Fusion: When? And what happens?

[Shinova]

How long do you think it will be until commercially viable fusion comes out?


And when it does, what do you think will happen? Like how will people, the oil companies, and governments react, how will life change, how will the geopolitical scene change, etc.

[Zor]

Q How long, A 30 to 60 years

Q What will be the effect, A Coal drops in value overnight, Fission plants become wothless and a few inviromentalists wine a bit until they realise the truth

Zor

[Castor Troy]

How long do you think it will be until commercially viable fusion comes out?[/quotes]

I'll wing it and say 30-70 years. However, it depends on many things, such as what type of fusion reactor is being made.

And when it does, what do you think will happen? Like how will people, the oil companies, and governments react, how will life change, how will the geopolitical scene change, etc.

Well, at first it probably won't be all that more energy efficient, so the oil companies and OPEC nations would still have their stronghold. However, if you keep making it more and more energy efficient, along with investing in things such as solar power, coal, and other different forms of energy, you could ruin them enough. They won't be out of business, because poorer nations would still rely on oil for some time, so the oil businesses and countries will still have a means of making money, but they'll lose how much they make.

Another determining factor is what we use to power cars. There are many things that fusion power can lead to, such as using the power to produce different chemicals, perhaps methane, to power cars.

[Illuminatus Primus]

With efficient and cheap fusion, cracking water for hydrogen becomes a cinch. I think the 22nd Century will see such an energy economy. I'm optomistic that this will again allow humanity to focus on that :points up: .

[HyperionX]

Fusion should probably be viable sometimes in the next 50 years, but not in the next 15 barring some sort of major revolution in our understanding of fusion.

Unlike some fusion fanboys, nuclear fusion power will not instantaneously render everything else obsolete. In fact, not much will happen at all at first. Simply put fusion is just too damn expensive; we're looking at something like $10-20 billion or so per reactor and perhaps trillions to fully implement fusion around the world. 3rd world nations are simply out of luck here so all the other forms of energy will still be around for a long while to come.

[Morilore]

Q What will be the effect, A Coal drops in value overnight, Fission plants become wothless and a few inviromentalists wine a bit until they realise the truth

1.your Pros is panful two reed, Please run thru MSwurd
2. No. Nothing happens "overnight" in the real world. Like HyperionX said, it will be damn expensive at first, and prices will only decrease slowly, until it finally reaches the point that benefits outweigh costs for most energy needs.

OP:

1) I am not damn well qualified to answer "when." Any fusion enthusiasts on-board?
2) Massive celebrations, ticker-tape parades, etc., for a few days until everyone wakes up and realizes this won't change anything for at least ten years. Long-run, cheapening of energy leads to more high-energy endeavors and technology and stuff.

[kaikatsu]

When? No idea.

What happens?

As I see it, it depends on who develops it. The USA government will be slow and lackluster to hand out grants to further this technology, because the White House is so largely subsidized by big oil. If the technology becomes so cheap that small private countries can begin providing this -- you're looking at a flat out revolution. Eventually the large companies will make a great offer and buy out the tech, or they will go bankrupt.

More than likely, though, the technology will take root in the environmentally aware EU first. The US dollar is stretched as is, including massive foreign debts that I don't see going down any time soon. This has always been easy to maintain because the dollar is the de facto currency to trade in oil with.

The only country to switch to the Euro was Iraq. Then the US "liberated" them. Fancy that.

At any rate, a devaluation of oil, which would be the inevitable end run of fusion power should spell certain economic disaster unless the USA manages to capitalize on this technology. If that will happen is anyone's guess -- thirty years is a long time.

It also depends on the kind of revolution. If very slow progres is made -- like getting an extra 1% return on power per year, so that in two decades we go from just breaking even to getting about +20% return -- there will be time to adapt. If someone suddenly drops a bombshell saying "We have found a way to get power returns in excess of +200% of input using only deuterium for fuel", well... that could be the start of the next war.

Remember though that even if a "revolutionary" technology shows up, and that's a big if, there will be a long time before it can be developed. That being said, our market tends to run on a principle of what people believe, and if people BELIEVE that oil is now obsolete, well, you get the idea...

