The reason so many poor people don't have water access is transportation costs. Ie pipes. Rather than the cost of the water.
So here it would depend on whether the fusion reactor is a small portable device or a big power plant.
Hydrogen can cause metal embrittlement. It has a tendency to leak out of small spaces. And hydrogen cylinders are a bit of an explosion hazard.
Ripping CO2 out the air and making synthetic petrol would look tempting. Sure it needs a bit more equipment than just electrolysis, but the petrol is easier to handle.
Internal combustion engines have some intrinsic downsides. Things like lots of moving parts that wear down and break. Lots of noise. Lots of waste heat. Nitrous oxide production. Lower torque.
Electric + battery is a tempting combo anyway. Especially if the tech improves a bit more. Or people might put these fusion reactors into cars if they were small enough.
The author has not investigated the operating LENR 1.2MW power facility in Europe. It is a low energy fusion reactor, recognized by the Swedish Academy of Sciences and still chugging away. All the labs who could not reproduce are on the teet of the power elite and no one who goes against lives to tell.
You clearly haven't driven a Tesla. BEVs are straight up better cars, faster and quieter than an ICE car. You can can charge them at home which means that you don't have to make special trips to fill them up. Filling up with hydrogen would be substantially less convenient than plugging into an electrical socket.
The analysis also fails to cover that about half the price of domestic electricity is the grid infrastructure cost. This isn't going to be affected at all and in fact if demand is to expand it may go up in cost.
As for comparing a FCEV to a BEV come on..... The FCEV fuel cells are power limited and expensive, storing hydrogen is bulkier than the battery in a BEV. The current FCEV cars are more expensive than BEV, have similar range and have much lower performance.
what would a true breakthrough in nuclear fusion mean for the world? Nothing.
What second order effects could we expect? Higher energy cost. Fusion will neve be as cheap, reliable, and abundant as natural gas. What unexpected consequences should we prepare for? Getting f*cked on your monthly utility bills to pay off the trillions dollars of research and development.
I think electric motors are superior-enough to ICEs that they would still be used, whether with batteries or fuel cells or hypercapacitors or whatever comes.
But certainly an interesting scenario to contemplate 🤔
The Davos Man Crowd will do everything in its power to see that free or nearly free electricity is never realized. Regular people with the ability to create things on site? Other than inexpensive medical treatments (see John Kanzius and his cancer treatment and whatever happened to that), inexpensive power and individual creativity cannot be allowed.
There can be no more Edisons, Wright Bros., Walkers, et al.
Interesting thought experiment. I think in the case of hydrogen cars it depends when these fusion reactors arrive. Toyota's main focus is on maintaining the workforce. As a senior member of the Japan Inc hive mind, they are tasked with providing full employment and switching to EVs is going to gut the trucking and transportation industry (no carrying fuel around all over the place), the car part supply industry (EVs need very few moving parts, Toyota and co source their parts from thousands of small and mid level manufacturers) and the vehicle maintenance and repair industry (EVs don't really break much).
If fusion arrived in the next five years and hydrogen could instantly be brought on tap, hydrogen vehicles could maybe possibly maybe have a very small chance of winning. Maybe.
Once EVs get too much of a head start though, hydrogen cars are screwed, because once people drive an EV, they aren't going back. Hydrogen will never be able to compete in price with electricity because although the energy to create it may be free, shipping it to where it's needed won't be, unlike just running a wire out of the reactor. Add in explosions, vehicle repairs, vehicle cost, noise etc....hydrogen cars are a boondoggle.
What about the metals needed for batteries in EVs though? Well, firstly the new battery tech is moving towards LFP batteries. There is loads of that around. Secondly, recycling is improving, and improving fast. You'll only need to mine the materials once pretty soon.
People who think combustion engines should survive are romantics for the sound and fury, but combustions engines are going the way of cassette tapes.
As far as room temperature super-conductors go, they will never exist in our lifetime (without some "Metallic hydrogen squeezed under more pressure than the centre of the sun" BS. What WILL be possible however is high temperature super-conducting wires (think liquid nitrogen cooling) which may well enable fusion reactors.
Room temp super conducting wires won't exist, so there's no problem with "free energy" eliminating their main use case, but high temp wires will exist and you'll need a huge amounts of them if they help to enable fusion. In addition, there are reasons beyond transmission losses to use superconducting wires for long distance electricity transmission, such as cutting down on substations, switching gear, infrastructure and SF6 emissions (a greenhouse gas 20-30,000 times worse than CO2 used to isolate wires and prevent arcing, which naturally leaks over time).
A great example of why (the) chicken provides food for thought. I’m no expert in the areas discussed and some of the comments, herein, make reasonable sounding counter points, but I love the “How would people/societies react if…” scenario. Thought provoking. High protein/low fat and good what ailes you.
