Elusive fusion reactors to be commercialised by 2025-2030... Or so they say

D.P. said:
That is the trade off why the most realistic chance for viable Fusion, ITER, is around $65billion and still only a research prototype.

Just like fission, they will suffer from the lack of scale economics and the significant build time and thus ROI will make them prohibitive.

Renewables and BESS will continue to become exponentially cheaper.
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Research prototypes are generally rather expensive... It will need the built in ability to be updated/upgraded/varied too. And ITER is not the only model/technique pushing forwards.

In sort of related news, the UK government are making a push to build multiple small modular reactors (fission), aimed to power datacentres/AI (and probably in part be funded by the companies paying for them). Great opportunity to get a solid baseline of power, with technology that will produce minimal waste, and these designs can vary their power output, which is brilliant news for helping balance things.

www.theguardian.com

Keir Starmer unveils plan for large nuclear expansion across England and Wales

Prime minister vows to ‘push past nimbyism’ and calls on tech firms to help build small modular reactors to power AI datacentres
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
It's about time. 4 of the 5 current nuclear sites are expected to be switched off before Sizewell C starts contributing. That's going to leave a shortfall of about 4GW, making energy security even worse in the short term for windless dull days.
 
Angilion said:
No it doesn't and no we haven't.

Chernobyl was the worst case scenario in pretty much every way. It didn't destroy the planet. It couldn't destroy the planet. Chernobyl did far less harm than the worst hydroelectric power failures.

The number of deaths directly and definitely caused by the Chernobyl meltdown is 31.
The number of deaths almost certainly caused by the Chernobyl meltdown is 60.
The number of deaths probably partially caused by the Chernobyl meltdown is about 4000.

The number of deaths directly and definitely caused by the Banqiao failure is about 250,000.

We've been extremely unlucky in all the meltdowns. The fact they happened at all required bad luck, bad design and at least some degree of negligence.
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While I agree with the general point of your post, it should be noted that you're basically using the "propaganda figures" there. The deaths almost certainly caused figure is as comical today as when the USSR first announced it, and the 4000 figure you're citing was adopted by the IAEA in 1986 essentially by taking Legasov's 40,000 estimate and dividing it by ten because they didn't like the statistical model he used (so it's actually worse than Soviet propaganda).

While the 4000 figure was reaffirmed by the IAEA in a 2006 report and adopted by the UN it has been heavily contested, including by many of the very scientist and physicians it cited, who claim their work was misrepresented and taken out of context.

Most realistic estimates put the true death toll at at least 30,000 and as high as 100,000 (with some outliers going much higher.

To put it in perspective, the "official" 4000 death figure is lower than the amount of Ukrainian and Belorussian liquidators who had died of Chernobyl related deaths as of 2011. In addition the Ukrainian government pays out benefits to over 35,000 families who's patriarch's death was deemed to have probably been caused by the disaster.
 
D.P. said:
That is the trade off why the most realistic chance for viable Fusion, ITER, is around $65billion and still only a research prototype.

Just like fission, they will suffer from the lack of scale economics and the significant build time and thus ROI will make them prohibitive.

Renewables and BESS will continue to become exponentially cheaper.
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Why? I think they're more likely to become more expensive as they stop being subsidised so much and they become more complex as a result of trying to improve efficiency and because a vast overcapacity is required due to the inefficiencies and the lack of reliability and control. For example, it's common for wind in the UK to generate less than 10% of the nameplate capacity and it averages ~25% and that's despite the fact that the UK is about as good as it gets for wind.

But I think a more important point is that very few areas could function solely on renewables. Norway can manage it because it has a lot of geothermal and it has exceptionally good conditions for hydroelectric and it has an extremely low population density. Few areas have that combination of factors.

Hydroelectric is the key factor...and hydroelectric also has a lack of scale economics and a significant build time and high maintenance costs if a reasonable level of safety is wanted. It's also more dangerous than fission, let alone fusion. Once again, Norway is an extreme outlier because its unusual geography and very low population density means that far fewer people would be killed by a dam breach.