[SPOOFE]

Unlike some fusion fanboys, nuclear fusion power will not instantaneously render everything else obsolete.

True. I wouldn't be surprised if we hear about a fusion reactor that actually creates an energy surplus within ten years. A reactor that produces a significant energy surplus, however, is a whole different ball game.

[WyrdNyrd]

Timespan: 20 years from now.

Of course, they've been saying this for 20 years now. Fusion power is like "tomorrow" - always just out of reach.

Sure, the benefits are obvious, and the only people unhappy with it are obstructionists like the US govt and eco-fundies. But all the good-will in the world doesn't seem to be able to overcome the staggering technical challenges involved, despite the billions already spent on research.

Which depresses me greatly...

[HemlockGrey]

I don't think oil profits would vanish if fusion became widespread. You still need oil to power cars and small engines, and to produce plastics and other synthetic materials.

[kaikatsu]

They won't vanish instantly.

But fuel cell cars would be MUCH more viable if we had an electrical energy surplus, which is what fusion should ideally give.

As far as plastics go, synthetics from vegitables will have to replace it. Remember, it's not JUST the advance of fusion, it's the advance of fusion combined with the eventual running out of oil.

[Trytostaydead]

There was a news report on AP that quickly disappeared about how UCLA managed to create a table top fusion which they said unfortunately did not yield more power than was put in. I'm not sure if it got pulled quickly because the report was quickly discredited?

[Admiral Valdemar]

There was a news report on AP that quickly disappeared about how UCLA managed to create a table top fusion which they said unfortunately did not yield more power than was put in. I'm not sure if it got pulled quickly because the report was quickly discredited?

Firstly, your last sentence isn't a question, so it needs no question mark.

Secondly, that experiment was simply for experimental purposes, not power generation. Not every fusion reaction goes towards looking at how to make oil disappear.

[Trytostaydead]

There was a news report on AP that quickly disappeared about how UCLA managed to create a table top fusion which they said unfortunately did not yield more power than was put in. I'm not sure if it got pulled quickly because the report was quickly discredited?

Firstly, your last sentence isn't a question, so it needs no question mark.

Secondly, that experiment was simply for experimental purposes, not power generation. Not every fusion reaction goes towards looking at how to make oil disappear.

Quiet you, me no speaky english good.

[tharkûn]

When? Too many technologies involved. Prices for all sorts of components are falling and energy prices are rising. Economic feasability is going to lag scientific feasability by at least a decade.

What happens? The stock market goes a little bit nuts, governments screw over all this "alternative energy" crap and drop massive R&D subsidies into fusion research. The initial plants will almost certainly be government subsidized by loans or grants. Depending on how radical the cost savings, as in how much cheaper is the entire life cycle of the fusion plant than its best competitors, it could be a decade or three before it displaces the vast majority of other power systems.

[wolveraptor]

We're already exploiting fusion-based energy. It's called "solar energy".

Hey, someone had to say it.

I think that fusion based energy that can be used small-scale will be a long time coming, due to the risks of radiation. Even fusion for power-plants, though, will take a while. The US is not the power it was, and Europe seems to me to be...tired. They expended all their energy back in the 1500s, conquering the world. If you haven't noticed yet, the Old Empires are gone. So I don't think they'll be a leader in new technology. Just a subjective opinion, though.

China, once it rises to dominance, will probably be leading technology. This could take another couple decades, so at soonest, I see fusion coming along in about 50-70 years.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Looking at how fission came into being, that may give an indicator as to how it will be handled. Sure, it'll be expensive at first and the reactors overly large, but eventually we'll perfect it and it'll replace and excel past fission plants given only the most whacked out greens dismiss fusion as unfriendly.

[kheegster]

ITER will hopefully come online in 2015 (i.e. 10 years after they start construction....). It is intended to demonstrated the scientific and technical feasibility of fusion power, but it won't be a real power-generating reactor. Its research lifespan is projected to be 20 years, so they start decomissioning it in 2035.

