I doubt any democratic, capitalist government could do in a feasible manner.

 

[DukenukemX]

What are we talking about here? Rooftop panels? Limited space restricts the load to "maybe" just your HVAC power - IF THAT. Depending on where you live ie. climate.

Yes power from the solar panel and home battery power.

One of the first things Tesla did is to invent an brushless AC motor. You're little low watt electronics runs on DC, sure - but all the high wattage motors do not. vacuum cleaner, blender, drills, ect. So now what, reconvert ac->dc->ac? Now we are talking super-inefficient for a majority of the watts used.

The overwhelming use of electricity in a home is DC. Unless you're using a dryer, washing machine, or air conditioning then yea it'll use AC. For those appliances you can use a DC to AC converter. Instead of what we do now is use a lot of DC to AC to DC conversion, which is what you're doing at home with solar power and your PC.

You're not saving anything when you're doing the conversion anyways at the home level vs Adapter Level. The same AC-DC conversion takes place with the same losses.

Yea but you're only doing it once, not twice. You can still run dedicated AC lines into a home with dedicated DC lines, just like we do with 220v and 110v lines. You'd still have an inverter connected to the AC line, but you can have dedicated DC lines coming straight from the power wall and solar array to avoid the energy loss. We'd need new outlets to make use of this power delivery system, like USB-C. Instead of a AC->DC adapter for your phone or laptop, you'd just have a DC->DC converter. Pretty much the same thing as the 12v adapters we use for cars as it's just DC->DC.

In all - DC complicates an already complicated problem and is not worth what imaginary savings being talked about. It's just not there. A lot needs to take place first such as DC standards for all the devices.

The math isn't imaginary and all you'd need is DC->DC converters. You know those power bricks you use to power your Xbox One console? It would just be a simple wire going to the console. The problem is when electronics are manufactured with built in AC->DC adapters.

Not going to happen.

Not with that attitude.

 

[cdabc123]

Yes power from the solar panel and home battery power.


The overwhelming use of electricity in a home is DC. Unless you're using a dryer, washing machine, or air conditioning then yea it'll use AC. For those appliances you can use a DC to AC converter. Instead of what we do now is use a lot of DC to AC to DC conversion, which is what you're doing at home with solar power and your PC.

The overwhelming use of electricity in a home is AC. Unless you are charging a battery its AC.

Powering appliances off a inverter is costly and stupid.

 

[LukeTbk]

. I guess they never heard of something like a FUCKING RELAY. Most solar panels produce AC straight from the panel, and not DC, which is a mistake as we should be trying to convert homes to use DC power since most appliances use DC.

The overwhelming use of electricity in a home is DC. Unless you're using a dryer, washing machine, or air conditioning then yea it'll use AC. For those appliances you can use a DC to AC converter. Instead of what we do now is use a lot of DC to AC to DC conversion, which is what you're doing at home with solar power and your PC.

Is that true in actual quantity and not counting appareil, could we add an oven/toaster/heating the house and any other heating element to that list ?


According to that graph, DC seem to be about 4% of an average household electricity use (DC lighting could also be a thing with led now), study seem to show than and all DC conversion will never make up the capital investment:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/scien...text=Making up approximately 35% of,13], [24].

Study seem to say around half is DC use or go through a DC state (I could imagine less in colder place where more of the electricity goes into heating the place).

 

[travm]

The overwhelming use of electricity in a home is AC. Unless you are charging a battery its AC.

Powering appliances off a inverter is costly and stupid.

Unfortunately most people are. Especially the omg the environment crowd. What we need to do is stop fucking paving everything, and this idea we need to plant trees, it's insane. They've literally planted themselves for millions of years. Stop poisoning and destroying the natural environment. Most of our power generation is harmless besides all the other shit people do to live.

 

[tangoseal]

I still think fusion power will never happen. Rather we focus on solar and wind power since that's realistic.

Why cant it happen? Stars do it. Never give up. Weve never had a reactor run critical state doing fusion for 20 seconds before. What happens when we get 30 seconds, and then 60, 5 mins, and finally self sustaining?

You act as if there is only one team out of all of humanity working on just one form of energy. Why cant the fusion team do fusion, the solar do solar?

 

[DukenukemX]

Is that true in actual quantity and not counting appareil, could we add an oven/toaster/heating the house and any other heating element to that list ?

