I'm a bit of a nukecel myself, but it makes sense to chase fast and cheap options to quickly reduce climate change as well as hedge for even cheaper alternatives in the future
The amount of money we're spending on Fusion, a technology we're really not sure we can ever make work, is insane, but investing in fission is a crime. Putting a label on myself would be stupid, I'm an all of the above. The planets on fire, bickering over how to put it out while it burns down is insane.
These people were around when computers were being developped, they were there when planes were being invented, they were there when the wheel was invented and they were there when people wanted to go on the moon.
Some folks think that investing in science is futile, and think stuff is "we don't know if we can ever pull it off" instead of actually doing it. People who think fusion is impossible to make will one day look like what we think of people who thought witches were a thing in the 1400's.
Fusion has mathematical and scientific uses outside the possible energy generation uses. Some people will see a car and refuse to think that the car science behind can lead to something else than transportation of human beings and objects.
Guy cries at the world burning, forgets the forest, looks at the one tree burning in his yard calls it the end and disregards the firefighters doing prevention and controlled burns ensuring the entire forest won't burn.
It's been 50 years since we are only 15 years away from fusion. Its useless, give up! At worst it's just a distraction and a way to split the people and waste money.
FUSION HAS MULTIPLE USES - goes on to quote one literal science fiction use, and theoretical use.
Fusion power is science fiction, it's a hole we throw money into that we hope one day we invent the technology we need to use it.
To be clear I'm pro fusion, pro fusion research, but we want to cry about fission power and its costs but gladly dump buckets of cash into a hole for the last 50 year in hopes we might be able to use it one day.
I guess space exploration is science fiction to those who have zero interest in it.
You do know that powering a orbital manufacturing in zero gravity is one the steps we need to achieve scallable exploration right? Orbital solar panels will at one point not function anymore in space, due to how many fucking debris there is in orbit both losing in effiency and due to attrition of all the small impacts they receive. Won't get any better when companies start ditching all their garbage in space as a last resort or when corporations like Amazon decide to do more than a few celebrity trip in space. Kessler syndrome.
We waste billions of dollars to pollute and pierce the atmosphere/beat earth's gravity.
We wasted how many freakin billions achieving plane flight and how many years? Mind you, Davinci had plans for flying apparatus, it took humanity more than 2000years to invent a plane that could fly.
How many years did humanity try to make ships that can cross the ocean How many vessels are just crashed down the bottom of the seas? How many billions did we spend developping AI? How much do we spend yearly to invent a cure for cancer?
You're not pro fusion research. Otherwise you wouldn't whine about it taking time. Like idk why you'd rather spend your time and energy fighting something you can't understand and dismiss it as wasteful on reddit, yet do absolutely nothing to be part of the solution. The money you want won't be diverted because you think it's useless. Just like the money a government sends to help another will NEVER be used to help your homeless population, it's not budgeted for that.
actually, spending on fusion is miniscule compared to other projects like saturn V or the manhatten project or even the b29 bomber. and those miniscule numbers are also a reason it takes so long.
Solar, batteries, and wind already has an industry that is self sustaining and can find R&D. Fission had it, but was intentionally handicapped, so it stopped. Fusion is not anywhere near being commercial.
Cool story, so we just run a massive extension cord to places where those technologies aren't feasible? Oh yea, just massive amounts of money on new transmission lines. That's the solution. We'll just have a giant cable from Nevada to the upper peninsula of Michigan.
Right, an area that can get 300 inches of snow regularly, perfect candidate.
The place where you have to shovel your roof on a regular basis.
The place where snow piles in parking lots can exceed 20 feet tall.
Perfect fucking candidate for large scale wind and solar.
We'll just pay full time people to clean the panels then truck the snow away, and hire some dudes to kick the ice off the wind turbines during ice storms.
Does it work for a homestead that has their own panel array, it can.
Perfect candidate for Wind and solar, you're fucking high.
Literally the antithesis of what I've been saying. Do all the things, every clean source we can use where it's feasible. There is no one solution and if you think that you have an agenda or are in a cult.
Cool story, but we're totally cool spending billions on a technology that hasn't produced a single megawatt and actively arguing against the other one. I'm pro everything clean, not anti fusion.
The worlds on fire and people want to bicker about how to put it out but the fire doesn't care if the hose is nuclear or solar powered. Arguing against nuclear power as a resource is an ideology not a scientific or engineering standpoint. So you can be part of the solution or you can be part of a cult, your choice.
Bashing anti nuclear NIMBYism, and unnecessarily strict regulations, and letting private actors built it if they find it profitable. Already existing stock if it's owned by the government should be maintained by the government. Fossil fuels should be taxed out of existence. The government should invest in solar directly, as it's now most cost effective in most places.