Hopefully, by then they will have a designon the board for DEMO, the first experimental fusion power plant. Call 15 years for wrangling and construction, then it comes online in 2050. So I'd say it's about 50 years just for the first experimental reactors, and I'd give another couples of decades for the first commercial plants.

As already mentioned, it's going to be really expensive in the beginning, but I suspect that by then the petroleum situation will make it worthwhile. My personal view is that in the next few decades mankind will see a general slow-down in economic progress, until cheap fusion eventually becomes available.

[Xon]

And everyone ignores the cheap and highly efficient pebble-bed nuclear fission reactors which cant meltdown.

Nuclear fission is a highly developed industry today, and we should be using that. Not waiting for pie-in-the-sky technologies to mature and become viable almost a half a century later.

[Morilore]

And everyone ignores the cheap and highly efficient pebble-bed nuclear fission reactors which cant meltdown.

Nuclear fission is a highly developed industry today, and we should be using that. Not waiting for pie-in-the-sky technologies to mature and become viable almost a half a century later.

[environazi]But itz t3h 3\/1L no0kul4r! J00 c4n't hug 4 ch1ld wi1t no0kul4r 4rmz!!@#!4!!1![/environazi]

I wonder if Greenpeace will protest fusion the way they did fission. If so, may Zod have mercy on us all...

[Guardsman Bass]

Isn't the ITER project (a multi-national effort to build an experimental fusion reactor that actually puts out more power than takes in) supposed to be done sometime about 2010-15? That's the earliest I know of. As for commercial fusion, we've got a long time coming - assuming that it ever becomes cheap enough to be competitive.

[kaikatsu]

Unlike fusion, fission does have three real problems.

One, the fissionable products are a limited resource. This can be overcome to some extent with breeder reactors, but there really is only so much uranium in the ground.

The fissionable products have a weapons usage. That alone can make the development of a nuclear reactor a tricky problem on the political side of things, especially if you have a nutcase or two looking for an excuse to liberate you. (I realize it's not quite that simple to turn nuclear fuel into nuclear weapons, but political agendas have been made on shakier cases...)

Three, and perhaps more to the point, nuclear waste IS a real problem. Not in the quantities we do now, and certanly less than the massive poisoning that we get from fossel fuels, but anything with a half life measured in millions of years is good cause to say "Do we really want to be using this?"

The various fuels for fusion are easier to come by or create, don't (currently) have weapons usage without fissionable materials as far as I know, and the waste products tend to be less dangerous. There's a good reason why it might be preferable.

[Stofsk]

I wonder if Greenpeace will protest fusion the way they did fission.

Of course they would, if they don't already. And I believe they already do.

And everyone ignores the cheap and highly efficient pebble-bed nuclear fission reactors which cant meltdown.

Nuclear fission is a highly developed industry today, and we should be using that. Not waiting for pie-in-the-sky technologies to mature and become viable almost a half a century later.

EXACTLY. I'm fucking sick of the talk about fusion as though it's going to cure AIDS, defeat the antichrist, in addition to solving our looming energy problem. It's a technology that's half a century away at best, at worst we may never get it done quite right. Fission is here right now. Fusion is nice, and it would be great if it can be made to work, but we have fission right now. Today.

[kheegster]

And everyone ignores the cheap and highly efficient pebble-bed nuclear fission reactors which cant meltdown.

Nuclear fission is a highly developed industry today, and we should be using that. Not waiting for pie-in-the-sky technologies to mature and become viable almost a half a century later.

[environazi]But itz t3h 3\/1L no0kul4r! J00 c4n't hug 4 ch1ld wi1t no0kul4r 4rmz!!@#!4!!1![/environazi]

I wonder if Greenpeace will protest fusion the way they did fission. If so, may Zod have mercy on us all...

I suspect that one of the reasons that Japan and France are the candidate sites for ITER is because enviro-nutters don't have as much influence there than in, say, Germany or UK.

[Prozac the Robert]

I suspect that one of the reasons that Japan and France are the candidate sites for ITER is because enviro-nutters don't have as much influence there than in, say, Germany or UK.

I don't think they are a problem here for fusion. The main reason we aren't in the running is probably just that we hosted JET.