Even the "neutral" components of vape liquid can be bad when coated onto the insides of your lungs:

> Vaping-related lipoid pneumonia is the result of inhaling oily substances found in e-liquid

from https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/what-does-vaping-do-to-your-lungs

See same article for various other bad effects of vaping.

> no known negative effects from inhaling glycerin vapours

From https://www.banyantreatmentcenter.com/2022/01/10/vaping-vegetable-glycerin-side-effects/ :

> Researchers have recently found that vegetable glycerin can lead to inflammation of the lungs due to long-term vaping or e-cigarette use. One study on the dangers of vaping glycerin ran for four weeks, during which 34 were randomized to using flavor- and nicotine-free e-cigs or to a control group of no-use. At the end of the study, researchers discovered that the side effects of inhaling vegetable glycerin included inflammation in the lungs. The study also found that those who smoked e-cigarettes twice a day for a month contained higher levels of chemicals like propylene glycol in their blood.1

Also see https://www.news-medical.net/news/20191018/Vaping-propylene-glycol-and-vegetable-glycerine-may-lead-to-lung-inflammation.aspx

Oh, if you're objecting to that part, that's solely because you truncated their sentence:

> Unlike lithium-ion batteries, which store energy in solid electrodes, flow batteries store chemical energy in liquid electrolytes that sit in tanks.

So it said "electrodes" when it meant "electrolyte". Not a big deal.

Article says nothing about cost. Amounts to "there's enough wind on Mars to support 6 people living for 500 days". Okay, but at what cost ? How many wind-turbines, what size, how are we going to build them, how much will it all cost ?

Yes, fusion will have a lot less waste and radiation than fission. Not zero, but much less. And will the public understand the delta ? Maybe not, they're both "nuclear".

It is cost that will mostly kill fission, and probably consign fusion to niches once we do get it working.

> old mature

Certainly it is old and mature: it has been optimized to the max because it is in so many power plants and industrial processes. Don't expect some large improvement in steam tech.

> therefore unscalable

Again a matter of steam and temperatures and cooling etc. Scaling nuclear large is less of a problem than scaling small. I doubt SMR nuclear will go very small or be successful. Whereas some renewables scale down to the level of a single house.

> What do you specifically mean with the generalization "renewables?"

The usual definition: solar, wind, tidal, wave, geothermal, hydro.

Many of the costs and constraints on fission and fusion plants have nothing to do with nuclear or new tech. It's the "heat engine", all the heat transfer and cooling and steam turbine and spinning generator etc. That stuff is OLD and mature. Throwing more money at it is not going to change it. That's why fusion is not going to be a big change relative to fission. And why renewables and storage are going to dominate.

Fusion probably will be an incremental improvement (in cost and waste) over fission. Not game-changing.

Fusion probably won't be viable economically, by the time we get it.

"Big" (thermal) fusion will be similar to today's fission plants, as far as I can tell, minus the fuel costs. Still a big complicated reactor, actually MORE complicated than a fission reactor. Tons of electronics and high-power electrical and electromagnets and maybe superconductors to control and confine and heat a plasma, or drive lasers to ignite pellets. You get a thermal flux (neutrons) to drive a big steam plant that drives a generator. So lots of high pressures and temperatures to control, lots of pumps and turbines and other moving parts. Still some radiation. No need for a sturdy containment vessel. Still a terrorist target, still need security.

Fuel cost is about 30% of operating cost [not LCOE, I don't know how that translates; some say fuel is more like 10%] of today's fission reactors. Subtract that, so I estimate cost of energy from fusion will be 70% of today's fission cost. Renewables PLUS storage are going to pass below that level soon, maybe in the next 5 years. [Edit: maybe I'm wrong about fuel for fusion, see https://thequadreport.com/is-tritium-the-roadblock-to-fusion-energy/ ]

And "big" fusion really isn't "limitless" power, either. All of the stuff around the actual reaction (vessel, controls, coolant loop, steam plant, grid) is limited in various ways. They cost money, require maintenance, impose limits, and scale in certain ways. You can't just have any size you want, for same cost or linear cost increase.

