bholdr
07-04-2005, 03:30 AM
BBC news story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4629239.stm)
France has been chosen as the location of a multi national research effort, a facility aimed at developing fusion technology. Fusion has been touted as a perfectly clean practically unlimited energy source, but nobody has built a reactor that would generating more power than it uses to sustain the reaction. Estimates range from 30 to 100 years before generating power with fusion is technologically possible, it would be longer before it's actually implemented and widespread enough to impact the world's energy needs. It looks like it will work eventually- most of the problems are of an enginnering and logistical nature.
At the same time, global warming is starting to seriously affect the environment.
If we assume that:
-The technology will be practical and economical by 2050, and widespread, generating most of the worlds power by 2100
-The use of fossil fuels is creating the global warming effect and we can and should do something about it. (I believe it is beyond debate, but...)
How does/ should that effect alternitive energy research? Should we continue to spend money on developing expensive 'clean' power sources (solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, tidal, etc) that will be eventually be far surpassed by fusion, or maybe concentrate our efforts on what have been called band-aid solutions such as fission and CO2 liqufication and storage, etc... It's a question of long term vs short term ev, i suppose...
thoughts? do you think fusion will work at all?
France has been chosen as the location of a multi national research effort, a facility aimed at developing fusion technology. Fusion has been touted as a perfectly clean practically unlimited energy source, but nobody has built a reactor that would generating more power than it uses to sustain the reaction. Estimates range from 30 to 100 years before generating power with fusion is technologically possible, it would be longer before it's actually implemented and widespread enough to impact the world's energy needs. It looks like it will work eventually- most of the problems are of an enginnering and logistical nature.
At the same time, global warming is starting to seriously affect the environment.
If we assume that:
-The technology will be practical and economical by 2050, and widespread, generating most of the worlds power by 2100
-The use of fossil fuels is creating the global warming effect and we can and should do something about it. (I believe it is beyond debate, but...)
How does/ should that effect alternitive energy research? Should we continue to spend money on developing expensive 'clean' power sources (solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, tidal, etc) that will be eventually be far surpassed by fusion, or maybe concentrate our efforts on what have been called band-aid solutions such as fission and CO2 liqufication and storage, etc... It's a question of long term vs short term ev, i suppose...
thoughts? do you think fusion will work at all?