Are we heating a home with electricity? As far as I know, electricity is the most expensive method to heat a home. We're assuming that ovens are also electric, which they can be, but also more expensive and inefficient. We're using heat to generate electricity to transmit over a power line which losses 5%, to heat an oven or home. Better off using natural gas to heat and cook at home, which is cheaper and more efficient. Keep in mind that anytime you convert energy from one form to another, you lose some energy. The less converting you do, the more efficient it is. This is why hydrogen fuel cars look good at glace, but when you factor in how much energy conversion takes place to power the vehicle then you realize it's not very efficient, and not very cheap as a result.

View attachment 314254
According to that graph, DC seem to be about 4% of an average household electricity use (DC lighting could also be a thing with led now), study seem to show than and all DC conversion will never make up the capital investment:

That graph is stupid for a number of reasons. Gotta understand that you don't have to remove AC to get DC. You can still keep the AC lines in your home, while also having DC lines installed. If you have solar then you already have a DC to AC inverter anyway. You can bypass the inverter for applications that exclusively use DC and save a lot on power consumption. The 8-bit guy even shows you in his video putting in a DC plug on his UPS at time 6:40. He explains that by bypassing the inverter he can power a radio he has for a week vs an hour through the inverter. Or recharging his phone dozens of times vs using the AC inverter for maybe one charge if he's lucky.

Why cant it happen? Stars do it. Never give up.

Stars have the crushing infinite force of gravity while we use magnetism to spin hot gasses round and round.

Weve never had a reactor run critical state doing fusion for 20 seconds before. What happens when we get 30 seconds, and then 60, 5 mins, and finally self sustaining?

When and if we do then someone will charge more money to get the power from it. With what exactly? Deuterium? You know how much hydrogen costs on Earth? There's a reason why it's expensive, because we usually need energy to extract it. So far we need the heavier version of hydrogen which is even harder to get. Hydrogen on Earth is either extracted from electrolysis, which you're better off using the electricity directly for... electricity, or from steam-methane reforming which uses natural gas, which again we're better off using the natural gas to make power.

You act as if there is only one team out of all of humanity working on just one form of energy. Why cant the fusion team do fusion, the solar do solar?

Because they're wasting resources that could be better put to refine solar, wind, or battery power. Who's paying for this research? Usually we are through taxes. Fusion energy is not going to happen.

 

[BinarySynapse]

Why cant it happen? Stars do it. Never give up. Weve never had a reactor run critical state doing fusion for 20 seconds before. What happens when we get 30 seconds, and then 60, 5 mins, and finally self sustaining?

You act as if there is only one team out of all of humanity working on just one form of energy. Why cant the fusion team do fusion, the solar do solar?

As was pointed out earlier, stars do it simply because there's a unimaginable amount mass piled on top of the star's core squishing atoms into each other. We don't have access to that amount of mass to do it the same way, so we're working on finding another way. Predicting how the plasma behaves so we can keep it burning and control it has been an enormous challenge as there are a ton of variables to account for. Each experiment tweaks something to see what happens; each new reactor incorporates what we've learned from the last reactor.

The problem is that it takes years to build the new reactors, years to run the experiments, and years to analyze the results to know what to do for the next round. And after all this time, we still don't actually know if controllable, sustained, and safe fusion on a commercial scale is ever going to be practical.

 

[tangoseal]

As was pointed out earlier, stars do it simply because there's a unimaginable amount mass piled on top of the star's core squishing atoms into each other. We don't have access to that amount of mass to do it the same way, so we're working on finding another way. Predicting how the plasma behaves so we can keep it burning and control it has been an enormous challenge as there are a ton of variables to account for. Each experiment tweaks something to see what happens; each new reactor incorporates what we've learned from the last reactor.

The problem is that it takes years to build the new reactors, years to run the experiments, and years to analyze the results to know what to do for the next round. And after all this time, we still don't actually know if controllable, sustained, and safe fusion on a commercial scale is ever going to be practical.

My point is that physics provides a way in the universe. We must not simply give up because its challenging. Im not gonna bicker back andnforth on a forum about it. Some people quit and others dont know how to. You have to know when your argument has no merit with the audience. I hope they continue pursuing the tech. In physics it turns out most discoveries are made by accident while looking for something else. They will be failing and failing, then one day an anomaly happens and not will change the whole perspective.

 

[LukeTbk]

Are we heating a home with electricity? As far as I know, electricity is the most expensive method to heat a home. We're assuming that ovens are also electric, which they can be, but also more expensive and inefficient. We're using heat to generate electricity to transmit over a power line which losses 5%, to heat an oven or home. Better off using natural gas to heat and cook at home, which is cheaper and more efficient. Keep in mind that anytime you convert energy from one form to another, you lose some energy. The less converting you do, the more efficient it is. This is why hydrogen fuel cars look good at glace, but when you factor in how much energy conversion takes place to power the vehicle then you realize it's not very efficient, and not very cheap as a result.

