Will Nuclear Fusion Dump Clean Energy?

Submitted by Rough-Lavishness-401 t3_zy8tjv in wallstreetbets

So as you may know Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory recently obtained nuclear fusion for the first time ever. From what I've seen this wasn't just a one time thing, and we are now 100% capable of doing it again. And as soon as engineers get the blueprints we will start seeing this type of energy all over the world.

This is a topic I'm way over my head over, and I can tell most news outlets that reported on it are as well.

So my question is : To what degree does the current scientific breakthrough of Nuclear Fusion affect the energy sector particularly renewables?

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occipixel_lobe t1_j24dqdv wrote

No. Read about what actually happened. It still overall required many times the energy that was produced.

Or, since the people here probably can't read beyond headlines and street signs, here's a basic man giving a basic explanation.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=SpuS7axls7k

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_abishek t1_j24enlh wrote

You expect us illiterate people to read? Or worse watch a video that is an explanation?

Hey, hey, this is 2022 and wsb, back off.

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occipixel_lobe t1_j24qd11 wrote

My mistake. Also, I can't read. My wife's boyfriend's mother is typing this all for me as I dictate between spoonfuls of applesauce.

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renok_archnmy t1_j24w10g wrote

Tl;tl;dr version:

Two science mans in a race.

One has big lasers and shoot helium filled diamond grenades and make go boom more than shooting big lasers at flimsy paper.

Scientist man need more money and 30 years before can put in Tesla model 3.

Meanwhile, other scientist man likes farting between magnets to see if go boom. He lost the race but would also like more money too.

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Fragrant_Aardvark t1_j2787by wrote

Yeah this is correct.

To the OP, it's still decades away. Worse, it's been decades away for decades. I wish it weren't so.

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renok_archnmy t1_j27qc0w wrote

Reading further…

Man who cut check also was intern at laser fart magnet lab in 1978. They said 20 years, now they say 20 more.

How many magnetic farts does it take to shoot a laser at diamond grenades and make Tesla model 3 go brrr?

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Rough-Lavishness-401 OP t1_j24gvti wrote

Very insightful video and I wasn't aware of a lot of the things he said. But I also got some unanswered questions watching it.

Okay we are in the infant stages of nuclear fusion and this was one of many breakthroughs to come, but how long will the breakthroughs take? From what I've seen from other knowledgeable people on the matter they said what happened earlier this month was assumed to be 20 to 30 years down the road.

Also can we try this in a bigger scale (with improved energy efficiency ofc) and compensate the amount of energy we need to put in it?

Last thing, when he brought up renewables he did make an interesting point that if clean energy continues to fall in price as it should, nuclear fusion might prove to be unnecessary do to being more expansive, but at the end of the day that depends on how fast the price of renewables drops and how fast the technology on nuclear fusion speeds up.

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throwawayainteasy t1_j24j4da wrote

Fusion has been "just 20 years away" for the last 60 years.

I'd bet the century ends and there will still not be large scale fusion plants.

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That-Whereas3367 t1_j24mmp3 wrote

It's basically a scam to keep Dr Strangelove and his bomb making friends in work.

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Sodis42 t1_j24wawj wrote

There are different fusion reactor designs, that are currently investigated. For the Tokamak, where the plasma is confined by magnets in a donut shaped vessel, they are currently building a prototype in France called ITER. With the results of this, they want to build the first fusion reactor DEMO, that actually produces energy.

The headline from the current experiment was from a facility, where the plasma is confined by lasers. This technique was not on the original roadmap of fusion plants, so it's quite surprising, that they already got that far. Unfortunately, it scales really badly, because they use special containers with hydrogen inside as fuel and you can't really make those bigger. As far as I know, they already use state of the art lasers already, so that's another bottleneck there.

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Rough-Lavishness-401 OP t1_j24z8iz wrote

So what we should look out for in the future isn't the breakthrough at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, but reactors like the Tokamak as you mentioned?