Well now, there's a rich thought experiment. Comments in no particular order:
1. Thought experiments don't have to be real. That's fortunate since commercially viable fusion may not be any more likely than the University of Utah finding the other (original) holy grail any time soon. Tame fusion has been a gleam in physicists eyes since the Russians coined the acronym Tokamak in the 1950s. And conceptually it's much older - the alchemists dream of a universal solvent with a bottle that contains it, because you wouldn't want the solvent getting out, and the bottle can't be soluble obviously, only, wait a moment, there goes the universal part, oh damn.
2. Will it be cheap? I doubt it - huge capital investments and intensive maintenance. I wasn't around when the first fission power plants were erected, but someone must have been burbling optimistically about "free" and "limitless" back then too. Isn't that what e=mc^2 promised? And since the (fusion) holy grail is unlikely to come in small decentralized packages (if ever), transmission lines will still be with us. So regulated utilities with approved returns on investment etc. etc.
3. Hydrogen fuel for automobiles - very logical. "A consummation devoutly to be wished for" as that automotive engineer, Hamlet, once said.
4. Desalination of sea water - hmm - only at the cost of increasing the remaining salt levels for miles around the desalination plants which will have impacts. I think we've learned the oceans are not a limitless dumping ground. Not for plastics, not for oil spills and not for salt poured back after desalination. Green chickens may not like Greenpeace, but if you want the benefits of a fishing industry (a good base for chicken feed) and oxygen producing marine organisms, Greenpeace has a very good point.
5. Global warming - yes the thought experiment would reduce greenhouse gases (great) but you'd still have to worry about producing large quantities of man-made heat - which is what happens when we produce/use energy in any form. There's a global balance between sunlight absorbed/reflected/radiated by the earth and additional significant man-made heat sources over and above that. *Limitless* energy/heat generation on earth along the scales of this thought experiment will have limits after all. Sorry.
6. But regardless of all those quibbles, a nice thought experiment.
The reason so many poor people don't have water access is transportation costs. Ie pipes. Rather than the cost of the water.
So here it would depend on whether the fusion reactor is a small portable device or a big power plant.
Hydrogen can cause metal embrittlement. It has a tendency to leak out of small spaces. And hydrogen cylinders are a bit of an explosion hazard.
Ripping CO2 out the air and making synthetic petrol would look tempting. Sure it needs a bit more equipment than just electrolysis, but the petrol is easier to handle.
Internal combustion engines have some intrinsic downsides. Things like lots of moving parts that wear down and break. Lots of noise. Lots of waste heat. Nitrous oxide production. Lower torque.
Electric + battery is a tempting combo anyway. Especially if the tech improves a bit more. Or people might put these fusion reactors into cars if they were small enough.
WWIII or WWIV so as to gain control of the technology :(
The author has not investigated the operating LENR 1.2MW power facility in Europe. It is a low energy fusion reactor, recognized by the Swedish Academy of Sciences and still chugging away. All the labs who could not reproduce are on the teet of the power elite and no one who goes against lives to tell.
Great article
You clearly haven't driven a Tesla. BEVs are straight up better cars, faster and quieter than an ICE car. You can can charge them at home which means that you don't have to make special trips to fill them up. Filling up with hydrogen would be substantially less convenient than plugging into an electrical socket.
The analysis also fails to cover that about half the price of domestic electricity is the grid infrastructure cost. This isn't going to be affected at all and in fact if demand is to expand it may go up in cost.
As for comparing a FCEV to a BEV come on..... The FCEV fuel cells are power limited and expensive, storing hydrogen is bulkier than the battery in a BEV. The current FCEV cars are more expensive than BEV, have similar range and have much lower performance.
what would a true breakthrough in nuclear fusion mean for the world? Nothing.
What second order effects could we expect? Higher energy cost. Fusion will neve be as cheap, reliable, and abundant as natural gas. What unexpected consequences should we prepare for? Getting f*cked on your monthly utility bills to pay off the trillions dollars of research and development.
I was with you pretty much until hydrogen ICEs.
I think electric motors are superior-enough to ICEs that they would still be used, whether with batteries or fuel cells or hypercapacitors or whatever comes.
But certainly an interesting scenario to contemplate 🤔
My father would be loving the article…
Brilliant as always!
Great article. Hydrogen as the fuel of the future doesn’t get discussed enough.
The Davos Man Crowd will do everything in its power to see that free or nearly free electricity is never realized. Regular people with the ability to create things on site? Other than inexpensive medical treatments (see John Kanzius and his cancer treatment and whatever happened to that), inexpensive power and individual creativity cannot be allowed.