I guess it really depend where you are in the world, where I am yes almost exclusively in 2020 (and electricity is mostly hydro not heat converted) with a bit of wood still existing, yes if most heating element are gaz where you are it is I imagine quite the different affair, I imagine it is rare worldwide for electricity to be use for everything in people house with gaz being extremely rare like where I am from, making my cut reaction to the statement that it is mostly DC in a house maybe not representative at all.

 

[travm]

Because they're wasting resources that could be better put to refine solar, wind, or battery power. Who's paying for this research? Usually we are through taxes. Fusion energy is not going to happen.

Solar wind and battery power are all expensive pipe dreams. I'd rather see money literally burned for heat than what you propose. It's shortsighted, not "green", and a huge waste of money and resources.

Who gets to clean up all these expensive af wind and solar installations in 20 years when they quit working? Can't plant trees on them cause that have 20' Dia concrete foundations. Get out your pickaxe son.

 

[DukenukemX]

I guess it really depend where you are in the world, where I am yes almost exclusively in 2020 (and electricity is mostly hydro not heat converted) with a bit of wood still existing, yes if most heating element are gaz where you are it is I imagine quite the different affair, I imagine it is rare worldwide for electricity to be use for everything in people house with gaz being extremely rare like where I am from, making my cut reaction to the statement that it is mostly DC in a house maybe not representative at all.

I'm guessing you're in Norway since they have the largest amount of hydro dams. In that country the amount of electricity produced is enough that half of all new cars sold there are electric. But hydro electric is not only green energy but cheap, assuming you have enough rainfall.

My point is that physics provides a way in the universe. We must not simply give up because its challenging. Im not gonna bicker back andnforth on a forum about it. Some people quit and others dont know how to. You have to know when your argument has no merit with the audience. I hope they continue pursuing the tech. In physics it turns out most discoveries are made by accident while looking for something else. They will be failing and failing, then one day an anomaly happens and not will change the whole perspective.

The method they are trying to generate Fusion energy is never gonna work. Unless we have a new discovery that can challenge our idea of Fusion energy, which is something we won't get just by banging at the same idea and get maybe 25 seconds of Fusion. Even if we can make the reaction last for days, it won't be able to power a light bulb let alone a city. All the energy that goes into the Fusion reaction is used to keep the reaction going and nothing more. We would need a way to have a run away Fusion reaction in order to have any hope of capturing energy from it.

Who gets to clean up all these expensive af wind and solar installations in 20 years when they quit working? Can't plant trees on them cause that have 20' Dia concrete foundations. Get out your pickaxe son.

You repower them. Power plants don't need maintenance?

 

[Nafensoriel]

@DukenukemX
I think you are a bit off on your power estimations for fusion. The currently used method most certainly can produce more power than used. There is a physical point where you can sustain the reaction but it requires absurd power to get to that point. It also required some pretty serious computational power and materials that didn't really exist in mass 50 years ago. Like most technologies we know they are possible 100 years before we actually have the capacity to actually build them.

Wind turbine recycling is actually one of the efficient ones. True many wind farm owners are cheap shitlords who just dump the blades and buy new ones which is stunningly wasteful but they can be relatively low waste(not exactly low carbon though with concrete and steel factored in though).

Solar on the other hand..... Yeah. Craps not going to be fun in 25 years when some of these fields are going to need replacing. Though I am absolutely sure they will be funneled into a "green recycling" program that will make everyone feel good while the actual panels get burned in some third world toxic waste dump.

Honestly aSMRs are probably the near future realistic option. Fusion... well depends on how fast our computational power grows and how much of that power we actually need to balance a fusion reaction.
Remember 90% of the challenge of doing a thing is knowing that thing is possible. We have an exploding ball of fusion in the sky. We know its possible. We just have to figure out how to do it with our little monkey brains.

 

[Lakados]

@DukenukemX
I think you are a bit off on your power estimations for fusion. The currently used method most certainly can produce more power than used. There is a physical point where you can sustain the reaction but it requires absurd power to get to that point. It also required some pretty serious computational power and materials that didn't really exist in mass 50 years ago. Like most technologies we know they are possible 100 years before we actually have the capacity to actually build them.

Wind turbine recycling is actually one of the efficient ones. True many wind farm owners are cheap shitlords who just dump the blades and buy new ones which is stunningly wasteful but they can be relatively low waste(not exactly low carbon though with concrete and steel factored in though).

