Re:Nuclear fusion on brink of being realised, say MIT scient...
by zaarn on Monday March 12, 2018 @04:46AM
(#16566852)
I'm confident that given time Fusion can outpace renewables in energy cost too.
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.
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.