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Sodis42 t1_j257uv5 wrote

At this point, the laser driven approach might be faster. It's not clear, if the tokamak design will be economically feasible, while for the laser-confined fusion plants, you "just" need more efficient lasers.

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platoface541 t1_j27ruxc wrote

A potentially limitless byproduct of fusion is hydrogen. Hydrogen could be very useful for future generations for water and space travel

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Knautical_J t1_j26nmf8 wrote

Did not watch the video. What if you took some oil with lithium ion batteries to use energy to create fusion energy. Then once you make enough fusion energy you can use that energy to make more fusion energy. Eventually it will grow to be like the sun in Spider-Man 2, and our problems will all be solved

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AustrianRocket t1_j24eq8o wrote

Will nuclear fusion dump clean energy? Yes it will, in 30 years. As it was 30 years before, or 50 years before. Nuclear Fusion power always has been 30 years away.

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DigitalSheikh t1_j24o04b wrote

Nuclear power was once considered the same way, until we dumped the equivalent of 1000 trillion dollars or whatever on getting it in the Manhattan project. I would love to have our politicians announce a second manahattan project for nuclear fusion to win the war on climate. Maybe phrasing it that way would get people on board with actually trying for once.

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dasboot523 t1_j27s5nj wrote

Didn't you head the Green New deal was exactly what you described!

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Mango-Bob t1_j24fctf wrote

(Narrator voice). Imagine a world… a world in which large energy cartels and conglomerates own the future of energy. One man, Fusion Man, has the future in his tiny carbon-balled hand. Will he save the world with his laser-blasted salt shaker, or will the special interests and energy lobby hobble his free-energy-fusion-future?

No. But it’s cool science.

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Educational_Zebra_66 t1_j24hj6k wrote

we have had clean energy options sense the 40s. For example Thorium based nuclear power has been around sense before uranium or plutonium, unfortunately thorium didn't have the weapons capabilities of the others. So development was all based around plutonium and uranium. In my opinion "they" will never let clean, virtually free power exist. It would take a cultural revolution to actually allow engineering and science to development real solutions to anything. If it can't make money year over year and be tightly controlled it won't be developed.

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Rough-Lavishness-401 OP t1_j24jbm9 wrote

Love to see another thorium enthusiast, absolute shame more people don't know about it.

Also absolutely agree that big energy magnates will suppress this. Ironically tho, I think it will be authoritarian regimes using/advancing this new kind of energy just like what is happening with the thorium reactors in China

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That-Whereas3367 t1_j24f1af wrote

The media reporting has been rubbish. Practical application is 30-50 years away and requires trillions of dollars in R&D.

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0x11C3P t1_j24i6wn wrote

None. You didn't understand at all what was reported.

Fusion is the future.... 50 years from now. For now, it's a well celebrated science experiment. Commercial viability isn't anywhere close.

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fruitbatz-maru t1_j25baq0 wrote

When I was a kid it was only 10-20 years away. Ahh, the good old days...

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0x11C3P t1_j25c5x9 wrote

I had the same feeling when I watched "The Saint" in the late 90s. At this point, I'm just glad I have a computer that relatively fits in the palm of my hand.

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SidharthaGalt t1_j24whmj wrote

Below is a CAD image of the National Ignition Facility. It's huge. Using this huge facility, they created enough surplus energy to boil a pot of water. It's nowhere near being a game changer. It's going to be decades before fusion has any material impact on energy markets.

https://preview.redd.it/sj6xmgyo4x8a1.png?width=850&format=png&auto=webp&s=b5b093cbcaef6651d9fef3f3b0c3e04125f66cfb

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Barnettmetal t1_j24f2zr wrote

No.

While promising for the future you'll probably be dead before a fusion plant of any kind is ever built.

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coffeepot25 t1_j24fshm wrote

Fusion technology is still at least 30 years away from being practical. It will have a negligible impact on the current renewables space.

