So about the NIF laser fusion thingy...
https://www.science.org/content/article/historic-explosion-long-sought-fusion-breakthrough
> If gain meant producing more output energy than input electricity, however, NIF fell far short. Its lasers are inefficient, requiring hundreds of megajoules of electricity to produce the 2 MJ of laser light and 3 MJ of fusion energy. Moreover, a power plant based on NIF would need to raise the repetition rate from one shot per day to about 10 per second.
Don't get me wrong, it is a huge breakthrough and very exciting. But:
> “The physics phenomenon has been demonstrated,” says Riccardo Betti of the Laboratory for Laser Energetics at the University of Rochester.
That's what it is. A PoC of a physics phenomenon, or rather of the fact that it is possible to make it work at will (ish).
It's going to be decades and billions in funding to get it anywhere near to becoming a viable energy source.
For an almost completely unwarranted analogy (so, more of an illustrative example):
April 1932 - first time an atom was split by humans
June 1945 - first human-initiated nuclear explosion (even with all the resources pumped into the Manhattan project)
December 1946 - first nuclear reactor hosting a self-sustaining, controlled chain reaction
January 1954 - first nuclear-powered sub
June 1954 - first nuclear reactor generating power directly for public energy grid
Took 22 years for fission.
Obviously the history of fusion power will be different than that of fission power.
Also, comparing nuclear fusion to nuclear fission is problematic: for one, nuclear fusion has way, way less radioactivity-related and radioactive waste-related issues than fission. It would be an absolute travesty if fusion was painted with the same brush as fission.
But practical applications of fusion, if any, are decades away.
Today we need to focus on the tried and true: solar, wind, hydro, geothermal.
And yeah, I would not mind some serious re-consideration of the general negativity (see what I did there?) around fission power nuclear plants get, especially the ones that already exist.
Shutting down nuclear power plants and thus pumping out more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere today seems to me… ill-advised.
But that's a whole separate thread. 😉
@rysiek If the Japanese cannot run them safely, then no one can, IMHO. Chernobyl and Fukushima will be no go zones for humans for thousands of years. Pretending that nuclear power is now alright will only serve to reduce the pressure that is needed to force through the real solutions.
As a reminder, there's ~450 civilian reactors worldwide and they have been operating safely for the last ~50 years, delivering the largest amount of low-carbon electricity of all sources. So yes, people do run them safely all the time.
Fukushima happened as result of the largest earthquake and tsunami, that killed 20'000 people (zero people dies in the power plant failure itself). Apart from a few spots, radiation in the whole Fukushima region is back to the background level long time ago.
Same in Chernobyl, which is best demonstrated by Russian invasion in February, as their troops crossed right through the isolation zone, and retreated the same way.
So while I appreciate Greenpeace & friends use that "thousands of years" argument a lot, we should realize it has nothing to do with science and the actual situation on the ground.
It's pretty much like you'd argue against hydro power because Banqiao dam failure in 1976 killed 60'000 people and polluted thousands of km², or against PV because a solar farm fire in England a few years ago released toxic cadmium smoke which resulted in evacuation of a village.
And if you look well, you'll find traces of that PV cadmium somewhere in the area, pretty much like you can find traces of cesium isotopes in Chernobyl forest. The point is however whether these traces have any biological activity — and they don't — which is why such argument would be just as pseudoscientific when used against PV, hydro and nuclear.
@rysiek
@kravietz @rysiek all energy sources can cause horrific accidents. Fission is the only one that causes problems with a timescale of millenia, both the waste from normal operation and the outcomes from accidents. Human society does not deal with well with that kind of timescale, particularly when the implementers are corporations who focus on yearly profits.
@eighthave
No, it’s again not true. Even high-level nuclear waste loses 93% of its activity only after 100 years (and then gradually goes down to background level over millenia).
And I know where you’re coming from, because this “millenia” argument is very frequently raised in Germany against #nuclear waste, which is kind of surprising as Germany also has a thriving chemical industry, which produces chemical waste. Of course, it’s very useful, that’s how we get modern photovoltaic panels and house insulation.
So you may be not aware of it, but in Germany you have not one but two underground disposal sites, storing thousands of tons of cyanide, mercury and arsenic waste from that chemical manufacturing:
https://www.kpluss.com/en-us/our-business-products/waste-management/underground-disposal/
But do you know what is the best part of it? Unlike nuclear waste, chemical waste never loses its toxicity - it doesn’t decay into inactive isotopes, it just stays there and will be just as poisonous in 100, 1000 and 1e6 years.
@rysiek