MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion energy

Re:MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion... by thow-58d4e8b on Thursday September 09, 2021 @03:51AM (#28467337)

Not even close.

Global energy use is around 170,000 TWh/year (1). This includes electricity generation, as well as fuel for transport, burning wood for heat, etc.

Heat flow from mantle is 403,000 TWh/year (2)

Solar irradiance is ~1200W/m2, which adds up to massive 5B TWh/year.

Extra radiative forcing from greenhouse gases in IPCC scenarios is ~3W/m2, or around 12.5M TWh/year.

The radiative forcing is two orders of magnitude larger than our energy use.

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Re:MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion... by sokoloff on Thursday September 09, 2021 @10:44PM (#28477201)

I believe total annual solar irradiance is closer to 1.5BTWh/yr.

The 1200-ish W/m/m figure is hitting a flat plate circle, not hitting the whole spherical surface.

Taking 173,000TW of continuous solar energy* times 24h/d times 365.25 d/yr yields a little over 1.5B TWhr/yr

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Re:MIT-designed project achieves major advance toward fusion... by veltas on Thursday September 09, 2021 @03:55AM (#28467360)

Thanks, this is the calculation I was looking for.

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