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VisualMod t1_j24dadz wrote

>Nuclear fusion is a huge breakthrough for the energy sector, and it could potentially make renewables obsolete. However, we need to wait and see how this technology develops before making any definitive statements.

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greenskew t1_j24gwej wrote

LLNL was able to generate more energy than what was put in and is a great achievement. But as they say, fusion is always 30 years away.

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renok_archnmy t1_j24em76 wrote

Says the person who isn’t a ground breaking nuclear physicist on an anonymous forum full of regards.

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Gradius90 t1_j24fejy wrote

We have had nuclear fusion already. The issue is being able to have it occur at a rate that is energy positive instead of negative. So far, all attempts I know of have required a vast amount more energy added than has been produced. If you want to see the path toward the future for energy production, look up the Kirchave Scale. I miss spelt that like crazy I know.

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ALovelyPoS t1_j24h04b wrote

They achieved energy positive nuclear fusion a few weeks ago

EDIT: https://youtu.be/w-5bNFg50KU

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AustrianRocket t1_j24sos5 wrote

They achieved energy positive fusion only for apes who only read the headlines.

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ALovelyPoS t1_j24suqq wrote

Did you listen to what he said? 2 in 3 out

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AustrianRocket t1_j24u8bl wrote

No, it was more like 200 in, 2 hit the target, 3 out. We are far away from a commercial use of fusion power.

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AustrianRocket t1_j24ulah wrote

Furthermore the "3 out" is thermal energy, which would have to be converted to electricity, which happens with additional energy losses.

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x3lr4 t1_j25kdzl wrote

Actually a Q_total greater than 1 might be feasible. They didn't fully burn the pellet. If it fuses completely, there's 20 times more energy to be had. Also rebuilding the facility with newer lasers can make it 10 times more efficient. So overall a factor 200 is possible, which could give the entire facility a Q_total of 3. But yes, it still wouldn't be a power plant.

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Big-Industry4237 t1_j24ib2k wrote

My understanding is that they can now say it’s SCIENTIFICALLY feasible. That is it. They still need to make many moves engineering wise to bring it to scale and make in feasible from an engineering standpoint. We are still decades away from having a fusion power plant.

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CLNEGreen t1_j24j5j5 wrote

No big deal right now. In the future - sure. In the future for specific applications first ? Yes. But right now there is no one solution that can enable Companies to achieve “Net Zero Carbon”. Unless it is RNG run in a heavy duty truck for heavy duty transportation reliant Companies “like Amazon, Walmart, Costco, Sam’s Club, Kroger etc etc

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CrazyEntertainment86 t1_j24tgi5 wrote

We are a solid 25-30 years from any commercially viable fusion production. And even then it will cost way more than wind and solar by then.

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jlp120145 t1_j24ttkb wrote

img but not on my life. Puts on me calls on Jordan junior the 3rd

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wen_mars t1_j24zmqh wrote

Fusion will come but there's a long road to go from nonzero energy gain to economically competitive with solar panels and batteries.

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Stswivvinsdayalready t1_j251f4y wrote

It's the absolute Grail of clean energy but it remains decades away. Recent progress is regarded as an academic breakthrough but is more of a proof-of-concept than anything.

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Trying_to_be_better2 t1_j254ebc wrote

It is way too early to bet on Fusion. Until they can create a sustainable reaction and harvest the energy this technology is still vaporware. It is always going to take a lot of energy to start a fusion reaction.. it is only in sustaining that reaction without adding more energy that we will see any real gains. Also, fusion will just be another way to turn water into steam in order to turn a turbine. It will be the fanciest steam engine ever made.

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bwatts53 t1_j2575og wrote

They said they are still decade's from being able to make efficient reactors

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Repulsive-Lake1753 t1_j258apq wrote

Fun fact, the moon has a near unlimited supply of a specific isotope of Helium that is the perfect fuel for a nuclear reactor. Much like fusion, it's still in beginning stages, but because it's still based on fission, it's at least not in it's infancy. Let's call it the toddler stage. I personally think we're more likely to start bringing this fuel back from the moon vs figuring our functioning fusion.