Energy storage could theoretically be combined with a vast overcapacity to make 100% renewables viable in more places, but only if it existed and it doesn't. Energy storage adequate for that task is no closer than fusion, might be more expensive and will definitely be more dangerous. The least bad way of doing it so far is pumped hydro, which is very wasteful and carries the same degree of risk as any form of hydro. Also, it's nowhere near adequate for the task and never will be. There's a superb pumped hydro setup in the UK. Dinorwig. A brilliant feat of engineering. Excellent design, superb implementation, minimal environmental impact, as low risk as hydro can be. Extremely expensive. Holds about 8 minutes worth of energy in theory, although in practice less than that. Nowhere near adequate for storage for a renewables grid, not even if we had hundreds of them (which is impossible - there aren't that many places with suitable conditions). It's excellent for the purpose for which it was built - jump-starting the grid in the event of a complete shutdown - and of some use as energy storage. But the scale isn't there and never could be.

Another theoretically possible solution would be a highly transnational renewables grid with HVDC connections and free flow of electricity and overcapacity everywhere. So excess generated from wind during ideal conditions in the UK could fill in a shortfall in solar at night in Morocco, excess generated from solar in Libya during the day could fill in for a shortfall in wind in Poland, that sort of thing. That could be done with existing technology. But the cost would be immense and it's impossible anyway for political reasons and it would be extremely vulnerable to attack.

I think that we need and will continue to need a reliable, controllable baseline generation. The cost of that will be much less than the collapse of modern civilisation, which is what will happen without reliable energy supply. We need it and we can't afford to gamble it on a single type of system that relies on potential future technology that doesn't exist yet. I consider that degree of gambling quite horrifying.
 
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mrk said:
Good news:

www.thebrighterside.news

Largest fusion reactor ever built set to transform global energy production

Japan is revolutionizing energy production with the launch of the JT-60SA reactor, the world’s largest experimental nuclear fusion reactor.
www.thebrighterside.news www.thebrighterside.news
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Awesome, and another reason why ITER will continue to go over budget. Every time we learn something from another partnered reactor ITER needs to be updated, hopefully meaning it'll have it's best chance to be successful immediately.
 
Nutty667 said:
It's about time. 4 of the 5 current nuclear sites are expected to be switched off before Sizewell C starts contributing. That's going to leave a shortfall of about 4GW, making energy security even worse in the short term for windless dull days.
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U.K. will just buy more electricity from France, you’ll be fine and my bills will go down. Again.
 
I recently came across Kathryn Porters blog, I was looking to see if the headline scare stories of close to blackout back in January were true or not. Quite a good detailed analysis.

A good bit on relying on the interconnectors.
"There are other problems, particularly relating to interconnectors. Some of the interconnectors can re-trade within day, and in the worst case, the control room may only have 55 minutes’ notice of the trades. If such a trade reversed the flow, an interconnector could reduce the level of imports or even switch from imports to exports at extremely short notice. NESO would have limited ability to react – while it can and does buy up interconnector capacity to secure imports, this trading takes time to execute – and can cost a lot of money. If there is only 55 minutes’ notice, the only real option would be to ask the interconnector operator to implement an Emergency Action to secure the imports, but this can be declined and NESO cannot force it."

watt-logic.com

Blackouts near miss in tightest day in GB electricity market since 2011

The tightest day in the GB power market since 2011 saw a near miss for blackouts and demand control as the spare margin fell to 580 MW
watt-logic.com watt-logic.com
 
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Angilion said:
Because of how it works. We know how it works. We know what the process involves. We know what the results are. We know what would happen in the event of a containment failure (not much).



I got it from the specialist UN body commissioned to study the matter. Also from the WHO and the IAEA, which are in agreement.



No, they didn't.



Probably. But since my source isn't Russian, that doesn't matter.



Kyshtym. Which wasn't a nuclear power station.



Parts of Cornwall are more radioactive than the Fukushima exclusion zone and have been for millions of years. And no, I am not joking. It's due to naturally occurring radioactive material in some types of rock, rock which is pretty common and very close to the surface in parts of Cornwall.

3 serious incidents, only 2 of which were with power stations. You can't come up with more because there aren't any.

