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Comment by oceanplexian

12 hours ago

How is the hype for a limitless clean energy source, something that could benefit every aspect of humanity more than any other invention in human history considered “weird”?

Because this limitless clean energy source is too expensive, even though it had 60+ years time. I hope the day fusion energy finally has its big breakthrough isn't too far away, but conventional nuclear won't solve our problems.

  • > Because this limitless clean energy source is too expensive

    I’m laughing in $0.11/kWh nuclear energy while Germany’s “cheaper” green energy is uh... quite a bit more expensive.

  • Wind and solar are literally fusion power with extra steps.

    Running our own fusion reactors would be great but waste is not limited to fission designs. All nuclear generation has radioactive waste, it’s unavoidable.

    Grid scale storage with renewables can absolutely meet our needs.

    • > extra steps.

      Those extra steps are crucial, as they massively dilute the output and make it weather/daylight and seasonally dependent.

      Intermittent renewables produce at least an order of magnitude more waste than nuclear reactors, be they fusion or fission.

      2 replies →

    • > Wind and solar are literally fusion power with extra steps.

      This observation seems entirely useless and pointless. What implication are you saying we should draw from this?

> limitless clean energy source

Like the guy you're responding to, I'm not a nuclear hater. We also have other "limitless clean energy sources" however, wind and solar.

How is nuclear going to benefit humanity in ways electrical energy hasn't already? We haven't been energy constrained in the past 10-20 years. It really doesn't seem like additional energy production is going to make that much of a difference.