What would a world with cheap energy look like?

marginalrevolution.com

2 points·jeffreyrogers··5 comments

I suspect that cheap energy would mean more waste and even more destruction of the environment. Cheap energy would help reduce the it but people don't think about the waste they produce so it would be at the bottom of the list of problems to solve even if people thought about it.

This is based in the assumption that fusion energy would be cheap. I want to see some solid evidence of that, but all I have seen is the assumption.

From where I sit fusion seems likely to be more expensive than fission, by a factor of 2 or possibly an order of magnitude. Fuel cost is negligible in either case, but OpEx and quantity of radioactive waste are much higher with fusion. So are the NIMBY factor and consequent regulatory costs.

My understanding is that radioactive waste would be minimal with fusion. That's one of the advantages over fission. Did I get bad info?

Here's what I read: https://www.iaea.org/topics/energy/fusion/faqs

It may be OK with aneutronic fusion such as the 3He stuff that is a couple orders of magnitude more difficult to do than D-T fusion.

With a lot of released energy in the form of energetic neutrons, D-T reaction vessels and containment structures become radioactive and get weakened, necessitating replacement every decade or so. Thousands of tons of radioactive waste.

Fuel waste would be minimal - but how long will containment vessels last?

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