Solar on the other hand..... Yeah. Craps not going to be fun in 25 years when some of these fields are going to need replacing. Though I am absolutely sure they will be funneled into a "green recycling" program that will make everyone feel good while the actual panels get burned in some third world toxic waste dump.

Honestly aSMRs are probably the near future realistic option. Fusion... well depends on how fast our computational power grows and how much of that power we actually need to balance a fusion reaction.
Remember 90% of the challenge of doing a thing is knowing that thing is possible. We have an exploding ball of fusion in the sky. We know its possible. We just have to figure out how to do it with our little monkey brains.

The biggest hurdle for solar panel recycling is a simple lack of facilities in North America to do it and no cost incentive over throwing them out. In Asia there are a number of facilities that could take the panels and reprocess them. North America has one in Quebec. same goes for wind turbines, one in Quebec and another in like North Dakota, no private sector wind farm operator is going to pay to truck them from California to Quebec for disposal. Hell they probably wouldn’t pay to haul them to Nevada, if it was cheaper to toss them in a land full.

 

[travm]

You repower them. Power plants don't need maintenance?

When the govt subsidies end, they will not be repowered. A power plant takes up considerably less space, is massively more efficient, and is much cheaper.

The only place wind and solar will ever make sense is small scale off grid and all the limitations that come with. It is not a mains replacement.

 

[Nafensoriel]

The biggest hurdle for solar panel recycling is a simple lack of facilities in North America to do it and no cost incentive over throwing them out. In Asia there are a number of facilities that could take the panels and reprocess them. North America has one in Quebec. same goes for wind turbines, one in Quebec and another in like North Dakota, no private sector wind farm operator is going to pay to truck them from California to Quebec for disposal. Hell they probably wouldn’t pay to haul them to Nevada, if it was cheaper to toss them in a land full.

There are still some issues with some of the more toxic elements of the panels that don't get solved by simply having a processing center(also why recycling them here is turning out to be a nonstarter for many). I do admit China is just beating US/EU on this type of thing. They have an actual functional plan for energy transition and by gods they are progressing on it step by step. We on the other hand seem to take the "only progress when it is politically expedient" path which is just dumb on every possible level. My main fear on local recycling is that we will continue to shunt them off to other dumps or places and hide the actual cost that recycling takes while selling people a bad bill of goods.

Which is mildly funny because in fission/fusion recycling/storage is required and thus everyone knows the absolute up front cost for the technology. If we would actually start putting the onus of waste on the factories that produce it you would start seeing some of our absolutely brilliant engineers make actual positive changes in both profit and efficiency that are just not "cost effective" in an environment where trash is cheap.

 

[DukenukemX]

The biggest hurdle for solar panel recycling is a simple lack of facilities in North America to do it and no cost incentive over throwing them out. In Asia there are a number of facilities that could take the panels and reprocess them. North America has one in Quebec. same goes for wind turbines, one in Quebec and another in like North Dakota, no private sector wind farm operator is going to pay to truck them from California to Quebec for disposal. Hell they probably wouldn’t pay to haul them to Nevada, if it was cheaper to toss them in a land full.

That's the main problem in that it costs a lot of money to do things. Shocking, I know. Basically the private sector expects the government to fund them in order to do what is needed, but once the government stops funding them then they're a private business and their bottom line is the bottom line. We can recycle plastic but it costs more than making new plastic, and recycled plastic is inferior. China was the only country that really did it and they stopped because it cost more in health care than the profits from the plastic. Same reason why we don't recycle solar panels because it costs more than using fresh raw materials. There's also the problem that solar panels get more expensive the more efficient they are, which means we're not always using the best solar panels we can get.

Green energy is just not compatible with capitalism. Any sort of green new deal won't be compatible with capitalism. This goes double more so for Fusion energy, assuming we can ever get it to work. If it's not cheaper than natural gas and coal then we'll never use it. No recycling is involved in burning gas or coal either.

 

[THRESHIN]

Mate, ac is more economical to transfer long dostances
View attachment 314140

Forget the economics, it would be flat out impossible to move electricity as far as we do with DC power. Back when Tesla and Edison were fighting over AC vs DC, I don't think either could have foreseen that we'd require both.

 

[BinarySynapse]

Mate, ac is more economical to transfer long dostances

Forget the economics, it would be flat out impossible to move electricity as far as we do with DC power. Back when Tesla and Edison were fighting over AC vs DC, I don't think either could have foreseen that we'd require both.

The transmission and management of power is better with DC as it doesn't have the inductive losses and synchronization problems that AC power has. However, generation, stepping up to transmission voltages, and stepping back down to useful voltages (100v-600v) is where AC beats out DC.

