- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
cross-posted from: https://derp.foo/post/108276
There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.
Alleged previous attempt: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1sM4y1H7MX/
Terrestrial fusion achieves very little that using the existing fusion generator we have does not do better.
Obtaining usable energy at any hour of the day and in any weather for one thing. That will be less important as batteries or other grid scale systems improve, but for now it’s a big factor.
Total potential output per m^2 is another factor, especially in higher density areas
The amount of energy you can get per m^2 without heating the planet is definitionally the amount you can get by covering a small fraction of the planet with PV. No thermal power generation can beat this.
Large, inflexible, overly centralised generation is also unable to reach high grid penetration (for example france produces 20-30% of their load from dispatchable sources like gas and hydro even on a summer’s night during the pandemic where demand is <50% of their nuclear fleet’s nameplate capacity)