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Rough-Lavishness-401 OP t1_j25vy5l wrote

That's really cool actually. Do you know if we can recreate it here, and if so, do we avoid it because of cost?

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Repulsive-Lake1753 t1_j25wnlr wrote

It doesn't exist naturally on earth, the sun creates it but it bounces off the atmosphere. So it's just collecting on the surface of the moon, it's something ridiculous like enough possible fuel in just the sea of tranquility to power the US at current rates for hundreds of years.

When I first read about it, the story was that it was discovered as a by-product of servicing nuclear weapons and the physicists were like "man, wish we had more of this" and then like 20 years later the nuclear physicists and the astrophysicists were chatting, the nuclear bros brought it up and the space bros were like "that shit is literally just all over the moon". Not sure if true but funny story.

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Rough-Lavishness-401 OP t1_j260c0e wrote

Yh very funny if true ahahah

And although we can't bring it here (well at least for now who knows in 50 to 100 years) we already have an energy source for a moon colonie

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anattempttointrod_v1 t1_j258lt6 wrote

Most replies are still missing what the breakthrough really was. The whole point as to why that story was newsworthy had nothing to do with nuclear energy, but instead much more to do with nuclear weapons. The Department of Energy allowed for that misreporting to spread to detract attention away from that fact. Read this if you care:

https://thebulletin.org/2022/12/the-energy-departments-fusion-breakthrough-its-not-really-about-generating-electricity/

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WeedCaffeineBooze t1_j25e033 wrote

Insignificant. They are a long way off from scaling this up even to make a single generator. Decades away from any impact on the energy segment

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x3lr4 t1_j25j7se wrote

Inertial confinement fusion is far from being useful for a fusion power plant. It's just a miniature hydrogen bomb.

The currently most interesting design that could actually speed up the timeline is Helion's approach.

Otherwise keep an eye on SPARC and ITER/DEMO. If nothing unexpected happens, commercial fusion power will likely not happen within this century.

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nateccs t1_j25kkzr wrote

for the first time the reaciton gave off more energy than consumed which was a breakthrough. but that didnt factor the energy required for the lasers and other losses. while exciting, we're still decades away from practical fusion energy production.

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unpeelingpeelable t1_j25ltrs wrote

It'll affect the energy sector when it's profitable. Until then, $$$ is going to keep sh**ing on actual progress and keep shilling not-actually-green-or-renewable garbage.

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throwAway9a8b7c111 t1_j25nd7h wrote

The bigger question you should have is what else will it impact.

e.g. Free energy = Free clean water (desalination) = Free heating = no more coal/nat gas = 24 hour indoor grow lights = free food. Once you get rid of energy limitations on shit the entire world changes.

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Rough-Lavishness-401 OP t1_j25ygx8 wrote

Very true, renewables was my first thought since it's something I'm really invested on stock wise But from what I've gathered here It's nothing to worry about for now

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BertAnsink t1_j25qd98 wrote

Calling something energy positive can be done in a lot of creative ways.

​

Fusion on earth only really works between tritium and deuterium. Problem is that tritium is not found in nature and you need to breed that, in a nuclear fission reactor so that is costing additional energy.

​

Then if you build a plant, there is all sorts of auxillary systems that require power, think coolant, HVAC, control systems etc etc.

​

Then the next hurdle even if you manage to get a net gain in energy, there is commercial viability. You need a army of technicians to run your facility, the plant has a limited lifetime in which it needs to offset it's building cost.

​

It will probably be viable somewhere in the future but I don't expect it during my lifetime.

