If we were to work with an assumption that fusion happens soon (<20 years) and power is now cheap, what would we now be able to achieve that was previously prohibitively difficult / expensive?
Coupled with emerging energy storage it seems like cheap energy is due to come long before fusion
Fission already beats renewable by a good margin and Fusion puts some on top of that.
The fuel for fusion is incredibly cheap; hydrogen and helium, the most common elements in the universe. Easily obtained from solar wind if we find the amount on earth is lacking.
Additionally, Fusion does not produce any dangerous waste. Any byproducts that are radioactive decay quickly.
Fusion is also a lot safer than Fission since the reaction cannot exist outside reactor conditions while a uranium rod will happily go prompt critical if it gets the chance.
Fusion is cheap energy.
This is not true, I don't think people realise how much the renewable prices are currently dropping: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/nils-pratley-on-fina...
I can see the benefit of fusion though I'm not very convinced by the density argument (we do have space to put solar on our roofs, wind on our shores, batteries in our basements and distribution points, and plenty of spots to pump geothermal)
I'm not seeing any Solar Panels or Wind Turbines on the market that can output 80 TJ per Kilogram of Weight over their lifetime.
The article you linked talks about Energy Cost, which is another issue. Though considering Hydrogen and Helium are the most abundant resources in the universe, I'm not holding my breath for any renewable resources consistently beating that.
Cost =/= Density, otherwise we'd be powering electric cars with AAA batteries.
>(we do have space to put solar on our roofs, wind on our shores, batteries in our basements and distribution points, and plenty of spots to pump geothermal)
Yes but the point is that fusion requires a lot less space for a lot more power, doesn't depend on the weather or surrounding geology and is 100% clean.
Uranium is somewhat difficult to obtain; you have to mine it from deep under (using what amounts to slave labor), clean the ore and then carefully and thoroughly enrich it (238 is almost unusuable in reactors, you need 235, which is only present in a small fraction of the ore).
On the other hand, getting hydrogen can be achieved with electrolysis (electrolysis requires less energy than the fusion reaction produces), various other chemical processes or simply solar wind.
Hydrogen is the most common material in the universe, it will and can outpace any other energy source.
Renewables are simply different methods for capturing energy from the fusion happening in the sun with some efficiency.
China is building tons of new coal plants to cover its current needs. It doesn't seem that renewables are that great, when not subsidized (which is the only true measure of effectivity)
Not so sure about this one: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/22/coal-pow...
Sure they are still building but at a rate that has been drastically shaken up by both the price of renewables and their own environmental policies.
Now regarding the environmental impact of producing solar panels and wind turbines, they clearly are carbon negatives
http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/electricity-generation/roo...
http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/electricity-generation/win...
Though I'm sure they can't have no-impact, you will get some other form of pollution, but at the moment what matters most if reducing our greenhouse effect. It's cheap, it's already there so there's no reason to delay it I think.
>for an offshore wind turbine 0.57 years of expected average energy production are necessary to recover all the energy consumed for manufacturing, operation, transport, dismantling and disposal https://www.wind-energy-the-facts.org/energy-balance-analysi...
Fusion could potentially be extremely compact, extremely energetic, and not _that_ expensive to set up relative to how much power you get out of it. Renewables could make energy _cheap_, but fusion could make it practically _free_.
They are cheaper to set up at scale, but also work very well in a micro production / distributed environment (albeit slightly more expensive)
I understand your argument about space, you need a lot of space to harness energy, but we're now starting to see deep sea wind turbines, and Earth happen to have quite a bit of windy areas above deep sea.
Just the North sea itself could cover a massive portion of Europe's energy production (double digit)
Just, fusion could be better _still_, if it gets off the ground. That's not a reason to not focus on what we _can _do now, though.
Basically the price (demand) for hardware goes up and should equilibriate when it reaches the previous cost of energy.
The answer to that is obvious: yes. So why wouldn’t we need money?