 

[LukeTbk]

Green energy is just not compatible with capitalism. Any sort of green new deal won't be compatible with capitalism. This goes double more so for Fusion energy, assuming we can ever get it to work. If it's not cheaper than natural gas and coal then we'll never use it. No recycling is involved in burning gas or coal either.

I think greener would be a better word (not sure there is any energy that green), but I am not sure I agree with the premise.

There is some private industry near me that did build their own private damp to power themselve decades ago, which seem to be an example of one of a greener form of energy fully compatible with capitalism, some form of Nuclear (pretty much the greenest we can have now, at least from a global warming point of view) can also be fully compatible with capitalism.

In the best region, on the best roof for it, you can even have solar panel now you can even have a company installing them, paying themselve with a profit simply by taking a percentage of the electricity bill saving on the client, without the client ever having to pay a cent from their pockets.

If a greener form of energy end up being actually efficient, it will be fully be compatible with capitalism, if it is not compatible with capitalism (in term of energy density, usualbilty, cost) we are in giant trouble and it will have nothing to do with capitalism or not, regardless of the system if a form of energy does not have the density to sustain modern life, it will not be able to sustain modern life and the economical system cannot change anything to that, and a form of energy able to sustain modern life style will have by definition value and will fit in the capitalism system I would think.

Lot of things are not cheaper than coals right now and being used

 

[LukeTbk]

The transmission and management of power is better with DC as it doesn't have the inductive losses and synchronization problems that AC power has. However, generation, stepping up to transmission voltages, and stepping back down to useful voltages (100v-600v) is where AC beats out DC.

I didn't knew that or suspected that all but yes most high voltage line seem to be DC, I imagine because there is virtually 0 current / electricity actually moving it make DC possible.

Forget the economics, it would be flat out impossible to move electricity as far as we do with DC power. Back when Tesla and Edison were fighting over AC vs DC, I don't think either could have foreseen that we'd require both.

From what I understand the goal over very long distance is to move the least electricity you can, virtually 0 being the goal you do not move much "electricity" only power, a giant line between the world biggest damp and a far away city is maybe 1 or 2 Amp, that line for example the biggest in power transmission the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_–_New_England_Transmission

Is around 0.8 ampere.

That probably with DC is favored in that context.

 

[BinarySynapse]

I didn't knew that or suspected that all but yes most high voltage line seem to be DC, I imagine because there is virtually 0 current / electricity actually moving it make DC possible.


From what I understand the goal over very long distance is to move the least electricity you can, virtually 0 being the goal you do not move much "electricity" only power, a giant line between the world biggest damp and a far away city is maybe 1 or 2 Amp, that line for example the biggest in power transmission the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_–_New_England_Transmission

Is around 0.8 ampere.

That probably with DC is favored in that context.

0.8A is off by a factor of 1000. I suspect you divided 690 by 900, but the actual calculation would be 690,000,000 watts divided by 900,000 volts, which is ~800 amps.
(actual current today is ~2,200 amps since they upgraded capacity to 2,000 MW). But yes, the goal is to move as little current as possible while still being practical. They could up the system to 50 million volts and only have to deal with 40A of current, but it would be very hard to manage safely (arcing through the air would become a major problem).

In this case, the difficulty and cost of synchronizing the two power grids made using HVDC the better option. They are converting AC to DC and DC back to AC, which is very inefficient.

 

[LukeTbk]

0.8A is off by a factor of 100. I suspect you divided 690 by 900, but the actual calculation would be 690,000,000 watts divided by 900,000 volts, which is ~800 amps.
(actual current today is ~2,200 amps since they upgraded capacity to 2,000 MW). But yes, the goal is to move as little current as possible while still being practical. They could up the system to 50 million volts and only have to deal with 40A of current, but it would be very hard to manage safely (arcing through the air would become a major problem).

In this case, the difficulty and cost of synchronizing the two power grids made using HVDC the better option. They are converting AC to DC and DC back to AC, which is very inefficient.

I used this, with my electricity class being far away and having no confidence I almost made it the same way you just did, but used this instead:
https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/watt-volt-amp-calculator.html

And entered the value 900 kv and 690 megawatt incorrectly (probably used megavolt or something), thus the factor 1,000 in error, so now I am completely lost in all my previous believe, for some reason I was certain high tension line were around 1-2 amp with much bigger resistance than that. Not that under 1,000 ampere for a region is a lot obviously (when we start a car we can use more ampere than that when it is cold outside), but still a factor 100-1000 more than expected.