Nuclear fission power stations, even including old designs, even including old power stations built to old designs and used past their safe life, even including old power stations built to old designs and used past their safe life and used incorrectly by people not adequately trained, have an extremely low rate of death per amount of electricity generated. The difference in death rate per amount of electricity generated between fission and renewables is within the margin of error, so fission might be the safest way to generate electricity. And that's with all the above. With modern fission power stations, it would be the safest way to generate electricity.



If you did some learning about how fusion works, you wouldn't be making the mistakes you're making.



If you have any counter-argument to what I wrote, I'll read it. Specifically, tell me how Kyshtym, Chernobyl or Fukushima Daiichi could happen with a modern nuclear fission power station.
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nevermind
 
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henson0115 said:
lets say you are right and all of the documentaries out there based on science are wrong, you still haven't taken into account where people can make mistakes they will. sounds like you should be working to help these guys figure it out :)
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You're making a false appeal to authority because you have no counter-argument. You can't make any rebuttal to my posts, so you're falsely invoking science as an authority.
 
henson0115 said:
nah im choosing to ignore it there's a difference. science is the authority without it there is no nuclear anything and il take there word for it anyday over a forum member and thats why im choosing to ignore and not reply.
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You're not replying because you have nothing to reply with. You can't support your own arguments. You can't substantiate your own statements. You can't rebut any of my arguments. You have nothing and you know you have nothing.

You are not using science as an authority. If you were, you would be providing links to scientific papers. You are providing nothing. You are throwing up the word 'science'. There is no science in your posts. It's an obvious case of a false appeal to authority.

An appeal to authority is false if either or both of two conditions are met:

i) The authority isn't real or isn't relevant to the subject.
ii) The authority is real and relevant but doesn't support the argument being made.

Your appeal to authority is false on the second basis.



For example, here is some information on the relative risk of different ways of generating electricity.

ourworldindata.org

Death rates per unit of electricity production

Death rates are measured based on deaths from accidents and air pollution per terawatt-hour of electricity.
ourworldindata.org ourworldindata.org

The metric used is deaths per unit of electricity generated.

The source papers are;

"Energy generation and health" by Professor Anil Markandya and Paul Wilkinson FRCP, published in 2007.

and

"Balancing safety with sustainability: assessing the risk of accidents for modern low-carbon energy systems" by a large team of people led by Benjamin K. Sovacool, published in 2016.

It's important to note that (a) the page I provided a link to publishes its sources in that article and (b) both original sources are published and available.


Do you understand the difference between that and proclaiming "what I say is true because I say so and I claim with no evidence at all that <insert word here> supports me"? Because that's the difference between what I'm doing and what you're doing.
 
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At first glance those death rates for coal seem very high and must have very high assumptions for air quality related deaths because no industry could survive that death rate from accidents.
 
PlacidCasual said:
At first glance those death rates for coal seem very high and must have very high assumptions for air quality related deaths because no industry could survive that death rate from accidents.
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The coal related illness/death is surely very lowballed......

my wifes uncle was a coal minor back in the day, his lungs are completely shot now and i think few would argue that his job was likely a large reason for it................ however officially it wont be recorded as that because he was also a smoker and that likely has also played its part.

the issue is in the 1980s practically everyone was a smoker................. so (according to him at least and he should know given he has gone through this) his health issues will never be linked to coal mining...... and individually i get it but it seems odd how many of his colleagues have/had lung related issues (but again, they were all smokers)

As for nuclear..............I am in the camp of we need some nuclear if we want to go carbon neutral at least for now.............. however it takes some serious mind games imo to try to argue against the fact that it IS an incredibly dangerous technology (ok the odds of cataclysm are low.......... but the potential effects if we have one are huge).

I mean come on.... who really believes the official figures from Russia? Christ they initially lied about the explosion full stop, they lied about the levels after they eventually admitted there was a radiation leak , they lied about the design issue of the reactor when it came to the emergency stop.

but even forgetting that, it isnt how many people HAVE died it is the potential for disaster on a scale we have not seen yet. be it an accident, negligence, act or god, act of war or some bad actor deliberately sabotaging it in an act of terrorism.

how many miles of land are considered dangerous even now around Chernobyll ? and that was a fairly small explosion compared to what it could be. then add into that the costs of maintaining the dome around that power station and the expense of getting rid or storing of the nuclear waste and stripping down an end of life reactor even if nothing goes wrong.