There can be no more Edisons, Wright Bros., Walkers, et al.
You will own nothing, and you'll like it.
Interesting thought experiment. I think in the case of hydrogen cars it depends when these fusion reactors arrive. Toyota's main focus is on maintaining the workforce. As a senior member of the Japan Inc hive mind, they are tasked with providing full employment and switching to EVs is going to gut the trucking and transportation industry (no carrying fuel around all over the place), the car part supply industry (EVs need very few moving parts, Toyota and co source their parts from thousands of small and mid level manufacturers) and the vehicle maintenance and repair industry (EVs don't really break much).
If fusion arrived in the next five years and hydrogen could instantly be brought on tap, hydrogen vehicles could maybe possibly maybe have a very small chance of winning. Maybe.
Once EVs get too much of a head start though, hydrogen cars are screwed, because once people drive an EV, they aren't going back. Hydrogen will never be able to compete in price with electricity because although the energy to create it may be free, shipping it to where it's needed won't be, unlike just running a wire out of the reactor. Add in explosions, vehicle repairs, vehicle cost, noise etc....hydrogen cars are a boondoggle.
What about the metals needed for batteries in EVs though? Well, firstly the new battery tech is moving towards LFP batteries. There is loads of that around. Secondly, recycling is improving, and improving fast. You'll only need to mine the materials once pretty soon.
People who think combustion engines should survive are romantics for the sound and fury, but combustions engines are going the way of cassette tapes.
As far as room temperature super-conductors go, they will never exist in our lifetime (without some "Metallic hydrogen squeezed under more pressure than the centre of the sun" BS. What WILL be possible however is high temperature super-conducting wires (think liquid nitrogen cooling) which may well enable fusion reactors.
Room temp super conducting wires won't exist, so there's no problem with "free energy" eliminating their main use case, but high temp wires will exist and you'll need a huge amounts of them if they help to enable fusion. In addition, there are reasons beyond transmission losses to use superconducting wires for long distance electricity transmission, such as cutting down on substations, switching gear, infrastructure and SF6 emissions (a greenhouse gas 20-30,000 times worse than CO2 used to isolate wires and prevent arcing, which naturally leaks over time).
Canadian Fusion project gets funding.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-bc-fusion-energy-developer-of-no-carbon-emission-no-meltdown-reactors/#comments
B.C. fusion energy developer of no-carbon emission, no-meltdown reactors raises US$130-million to build pivotal test plant
Great piece, Doomberg. Check out the dual fluid nuclear power plant.
https://dual-fluid.com/
A great example of why (the) chicken provides food for thought. I’m no expert in the areas discussed and some of the comments, herein, make reasonable sounding counter points, but I love the “How would people/societies react if…” scenario. Thought provoking. High protein/low fat and good what ailes you.
Well now, there's a rich thought experiment. Comments in no particular order:
1. Thought experiments don't have to be real. That's fortunate since commercially viable fusion may not be any more likely than the University of Utah finding the other (original) holy grail any time soon. Tame fusion has been a gleam in physicists eyes since the Russians coined the acronym Tokamak in the 1950s. And conceptually it's much older - the alchemists dream of a universal solvent with a bottle that contains it, because you wouldn't want the solvent getting out, and the bottle can't be soluble obviously, only, wait a moment, there goes the universal part, oh damn.
2. Will it be cheap? I doubt it - huge capital investments and intensive maintenance. I wasn't around when the first fission power plants were erected, but someone must have been burbling optimistically about "free" and "limitless" back then too. Isn't that what e=mc^2 promised? And since the (fusion) holy grail is unlikely to come in small decentralized packages (if ever), transmission lines will still be with us. So regulated utilities with approved returns on investment etc. etc.
3. Hydrogen fuel for automobiles - very logical. "A consummation devoutly to be wished for" as that automotive engineer, Hamlet, once said.
4. Desalination of sea water - hmm - only at the cost of increasing the remaining salt levels for miles around the desalination plants which will have impacts. I think we've learned the oceans are not a limitless dumping ground. Not for plastics, not for oil spills and not for salt poured back after desalination. Green chickens may not like Greenpeace, but if you want the benefits of a fishing industry (a good base for chicken feed) and oxygen producing marine organisms, Greenpeace has a very good point.
5. Global warming - yes the thought experiment would reduce greenhouse gases (great) but you'd still have to worry about producing large quantities of man-made heat - which is what happens when we produce/use energy in any form. There's a global balance between sunlight absorbed/reflected/radiated by the earth and additional significant man-made heat sources over and above that. *Limitless* energy/heat generation on earth along the scales of this thought experiment will have limits after all. Sorry.
6. But regardless of all those quibbles, a nice thought experiment.