China May Be Ready To Use Nuclear Fusion for Power by 2050
- Reference: 0176599333
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/03/1335250/china-may-be-ready-to-use-nuclear-fusion-for-power-by-2050
- Source link:
> China National Nuclear Corp., which runs an experimental device dubbed the 'artificial sun,' could start commercial operation of its first power generation project about five years after a demonstration phase starting around 2045, it said in a media briefing on Friday.
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> The Asian nation has recently stepped up its ambitions in achieving nuclear fusion, a process by which the sun and other stars generate energy and that is considered a near-infinite form of clean energy. It is notoriously difficult to carry out in a sustained and usable manner and only a handful of countries like the US, Russia and South Korea have managed to crack the basics.
[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-may-ready-nuclear-fusion-023752498.html
Fusion is always 20 years away (Score:1)
Seems like a constant.
Re:Fusion is always 20 years away (Score:4, Funny)
Practical flying cars, robots who can do full housework, and profitable fusion will all kick in at the same time, probably the day after I croak.
"Good news: Jetsons arrived! Bad news, you haven't."
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wait, I thought it was only 5 years away.
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It will be interesting to see what China does. Typically when they decide to do something it happens much faster than it does in the West. EV and battery tech is a good example of that, with the assumption here being that it would take decades to reach the level they are at now.
Re: Fusion is always 20 years away (Score:3)
It used to be 30 though.
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Its always 30 years away, but it depends on who you ask: [1]https://link.springer.com/arti... [springer.com]
[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10894-023-00361-z
Same as it ever was (Score:4, Funny)
Since I was a kid fusion has been 20 years in the future. Now that I'm retired it's nice to see some things don't change :)
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed! Promises are easy to make if you won't be in power when they come due. And few will remember anyhow even if you are.
It's why US debt is so bigly: hand out favors now, dump downsides on future generations, most politicians who caused it won't be in power when bleep hits the fan.
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Soc. Sec. fees mostly pay for themselves, and the diff balance is fine as long as we tax the rich sufficiently.
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"they don't approve of for cultural reasons" More accurately, they don't approve of programs because they do not approve of supporting the country that provided the infrastructure so that they could get rich. Apparently in their demented world, infrastructure, and by that I mean social infrastructure as well as material, infrastructure just happens because it wants to.
It used to be 40 years away (Score:2)
> Since I was a kid fusion has been 20 years in the future.
It used to be 40 years in the future from the 1950s until a few years ago. The problem is that I'm not sure whether the change is due to real progress of just the fact that now it's the commercial companies who are involved that have just increased the hype level. I suspect it's probably some of both.
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Fusion has _never_ been 20 years in the future up to now. Fox-news?
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Um... back when I went to law school, I lived in a grad student section of a dorm at the University of Texas. A physics grad student gave a talk about nuclear fusion, and told us that twenty years previously people thought we would have fusion power in 20 years. He gave a nice talk about the technology involved, and the progress people were making, and concluded that he thought we really *would* have fusion power in another 20 years. That was back in 1981, so I'm fairly sure it was not something derived fro
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My dad (an electrical engineer) told me in about 1980 that fusion power was always 20 years in the future.
simcity 2000 got the year right! (Score:3)
simcity 2000 got the year right!
Future! (Score:2)
Isn't this the same number of years into the future we're always going to have flying cars and room-temperature superconducting?
Musk is writing for China National Nuclear Corp? (Score:2)
"And these Fusion Reactors will come with FSD v117.2 which will work at Autonomous Driving Level 4 ( or so )."
From the wording, so is everyone else. (Score:3)
I'm ready for fusion power, aren't you? I think we're all ready to use it, once it exists.
May be is speculation (Score:2)
"May Be" is Speculation. Electricity will never be "too cheap to meter."
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Now will it remain too cheap to waste. Please shut off the lights when you leave. Limit AI and use organic brains.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_cheap_to_meter
It is a possibility (Score:2)
And Europe may be too. Things are slowly coming together in that space. Note that "uses" to "makes a real difference" will take another 20 years or so.
Given the current (US) trend (Score:2)
China may have to deal with thermonuclear fusion.
Is this the same China... (Score:2)
That comes out with a new Room Temperature "Superconductor" or "Ion Thruster" every 6 months that turns out to be totally fabricated BS? Asking for a friend ;-D
Fuel (Score:2)
Where are they going to [1]get all the tritium they need [wired.com]?
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/nuclear-fusion-is-already-facing-a-fuel-crisis/
Sure thing! (Score:1)
Hey government - I have a detailed, stapled business plan to provide fully functional fusion power (and flying pigs). It will take 20 years, and you will pay me $1 billion per year for the construction project. Impressed? Yes I know, 20 years sounds optimistic, doesn't it? The other guy said it would take him 25 - I can give it to you in 20. No peeking.
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They are going ahead with a maybe a dozen it seems, but plans have been scaled back as renewables continue to ramp up massively.
To give you an idea they installed about 80GW of wind and 280GW of solar last year, and about 30GWh of battery storage. So averaging about 1GW/day of new renewables, or about 4-5 nuclear reactors worth a week. The speed of installations is growing exponentially too.
While you can't make a direct comparison due to those sources being intermittent, it's pretty obvious that when paired
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Yes, but you have to have batteries to run those solar panels at night, that gets expensive... in both electric and environmental costs.