The Cheerful Insanity of Me

Yes, of course if investments are going into other forms too, then it's very sensible.

However, there's only a finite level of resources and you don't hear about the same level of funding being put towards other forms so much.

Maybe it's just the media being nuclear obsessive, I don't know, but it would be nice to think that was a similar level of funding going into renewable at least.

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What else is there to research in renewables? Very little. We could perhaps increase the efficiency of photovoltaic cells, but not by very much.

Fusion on the other hand has immense potential and much scope for research.

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If we could only pick one then yeah maybe. We can afford to invest in multiple energy technologies though so Fusion is a good use of money. Also you get diminished returns the more you put in to one area so spending on multiple areas is an efficient use of money.

Also there are a lot of nuclear scientists / engineers around, you can't just have them all work on something else.

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Also there are a lot of nuclear scientists / engineers around, you can't just have them all work on something else.

We waste far too much money creating jobs to employ people rather than because they're needed. People can be retrained, and I personnally think that in general this is a better solution then creating jobs in their original fields just to keep them employed.

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Have you considered how long it would take to retrain someone to postdoc level?

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I don't see why they would need to be retrained to postdoc level.

Just because you've got training in a given subject, doesn't mean their should be guaranteed jobs at that level. If we did that for everyone, the economy would fall apart!

These people will have transferable skills which could be used in other areas.

Yes, there should be some degree of retraining available to skilled workers who find their area of specialism dries up, but we shouldn't create jobs in those areas just to keep them employed. This may mean their standard of life drops dramatically, it will still be well above average.

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I don't think you quite understand. The people working on Fusion are the elite in their field, they aren't like brick layers where very little is lost by retraining them - they represent a massive investment for each country and to throw that away along with the future of research in Fusion is ridiculous.

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Yes, and those skills could be reapplied in other areas.

It's not a case of retraining those people from scratch. They have the skills, it's a matter of training them to use them in other areas.

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Firstly researching fusion power does not imply relying on it.

Secondly it's not an either/or situation. There is loads of money going into other new energy sources at the moment, indeed to the extent that some people suspect it to be an investment bubble.

I've no idea where you get the idea that all the eggs are being put in one basket.

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There is loads of money going into other new energy sources at the moment, indeed to the extent that some people suspect it to be an investment bubble.

Why don't you hear about it then?

It could just be media being nuclear crazed, but they certainly don't mention investment in other forms as much as they have in this.

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I do hear about it. Obviously you should get a better news source.

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I would say Radio 4 is usually viewed as a reasonably good news source.

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You only have a single radio station as your source of news? :-O

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No, but it's my main source as I listen to it when I get up every morning.

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If it's missing an area you find interesting, that's a property of R4 that you should be complaining about, not "the media" as a whole.

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Well, I do tend to find it fairly representative of what hits the major headlines.

Climate change, yes, fossil fuels, yes, the nuclear debate, yes, todays fusion annoucement, yes. However, I can't remember them announcing any significant investment in renewable energy recently.

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It's your attribution of this gap to the whole of "the media" I'm talking about, which is just not a fair criticism, whatever you believe about R4.

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My point is that investment in renewables doesn't make the major headlines the same way as nuclear.

This may just be, as

thethirdvoice pointed out to me last night, that investment in renewables tends to happen in lots of minor developments and not it huge ones like this. However, this does make it appear that renewables are not being invested into on the same scale as this.

Anyway, this is now drastically wondering off my original point.

I am mainly concerned that as fussion could easily be viewed as the solution to global warming (which recently has been becoming more of a spotlight issue), that people will stop worrying about it and any movements to cut back carbon emmissions, reduce energy consumption (and increase efficiency) and increase our usage of cleaner energy sources (admittedly this can't provide all our needs, but at least it can do some) will stall as people view the answer is just around the corner.

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You should have said that at the start then, as "doesn't make the headlines" is quite different from "you don't hear about it".

Annual investment in renewables was $30 billion in 2004, and is expected to reach $60 billion this year. In contrast the proposed funding for Iter is $12 billion for its 30Y lifetime, i.e. about $400 million/year. Two orders of magnitude difference! (Sources: Economist, Wikipedia.)

As to people viewing fusion as the miracle cure, I don't see any evidence of that at all. Governments are funding renewables and inventing carbon trading schemes right now, rather than sitting on their hands telling everyone it'll all be fine when fusion power comes on line. But presumably you have some counterexample in mind?

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"making the headlines" and "hearing about it" can be pretty much equivalent in terms of some of the population. There are vast numbers of people out there that I'm sure don't delve into the news in any great depth, especially when it comes to topics which don't really interest them.

Yes, the government is funding these now and carbon trading is a possibility on the table.

However, now this has hit the headlines, I have concerns that this will effect the efforts to cut back on carbon emissions etc. There aren't any hard examples as it's not something that is happening, but something I'm concern might easily happen.

