With 200 lasers and a peppercorn-sized fuel capsule, scientists inch closer to mastering fusion energy | CNN
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Scientists in California make a significant step in what could one day be an important solution to the global climate crisis, driven primarily by burning fossil fuels.

Does Nuclear count as Green Energy? I feel like it should, since it doesn’t really pollute and lasts a lot.

  • dillekant@slrpnk.net
    71·
    9 months ago

    Fusion has basically nothing to do with climate change. Even if Fusion were cracked tomorrow, the scale out would be such that you couldn’t meaningfully supply a lot of base load power before you’d need to be net neutral. My take is that fusion, when available, alongside solar, would be used for carbon dioxide removal.

    • DarkThoughts@kbin.social
      4·
      9 months ago

      Technically the same goes for fission, as new reactors take well over a decade to build nowadays, which is too late for our climate goals and typically diverts resources away from renewables.

      • dillekant@slrpnk.net
        1·
        9 months ago

        Yeah good point. The numbers are a bit closer for fission though. Like phase one we can do renewables but electrification needs way more power than available currently. E.g. green hydrogen. There are valid scale up scenarios where fission is part of the picture, but almost none of them make sense under capitalism.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    5·
    9 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Scientists in California shooting nearly 200 lasers at a cylinder holding a fuel capsule the size of a peppercorn have taken another step in the quest for fusion energy, which, if mastered, could provide the world with a near-limitless source of clean power.

    This marks another significant step in what could one day be an important solution to the global climate crisis, driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.

    Brian Appelbe, a research fellow from the Centre for Inertial Fusion Studies at Imperial College London, said the ability to replicate demonstrates the “robustness” of the process, showing it can be achieved even when conditions such as the laser or fuel pellet are varied.

    As the climate crisis accelerates, and the urgency of ditching planet-heating fossil fuels increases, the prospect of an abundant source of safe, clean energy is tantalizing.

    Nuclear fusion, the reaction that powers the sun and other stars, involves smashing two or more atoms together to form a denser one, in a process that releases huge amounts of energy.

    In December, the US Department of Energy announced a $42 million investment in a program bringing together multiple institutions, including LLNL, to establish “hubs” focused on advancing fusion.

    The original article contains 740 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • paradx@slrpnk.net
    63·
    9 months ago

    You have to differentiate between fusion and fission, the first one is no doubt, while looking at the time spans these projects took previously it will not save the global Energy supply in the short term. Fission is difficult to tell, since the reactors have lots of concrete to build (that creates CO2) and humanity has not found any way to get rid of the waste and contaminated building materials. It might be “greenish” but probably not sustainable (also there is a limited amount of and political problems with digging up the needed radioactive materials)

    • Alex@feddit.roOP
      1·
      9 months ago

      They look like a good idea, if done right. They have to be really well isolated and idiot-proof.

    • MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
      61·
      9 months ago

      Debating whether or not fission is green has given the fossil fuel industry free rein over energy production for the last 60 years.

      We could have a Fukushima every year and a Chernobyl every 5 and it would pale in comparison to the loss of life and habitable land we’d be giving up to climate change.

      • keepthepace@slrpnk.net
        3·
        9 months ago

        We could have a Chernobyl every 5 years and losing less lives than we do through the lung diseases caused by the air pollution or oil vehicles. There was a study in France showing that (every 5 years is a low estimate, actual numbers hinted at 2-3 years).

        • keepthepace@slrpnk.net
          52·
          9 months ago

          If you repeat it enough time it will become true…

          If we had gone full nuclear and full electric in the 90s (like we could have) we would not have a climate crisis right now (and the Iraq war, and petro-monarchies with an abusive amount of power). Nuclear has its problem, but CO2 is not one of them and the others are much easier to solve.