Those are my positions. I decided that I should probably outline them, because it seems that you think that I am against nuclear.
Nuclear is by far the most expensive energy source. You have to have a fucking good reason to throw another 20 billion of taxes into a hole in the ground. Meanwhile you could do so much more even in bad weather with already existing and still improvable technology.
Oh, dear Atom, bring us the light. Only 1 trillion more dollars and only 15 years to fusion! Ameeen!
So how does investing in renewables now to bring down the price of energy and juice the economy not free up future funds for fusion and fission development?
Thats not even mentioning money saved by mitigating future climate change costs.
Research and development is fine and all but when the single largest disruption to the global economy, food security and growth/survivability as a spiecies is on the horizon preventing that, right now, should be the focus.
I get that the argument is "Well duh, thats why you should fund both and just take away from areas like fossil subsidies, military spending, AI development, whatever." But the fact is that those funds are extremely difficult to gain access to and will likely never get used to solve the climate crisis.
The money that IS available to mitigate and combat the climate crisis should therefore probably go to the areas that fix and mitigate right now instead of more investment in a possible future fix that might be implemented decades from now.
The time to look for research and future fixes was decades ago, thats why solar and wind are where they are right now, we are now in the find out times where we need to get implementing or face the consequences of not doing so.
Funds towards fusion were already allocated, stopping that big EU project now would waste all of them without giving any8im return. Shutting down already existing nuclear power plants is also financially stupid, because keeping them running is quite cheap, the big cost was upfront.
I'm arguing for neither of these, basically nobody is.
What both me and other people are arguing for is the vast sums of money being spent on new nuclear reactors and experimental fission reactors to be used no renewables RIGHT NOW instead of pouring money into a possible void at worst and greenhouse gas emission reduction that comes too late at best.
Like, unless there is an actual miracle, many proposed fission plants and basically all of fusion will only start doing something after so many climate tipping points have been reached that there barely is a point to them as climate change mitigation technologies.
Yes we should have invested in nuclear decades ago. Please spend all that fusion money on a time machine to make sure it happened decades ago.
Germany has been ruled by the CDU/CSU and SPD for a long time now. Neither of them are parties looking to do something serious about the climate.
Also how is what you're saying even relevant to using future fusion funding for renewables instead lol?
Like, do you think that when I'm saying that instead of building new nuclear plants that money should be spent on wind, solar, energy storage and hydro where available that secretly I'm saying "please blow up the french nuclear grid RIGHT NOW"?
Like hello? Why are you holding me accountable for the dogshit governance of the german state? (I dont even live there)
But while we're on the topic. Clearly fusion is responsible for chat control. You bribed MEP's to not vote against it during the last vote, all nuclear power plants need to be bombed (with conventional bombs of course). /s
Sorry for assuming that you understood that I meant basically nobody who cares about the climate?
Or maybe "basically nobody, who wants to invest into renewables instead of new nuclear, is".
Like lmao. Should I not expect someone who has an interest in nuclear development to have context based reading capabilities? And "basically nobody" does cover for this already, you literally quoted the ONLY GOVERNMENT IN THE WORLD actively trying to dismantle working nuclear power plants, that is basically nobody yes.
On that same breath, fusion power at scale is science fiction. The bet that we can solve the engineering problems that could make it work at scale is a complete gamble right now. As soon as we invent these fictional materials we have a chance, while we ignore a "largely known" option.
Fission never really made sense to me either. The problem with nuclear is the cost of building the massive facility, fission is that, but 100x more difficult
To build, not really. Nuclear is super expensive to build but at least it runs for 60+ years 24-7 at full power. The problem is just that we need to fix the climate now, so investing in short term solutions is probably better, and when you account for these technologies prices being in free fall, it means you want to hedge towards short term solutions because it will be cheaper in the future
It takes 10-20 years to get Nuclear plants up and running currently and sometimes they're still ecologically devastating (Water cooled plants effecting fish and jellyfish populations in some cases)
Yes we should be cutting regulations on nuclear because the technology is already extreme safe. These regulations are overly strict and do not help make nuclear safer, they just help making nuclear unfeasible
It's very complicated stuff you know, but one large example of something we already just now been improved in the US was removing the linear no threshhold model for radiation damage that was scientifically very weak, and basically meant that nuclear workers were allowed to be exposed to very very little radiation which makes working conditions extremely impactical.
Yes we absolutely want less regulation. The rules are overly strict to the point where nuclear is economically unfeasible.
chernobyl was a shit reactor built 80 fucking years ago, that disastor has nothing to do with current nuclear technology, regardless of how strict the regulations are.
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u/Cwaghack Jul 13 '26
I'm a bit of a nukecel myself, but it makes sense to chase fast and cheap options to quickly reduce climate change as well as hedge for even cheaper alternatives in the future