So yes I accept we need some nuclear but anyone who tries to say Hydro/wind/solar is more expensive, more dangerous or potentially more environmentally impactful either has an agenda or has been smoking too much of the good stuff imo.

On a lighter note

Without nuclear power we would never have had The Big Bus (film) so there is that :D
 
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Angilion said:
You're not replying because you have nothing to reply with. You can't support your own arguments. You can't substantiate your own statements. You can't rebut any of my arguments. You have nothing and you know you have nothing.

You are not using science as an authority. If you were, you would be providing links to scientific papers. You are providing nothing. You are throwing up the word 'science'. There is no science in your posts. It's an obvious case of a false appeal to authority.

An appeal to authority is false if either or both of two conditions are met:

i) The authority isn't real or isn't relevant to the subject.
ii) The authority is real and relevant but doesn't support the argument being made.

Your appeal to authority is false on the second basis.



For example, here is some information on the relative risk of different ways of generating electricity.

ourworldindata.org

Death rates per unit of electricity production

Death rates are measured based on deaths from accidents and air pollution per terawatt-hour of electricity.
ourworldindata.org ourworldindata.org

The metric used is deaths per unit of electricity generated.

The source papers are;

"Energy generation and health" by Professor Anil Markandya and Paul Wilkinson FRCP, published in 2007.

and

"Balancing safety with sustainability: assessing the risk of accidents for modern low-carbon energy systems" by a large team of people led by Benjamin K. Sovacool, published in 2016.

It's important to note that (a) the page I provided a link to publishes its sources in that article and (b) both original sources are published and available.


Do you understand the difference between that and proclaiming "what I say is true because I say so and I claim with no evidence at all that <insert word here> supports me"? Because that's the difference between what I'm doing and what you're doing.
Click to expand...
nevermind
 
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henson0115 said:
mmmhmm, im going to ignore most of the stuff you've posted [..]
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No change there - you've ignored almost everything posted by almost everyone.

Your most recent post reached new heights of ignoring things, though. You ignored the difference between the Soviet Union, the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Other things you've ignored are:

The difference between fission and fusion.
The difference between a power station and an unregulated dump site for the early Soviet nuclear weapons program (which they didn't even understand properly since it was partially based on stolen partial information).
The differences between a 1950s design for a fission power station and a modern design for one.
The difference between 2 (the actual number of catastrophic failures of nuclear power stations) and an unspecified large number.
The difference between a false appeal to authority and legitimate references to authority.

Probably some more, but I don't care enough to reread your posts.

Although I think the most important thing being widely ignored is the limits of the choices we have:

i) Use some fission power along with renewables.
ii) Continue to burn fossil fuels and biomass along with renewables.
iii) The end of modern civilisation, the death of billions of people and huge environmental damage.

Not great choices, but that's what we've got to work with. There are potential solutions that would be better, but none of them exist yet so we can't use them. We don't know when they'll exist. Or if they'll exist.

I'd go for (i) and R&D for as many of those potential solutions as possible so we can get at least 1 of them working as soon as possible. I don't care if it's fusion, some form of mass energy storage with enough capacity, a global energy grid, dilithium crystals, whatever. Anything that works.

Since I'm not ignoring your posts, I'll also reply to your command to buy and read a book just because you told me to. No. I don't always follow book club recommendations and I'm not even in your book club.

I went looking for details on the nuclear power station in Whitehall that you said almost had a catastrophic failure. I couldn't find anything at all. Can you give me some more details? A link would be nice, but even a date would help. Or a country. Or anything.



As for the death toll of Chernobyl, there is legitimate scope for uncertainty about it because it depends on what statistical modelling you choose. In most cases it's impossible to be sure of the degree of possibility that an illness was or wasn't caused by Chernobyl. But even the highest estimate is less than half of the death toll of the worst hydroelectric power station failure (and there have been far more dam failures than nuclear power station failures) but that hasn't resulted in the same degree of anti-hydroelectric sentiment.
 
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