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scrooplynooples t1_j265nkb wrote

I’m probably one of the few people on WSB that has contacts at LLNL and I’ll tell you what they told me… the significance of this was that they were able to create a net positive exchange of energy, ie, the reaction they created had a higher output of energy than it took to create it. Practical nuclear fusion is still years and years away, the science and technology to handle that much energy for common use has not yet been invented either. In order for it to dump renewables we would need widespread implementation of fusion engines as well as the infrastructure to disseminate it.

The conclusion you jump to ignores a lot of S&T groundwork and news outlets only care about headlines and sensationalism to draw in views.

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Rough-Lavishness-401 OP t1_j26ondd wrote

First of all that's awesome! So basically although it was important, right now it doesn't change anything and it won't change anything in the near future for the energy sector?

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scrooplynooples t1_j26q8h7 wrote

It’s a monumental step in the right direction.

An analogy I would relate it to is the invention of the printing press. Controlled fusion energy is like having the internet, and LLNL has just invented the printing press, figuring out a way of creating literature consistently and in a form that doesn’t require anywhere near as much effort as writing every single letter in a book.

But that is still a very long way away from information being able to be transferred the way the internet can transfer it.

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Moordok t1_j269nhl wrote

This breakthrough will have little to no effect on the energy sector for the foreseeable future. While a significant obstacle has been overcome, they are still decades away from actually implementing nuclear fusion as a reliable energy production method. Fission will continue to dominate nuclear power and will likely advance significantly as well by the time fusion become useable.

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WyleECoyote77 t1_j26oxn6 wrote

It doesn't affect it at all today. It may revolutionize the energy sector in the 10, 20, 50 years or so it takes to make practical commercial fusion reactors. All this latest experiment has done is prove that yes, we can create a controlled fusion reaction that gives off more energy than required to sustain it within certain criteria. It's a stepping stone, a scientific milestone. Nothing more. In this context "controlled" only means it's not a bomb. We've known how to do large scale "uncontrolled" fusion reactions for a long time. They're called thermonuclear bombs.

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v4bj t1_j270fmm wrote

Fusion makes peak oil potentially irrelevant. That means it's no longer a guarantee that oil will go up in value over the long run.

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ObviousRealist t1_j272zcw wrote

Great Step - know the the Wright brothers first flight was 120ft- Baby Steps

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PhilosophyMammoth748 t1_j275zzj wrote

The sun is a free, stable, safe fusion reactor. What you will need is the energy collector (aka solar panel).

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physbuz t1_j27etn5 wrote

Hi, PhD nuclear physicist here. Nope, just no. Not in the next 10 years, most likely not in the next 20. AI will be the key. It’s not there yet.

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brian_thompsan t1_j27ndv8 wrote

Nuclear fusion has the potential to be a major game-changer in the energy sector, as it could eventually provide a much cleaner and more sustainable form of energy than traditional fossil fuels.

However, it's still in the early stages of development and there are a lot of challenges that need to be overcome before it can be commercialized.

Renewables, on the other hand, will continue to play an important role in the energy sector even if nuclear fusion becomes a reality, as they are currently much cheaper and more readily available than fusion power.

But if fusion can be harnessed on a large scale, it could eventually completely replace traditional fossil fuels and usher in a new era of clean energy.

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spasmann t1_j27ooee wrote

In short, no.

I’m a nuclear engineer and have worked at LLNL. The recent ignition breakthrough, while a wonderful thing, is more of a scientific breakthrough than an engineering one. We are still far away from a commercial fusion reactor.

Renewables will be here awhile.

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alphadom4u t1_j27os0s wrote

Historically if you are trying to convert dollars into electricity, fusion is not only a net loser, it ranks just behind rubbing on a magic lamp and waiting for the genie to pop out. We are at least 10 years away from making nuclear energy profitable compared to solar, wind and hydro. And that is assuming A LOT of free capital dumped into the project by the taxpayers for R&D.

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WestTexasCrude t1_j27pufv wrote

My 70 year old colleague, who is a pop-science nerd said he's "been reading that 'widespread availability of fusion power is only a decade away' since the 1960s.

