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Thank you for this link. I’m still not sure this is the solution, but it certainly is a solution. And we need everything we can get.
Green energy/tech reporter, burner, raver, graphic artist and vandweller.
Thank you for this link. I’m still not sure this is the solution, but it certainly is a solution. And we need everything we can get.
I don’t wish to be dismissive, but, uh … yeah. Fewer risks and baseload are kinda the holy grail.
This is honestly why I enjoy covering what I do. I don’t see it being commercially viable in three decades, let alone more. Better tokamaks are not the answer. There’s still too much input voltage where we’re not getting net output.
That’s the joke, though. Fusion is always 30 years out. I want to see real breakthroughs, and we aren’t there yet with fusion. That said, I’ve not paid a power bill since September, so we have solutions; they just aren’t at utility scale.
I wish to be very clear that fission could have solved a lot 40 years ago, but it currently does not help.
I’m working on a fusion story where all involved know we’re just 30 years out. Not sure yet where that story is going, but Georgia’s experience didn’t help matters because people hear “nuclear,” and at that point, we have Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and other such nice things. Overbudget and really late doesn’t help matters. (For a fun time, check out Palo Verde.) While there was more outrage in Germany over nuclear, if you grew up in Phoenix in the '80s, Palo Verde was shorthand for poor execution.
Enhanced geothermal is the answer here. I’d like to think we can figure out fusion, but it’s one of those things where we’re trying to harness the power of stars, and we are not Type II. Cart, horse.
Yes, fission is preferable to coal, but that’s a low bar. We need renewables that can perform when it’s neither sunny nor windy, and this is where EGS makes sense. I expect we will see more investment in wave power, but that’s also likely decades off, with desalinization being part and parcel, and that has its own waste problems.
This revolutionizes nothing. It’s old tech trying to address new problems, and short of the wheel, this generally goes poorly. I do want to say I think Gates has his heart in the right place, and, you know, malaria vaccines are totally changing the world.
One nuke plant in Wyoming will not.
If this is being done to avoid coal miners not getting uppity, I guess OK, but this is tech from nearly 80 years ago competing with PV, wind and EGS. This is backward looking.
CO2 is an important greenhouse gas, but not the only one, and certainly not the most potent, PPM-wise. As a proxy for the overall situation, it’s acceptable, but relying solely on CO2 concentrations invites all manner of problems at the margin to go unnoticed.
We also crossed the threshold for “beyond anything humans have experienced” for CO2 several exits ago. Claiming this is suddenly news is disingenuous, and you want some excellent geologists on your team before claiming “faster than ever.”
Like, yeah, we’re fucked, but this is not great reporting in terms of explaining why and what it means.
A genuine Bob Ross-level happy accident hitting the magma before.
I’m curious where full production at this new plant would leave the nation as a whole, given the 90% for residential usage and 70% of overall use of geothermal. That with extra efficiency is sort of the holy grail for renewables, since batteries are no longer central to resiliency (short of maintenance, of course). 100% uptime at constant output with zero emissions in excess of a nation’s needs would be amazing.
Yes, we clearly need better storage, and it feels (red flag, everyone!) like we’re nearly there. Sodium is looking very promising without the issues LFP represents. I’ve very much enjoyed the learning I’ve done here, especially the Nova link. I’m always open to changing my mind given new data, and I love that y’all have provided that.