Even down to individual people, their energy consumption could be made much more efficent, which although it won't solve climate change, is certainly something worth pushing for. However, anyone who's not particularly interested in this subject and only hears the headlines, will have recently heard that we have to do something about global warming urgently (as this hit the press in a big way a little while back) and this included issues of cutting down consumption.

Now, they hear that there's a development which could solve our energy needs in the future. People don't want to change their lifestyles, we consume energy, the more we can have the more we use. Having now said that we'll have plenty of clean energy in the future, where is the motivation for these people to increase their efficiency?

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From: http://www.oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk/2005-06/v18n2/05.shtml

'The big question', he goes on, 'is what energy sources can take over a major part of the role of fossil fuels, which today contribute 80 per cent, against a background of rising energy use. Solar PV [photovoltaic cells] could do it in principle - there is more than enough sunshine to satisfy the world's energy needs. But it's all generated during the day, and until we have a good way of storing it, and without dramatic decreases in cost, it's not a goer except in niche markets.

'Nuclear fission could make a big contribution. Fission is much safer and more efficient than it used to be, but with a big fission programme the world will sooner or later run out of cheap uranium, and we will then get into fast breeder reactors, which are much more expensive to run, require fuel reprocessing, which produces a radioactive waste stream, and raise questions about plutonium and weapons proliferation.

'Of course we should use renewables wherever they make sense - and in the UK we are fortunate with our wind, wave and tidal resources. And there's potentially a big role for bioenergy. But even if we develop renewables as much as we can, it won't be enough. Right now the big push is in coal - China alone is building a coal power station every fortnight. The only serious long-term alternatives are fission and fusion, and if we want to be able to choose fusion rather than fission or coal in 30 years time, we need to be serious about it now.'

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until we have a good way of storing it,

Why not invest more money into energy storage and make that the focus instead of fission.

This opens up the options in terms of solar.

Also places such as Iceland have an abundance of geothermal (more than they know what to do with and they're planning to dig deeper to produce far more). If they had the technology to store, this could be shared with other nations.

if we want to be able to choose fusion rather than fission or coal in 30 years time, we need to be serious about it now.

Yes, but the "experts" are saying 100 years not 30. We need another alternative for the short term at least.

Fission produces too much waste, which we can't cope with. We never seem to know what to do with the stuff we're producing now.

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Why not invest more money into energy storage
There are no promising areas of energy storage to pursue.

Yes, but the "experts" are saying 100 years not 30
Who said that? Who ever it was the person I quoted is the UK's head of Fusion research.

Fission produces too much waste, which we can't cope with. We never seem to know what to do with the stuff we're producing now.
That's nonsense. We can store the waste from fission reactors quite easily, the problem is that to do it in a cost effective manner we need to adopt nuclear fission in a large way and the 'green' campaigners are poisoning public thinking making this hard to do.

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The 100Y figure is from the Friends Of The Earth guy, who says this is how long proponents of fusion power estimate before it is usable; this is near the end of the BBC article linked at the top. The same article has an actual proponent giving the 30Y estimate. To be fair I don't think anybody actually knows and 30Y is just a guess, but "it'll take a long time" is a pretty stupid reason not to do something; it'll probably take decades to defeat AIDS, too, but I don't think many people think it's therefore a bad idea to even try. Better, rather, to argue these things on their merits.

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No, it's not a reason not to do it. As I said in my original post above, it's worth exploring.

However, I just see that there's a danger that politicians will start looking at it as the "solution" to climate change and any work to provide more short terms solutions may be effected as it's viewed as less of a problem.

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I've never seen a report or politician say that. No one is saying that.

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When funds get tight and research gets cut back, what gets cut?

The ones that have the least impact on the number of votes the party will be getting. By backing fusion the government looks to be investing heavily in future energy sources. Hence other areas of research around there could be dropped with very little impact on the public image.

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I'm sorry, you sound like a mad man attacking science research.

As such I'm going to have to stop reading your posts.

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But I'm not attacking scientific research. I'm all for scientific research.

I have not at any point even said they shouldn't build this Fusion plant even, which most of the comments here seem to take it as read that I'm saying.

All I'm saying is that recent headlines about global warming have got the public thinking about this issue a lot. I worry that this hitting the headlines will stop people thinking about it so much as it looks like a solution to the problem (except for the fact it's still a long way off development).

Any government money that goes into researching these fields will reflect the policies of the currently ruling party. These policies depend on what will get votes in the next elections. Therefore I worry about something that looks like a solution to global warming taking the issue away from the minds of the voters and thus putting less pressure on the government to research into other areas.

Yes, I don't know enough about this to know what the best areas of research would be off the top of my head. The ideas I thought of you clearly think are a long way of being worth pursuing, but I still feel fairly confident there will be other areas that could be looked into.

I'm sorry you seem to be misunderstanding what I am saying, but of course you a free not to read anything you don't want to read.