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longstreakof t1_j27vjz3 wrote

The only fusion project to follow is ITER in France. It is interesting and loads of info on it is available. Commercialisation is decades away. I hope we can do but when you have temps at 60 million degrees Celsius (sun is only 20) any thing can go wrong.

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driveonsun t1_j24kbpi wrote

It won’t be ready for decades at the soonest and we can’t wait that long to address climate change

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SuspiciousStable9649 t1_j24mdxa wrote

That event was a tiny tiny step in a very long road. If there’s anything powered by a fusion reactor before 2100 I’ll be pleasantly shocked.

Edit: Honestly - the best thing anyone can do right now is build out utility power storage. This will save fuel now and prepare the power grid for future power sources, whatever those might be.

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AGROCRAG004 t1_j24o0m7 wrote

As long as money exists I don’t think they’ll ever harness this technology…in short not a chance

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zummit t1_j24pceq wrote

Fusion power is unlocked in the year 2050 and involves building a U-shaped facility.

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naratas t1_j24rtin wrote

No, It's not the first time humans have created nuclear fusion. It's been demonstrated in laboratories many times. Thermonuclear bombs works by creating nuclear fusion. Deuterium and Tritium (heavier isotopes of Hydrogen) is fused together to create Helium (and lots of energy is released). This fusion process is initiated with a conventional fission bomb.

We are still far away from commercial fusion reactors. We can only hope that they will be available within our lifetime. It would solve our energy needs forever.

What was groundbreaking with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory experiments was that the fusion energy they got out from their little "fusion pellet" was larger than the energy the bombarding lasers put in to the pellet. This is a huge step, but unfortunately when counting in all the energy needed to drive the lasers they still put in more energy than they got out.

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FlatOutUseless t1_j24wgy4 wrote

It’s not the next iPhone, getting fusion reactors to economic viability will take a long time if that is possible in our world at all.

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Upper-Equivalent3651 t1_j259m29 wrote

Fake news. They only considered the effective output of the lasers as input energy. But not the entire energy input needed to accomplish that. That is 10 times more.

So....fail. Big one.

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ganeshiva t1_j25egfu wrote

We still can't get off the horse Lol...

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phil_hubb t1_j25zu8f wrote

Fusion is going nowhere. Turns out it's all hype, no subtance.

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Additional-Target953 t1_j26sear wrote

No, their archievement is great but from what I heard, it is no where near practical application level yet.

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DRGWTM t1_j2754ef wrote

They have it all backwards. Developed fusion power then we surrender our fossil fuel mobiles.

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Ok-Confusion-2368 t1_j27s5fk wrote

Doesn’t do jack shit. If the world still consumes gas for automobiles when we have (and have had for years) the technology to never use gas again, Nuclear Fusion sure as hell won’t get rid of clean energy

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Infamous_Welcome7239 t1_j27sb80 wrote

The physics for this have been around for years. The mechanics are still not here. It will be years before this energy source can be exploited.

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The_RealKeyserSoze t1_j27w2o3 wrote

Nuclear fusion wont be viable for commercial use until the 2050’s if not later, and thats assuming the timeline goes as planned (ITER-> DEMO -> building out fusion infrastructure). Renewables will be very much established by then and so if it does outcompete them it will still be several more decades before they are gone.

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Rajacali t1_j27ztod wrote

Thats still about 10-20 years away where we can maybe see another breakthrough

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_Zero_Kool t1_j288842 wrote

The 30 year gap of oil depletion and nuclear fusion sounds right 🤣

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No_Station544 t1_j28akjc wrote

Just invest in conventional Nuclear Energy / Uranium. A new Uranium Cycle is imminent..probably in the next 1-2 years. Fusion is just 20 years away the last 40 years and even if not, it will take years to get the things on the grit…on the other hand many running plants need fuel / new contracts within the next years or otherwise the lights will go out..

1