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Comment by pjerem | Hacker News Reader

Fusion is cool and all but it will not save us from anything. We already have enough tech to make emission free and cheap electricity.

"All" we need is political action to build more clean power plants (nuclear, solar …) and continuation of research to electrify more sectors.

Fusion will not solve any of those important issues. It will only be the cherry on the cake if it become deployed globally anytime in the future. But we are far from it and we shouldn’t be that excited or hope for it to make a better world.

I very much see fusion as going to the moon : it’s not going to solve any short time issue but it can be a milestone in human advancement if we manage to survive until it becomes our primary source of energy.

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> "All" we need is political action to build more clean power plants

We’re building solar about as quickly as we can, and without cannibalising EV battery supply chains are also maxed out on batteries. Fission power remains uncompetitive with natural gas; you’d have to convince Western consumers to bear higher prices for reduced emissions which nobody is willing to do.

Exactly this. If we drop the cost per kWh by half, the market will respond. The market doesn’t ultimately care about the planet which is why we need govt but bringing the price per kWh with clean fusion kills two birds with one stone.

That’s why I talk about political action. Public is exactly here to act when the market doesn’t care about something important.

> why I talk about political action. Public is exactly here to act when the market doesn’t care about something important

Which is why I mentioned consumers. Voters have made this incredibly clear every time polled: we are not wiling to pay more to reduce emissions.

Can you mention a recent time they were polled and make this incredibly clear?

Right now in Canada the libs are just one no confidence vote away from irrelevance, at least partly because of the carbon tax. It's not a direct poll though, as the liberal politicians are basically the junkest junk that party has ever gotten elected and all the corrupt and/or stupid things they have been up to are all coming to light at once. The carbon tax isn't helping them but it is unclear if it's the major problem for the voters or just one of the very large basket of problems that are becoming obvious.

> It's not a direct poll though

That's putting it mildly.

“We will frack, frack, frack and drill, baby, drill,” Trump said in Detroit on Oct. 18. “I will cut your energy prices in half within 12 months. … Cut them in half within 12 months of taking office. That’s going to bring everything down.”

Ah, so "polling" means "their attitude towards a political candidate who voices a wide range of policy positions, which it may not be reasonable to assume uniform agreement with" ?

This approach to "polling" also appears to ignore the fact that statistically speaking, almost half "the population" made the opposite choice. This makes sweeping statements about "what people want" based on this sort of thing pretty suspect.

Of course, the claim could be true, nevertheless. This sort of "evidence" isn't really very salient, however.

> Can you mention a recent time they were polled and make this incredibly clear?

2018 in America, "57 percent of Americans are willing to pay a $1 monthly fee; 23 percent are willing to pay a monthly fee of $40" [1]. 2018 in France, "carbon taxes on petrol and diesel" prompt les gilets jaunes [2]. 2024 in America, "more than half of Americans are unwilling to pay any amount of money to combat climate change" [3].

And then there is the global success of climate-skeptic or outright denialist citing the cost of Paris Agreement compliance.

[1] https://apnorc.org/projects/is-the-public-willing-to-pay-to-...

[2] https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/31/opinions/macron-warning-c...

[3] https://epic.uchicago.edu/insights/2024-poll-americans-views...

Not that I like or agree with the data, but thanks for providing some.

I do recall one of the catchphrases that surfaced around les gilets jaunes: "these people are going on about the end of the world while we're just trying to make it to the end of the month".

It's too bad that doesn't prompt deeper reflection about and anger at just who benefits from such a bifurcation of interest.

How do I square this with claims that the US heavily subsidizes fossil fuels? Are those claims false or am I misunderstanding how the market works?

> How do I square this with claims that the US heavily subsidizes fossil fuels?

By noting it’s irrelevant. Solar production isn’t capital constrained. Certainly not in the West.

> Fission power remains uncompetitive with natural gas; you’d have to convince Western consumers to bear higher prices for reduced emissions which nobody is willing to do.

I was mainly reacting to this. Can nuclear really not compete with gas even if the government subsidized both equally? (with all the caveats that come with comparing subsidies)

I have no idea whether fission plants are competitive with gas plants, and knowing a bit about multi-decade projects, I suspect no-one does. It’s all guesswork.

What I do know is fission has a horrible cost profile. First there’s a huge build cost, which can often skyrocket unpredictably. Then you’ve got a hugely profitable part where you’re basically printing money. Then there’s an enormous cost at the end.

Huge cleanup costs, whether it’s nuclear or coal, basically means either government has its eye on the ball to an excellent extent (Australia seems to be good here.) or it’s not going to be fixed except by the same government that didn’t tie down the guys who made the money enough.

I’d call fission a bad choice for countries with weak or chaotic government. You need a rock solid civil service to allow it.

(You’ll observe the same is true of almost every mineral extraction project.)

That really depends on what you count as a subsidy. The federal government isn't really making direct payments to fossil fuel companies. Some of them are allowed to lease federal lands at what might be considered below-market prices. The US military helps to provide free security for some oil exporting countries. Fossil fuel producers and customers are allowed to emit pollutants without paying for cleanup or remediation costs. Are those subsidies? Depends on your perspective.

I see at least 4 direct subsidies listed here:

https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subs...

Those are minuscule subsidies compared to the size of the industry.

> We already have enough tech to make emission free and cheap electricity.

As much as I am a proponent of green energy, this claim is outlandish. If we had started building more nuclear reactors 10 years ago, sure, but by themselves wind and solar aren’t quite sufficient enough for places like the US to fully replace fossil fuels. There are limitations for both, namely the need for space and acceptable weather conditions. Solar panel energy yield still has potential to unlock, as well. Last update I’d seen about panels said they still only hover around 25% energy yield.

The main challenge is to ensure a sustainable 10-x increase in energy production over the next 10-20 years with at least support current level of prices.

All other problem will be solvable, I we archive this goal

Fission just isn't a competitive source of energy economically. Nobody is willing to pay 10x as much for energy just to get nuclear. Seems clear to me that the actual solution we need are cheap batteries so we can scale renewables

This is funny

Here in France, most of our power is from nuclear. This gets us really cheap power production, compared to our neighbors in Europe.

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