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I think the confusion here is between the figures of when Fusion will be available on the grid and when it will become a dominant energy form.

OK, in 30 years time, it will be on the grid, which admittedly would be a great help, but if fossil fuels are still dominant then we still have a major issue.

Iter is saying it would take a century or so for it to become the dominant energy source. The question then is what do we do in the meantime?

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That isn't the confusion.

There are two elements of confusion. The first is when Fusion will produce more energy than it requires to sustain the reaction, when it will be commercially viable to build reactors, and when it will deployed as the main energy source. Some of these are political questions of course.

The second is the difference between what the scientists are saying and what people from green peace are saying.

In terms of what we do in the meantime the answer is clear. We generally have three options:

1. Massively adopt 'green' energy sources. This will be extremely expensive so is maybe possible with a lot of pain for the rich countries in the world. It certainly won't be the solution adopted by developing countries. Also the green power sources don't provide a general solution as the ones which can be deployed at a large scale (e.g. wave / solar / wind) don't produce constant amounts of electricity.
2. Continue using fossil fuels.
3. Embark on a massive nuclear program. More expensive than fossil fuels are at the moment, but is the only feasible option. After a certain amount of time (estimates vary, 30 - 50 years) we would start to need to use fast breeder reactors as the supplies of natural uranium run out. Fast breeders create plutonium.

What will happen is a mixture of 2 and 3. The best course of action is clearly 3.

Fusion has never been proposed as a solution to the problems we have today, it is a solution to the problems we will have tomorrow (having to use fast breeder reactors), and an even cleaner safer energy source than nuclear.

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1 is a perfectly feasible solution when combined with other forms to provide a back up for the inconsistency. The other major thing that needs to occur is a reduction in consumption and increased efficiency in the energy we use (there's vast amounts of energy wasted at the moment).

Energy consumption also varies. For example, one of the main reason for cheap electricity at night is because less of it is used at this time, meaning there is an excess produced by the power stations.

A vast proportion of the day is daylight hours, which seems to imply solar could go some way to assisting with the excess which is required during the day. This is just one example.

Yes, there is variability in supply, which we will have to adapt our systems to these, but it will be possible to implement to some extent and reduce the amount we require for other fuels.

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Fusion has never been proposed as a solution to the problems we have today,

Not by the scientists no or by the politicians, but would it really have got the same level of news coverage, if it wasn't for the recent reports about global warming?

What message is this sending out to the everyday population?

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Iter says electricity could be available on the grid within 30 years.

"Fusion could become the dominant source of electricity on Earth in a century or so - we have to work to try to get it," Jerome Pamela of Iter told the BBC.

Hence, even the scientists think it will be about a century before Fusion becomes the dominant energy source.

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Yes, we can store it, but the issues are where, especially if we have a marked increase in the amount of waste, which we can pretty much treat as being stored in definitely due to the lengths of time involved. The result of this is that we'll just have more and more of it and will have to find more and more sites to keep it in.

For fusion this will be an issue also. Although admittedly we talking more like 50 years of storage rather than 1,000 and the quantities are much smaller. 50 years is still a long time (twice as long as I've been alive). Add to this the fact that we'll still have all the fission waste we've produced to store, that still adds up to a lot of waste storage.

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You don't understand the scale of the waste produced. The amount of waste produced by nuclear reactors is incredibly small. Millions of times less than the amount of waste produced by homes for instance in a year. The issue is similar with fusion reactors.

By comparison the amount of waste produced in creating an equivalent power output using 'green' sources would be much much larger.

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However, there are issues with such waste that you generally don't get with the household items (which also needs to be cut down - but that's another issue).

There was a discussion in the news earlier this week about how to label nuclear storage facilities, so that people who come along in 100s of years time know what's in there. Looking at the way we ignore the warnings (admittedly they're just superstitions) on Egyptian tombs, etc, how do we know the same won't happen with our storage facilities?

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There are no promising areas of energy storage to pursue.

Then surely there should be some research into looking for these?

OK, not at the cost of developing promising areas of research that may help, but it's still another avenue that may yield results.

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... and such areas continue to be investigated.

Science isn't a thing where you just throw money at an area and where previously there was nothing to research all of a sudden you get lots of results. It doesn't work that way.

You can't direct the money that was being spent on Fusion and spend it on 'storing energy'. Even if you could any ideas that would be developed would likely take similar amounts of time to research as Fusion (plus the start up cost of the time it takes to find promising avenues of research). So you'd end up with an even worse situation.

There are certain areas of technology where the solutions we have are rather crude (e.g. using steam to generate power, or gravity potential in water to store energy) where we would all love star trek type magic solutions. If such new avenues are to be discovered it will be unexpectedly through areas of pure science research (such as the funding of the next gen particle accelerators), you can't spend money on applied science to solve these things as there are no promising avenues left to research.

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