Also, ITER (one of the flagship fusion projects) isn't going to start real fusion experiments until 2035, and the machine planned after ITER is the one that will produce electricity in an experimental situation, not yet commercial. So you might be looking at 2070 for commercial "big" fusion ? ITER is not the only game in town, but ...

Now, if we get a breakthrough and someone invents "small" fusion, somehow generating electricity directly from some simple device, no huge control infrastructure, no tokamak or lasers, no steam plant and spinning generator, etc, that would be a different story.

> As far as I know a fusion reactor breaking down is harmless and will just stop.

Well, in both fusion and fission there are a lot of "breakdowns" that can be far from harmless. You're dealing with high-pressure high-temperature steam, a big generator with high electrical currents, etc. In addition, fusion may have high voltages or currents in the confinement magnets and controls. These are not radioactive meltdowns or releases, but they're serious if something fails.

> rest of the operating costs for fission

Well, again, for fission and fusion both there are systems and moving parts that need to be maintained, replaced, etc.

> I expect a lot of the operating costs of a fission reactor is related to safety and preventing meltdowns

I wouldn't assume that. And the controls of a fusion reactor are likely to be MORE complex than the controls of a fission reactor. The other plant controls (steam, cooling, generator, transmission, etc) should be the same for both.

I don't think any of that is limited by amount of energy that can be applied.

Ah, I was going to ask if you saw my aunt, she was there maybe 4 days ago.

Fusion probably won't be economically viable by the time we get it.

"Big" (thermal) fusion will be similar to today's fission plants, as far as I can tell, minus the fuel costs. Still a big complicated reactor, actually MORE complicated than a fission reactor. Tons of electronics and high-power electrical and electromagnets and maybe superconductors to control and confine and heat a plasma, or drive lasers to ignite pellets. You get a thermal flux (neutrons) to drive a big steam plant that drives a generator. So lots of high pressures and temperatures to control, lots of pumps and turbines and other moving parts. Still some radiation, not sure how it compares to a fission plant (some say more for fusion, some say less). No need for a sturdy containment vessel. Still a terrorist target, still need security.

Fuel cost is about 30% of operating cost [not LCOE, I don't know how that translates; some say fuel is more like 10%] of today's fission reactors. Subtract that, so I estimate cost of energy from fusion will be 70% of today's fission cost. Renewables PLUS storage are going to pass below that level soon, maybe in the next 5 years. [Edit: maybe I'm wrong about fuel for fusion, see https://thequadreport.com/is-tritium-the-roadblock-to-fusion-energy/ ]

And "big" fusion really isn't "limitless" power, either. All of the stuff around the actual reaction (vessel, controls, coolant loop, steam plant, grid) is limited in various ways. They cost money, require maintenance, impose limits, and scale in certain ways. You can't just have any size you want, for same cost or linear cost increase.

A flagship project, ITER, isn't going to start real fusion experiments until 2035, and the machine planned after ITER is the one that will produce electricity in an experimental situation, not yet commercial. So you might be looking at 2070 for commercial "big" fusion ? ITER is not the only game in town, but ...

Now, if we get a breakthrough and someone invents "small" fusion, somehow generating electricity directly from some simple device, no huge control infrastructure, no tokamak or lasers, no steam plant and spinning generator, etc, that would be a different story.

To start using Mastodon, I have to find a server, and somehow evaluate the policies of the sysadmin ? Hope that that server doesn't have a bad reputation, and thus blocked by other servers ?

Then find people I want to follow, on that server or other servers ?

And hope that my home server doesn't quit or kick me out, because then I lose my whole ID and config, have to start over again ?

Article doesn't really make much of a case that it's a "problem". Causes more anxiety, okay. I suppose someone could spend a lot of money on storage, interfering with the rest of their life. But it's not really a health or sanitary risk as in a lot of physical-hoarding situations, where someone accumulates a house full of crap (literally or figuratively).

In most of these cases, when the person dies, their inheritors will have to deal with the situation. And a digital "discard" is much easier than a physical one.