And yes, I know technically we already have achieved it.I'm taking about sustained and industrialised fusion though. It has been predicted to happen almost every decade since the 70's. Yet here we are, fusionless. It's frustrating because the possibilities of fusion open up a lot for the world. All energy would be carbon neutral and safe. Nuclear fusion turns hydrogen into helium so there are no harmful radioactive substances that are given off that will potentially give cancer. Seems perfect but yet still out of reach.
To be fair, we're closer then we ever have been, and we don't utilise the fission plants we have, which would go a long way to help reduce our carbon emissions, without relying on future technologies. Open market economies don't work very well when the producers of the pollution, don't have to pay for its cleanup.
We desperately need to reorder are power generation systems, interestingly when electric cars are the norm, are use of nuclear energy could go up, which is a very good thing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...-to-2007-study/2011/03/22/AFQUbyQC_story.html "Compared with nuclear power, coal is responsible for five times as many worker deaths from accidents, 470 times as many deaths due to air pollution among members of the public, and more than 1,000 times as many cases of serious illness, according to a study of the health effects of electricity generation in Europe." Wierdly Dan lukehart was talking about nuclear energy on Facebook recently, His relevent point was " This is yesterdays data from the California load balancing authority (Ca ISO). Almost our entire renewable platform is based on solar. Just when peak use starts at around 5pm (not seen in graph) is when solar starts to taper off. This requires a massive but predictable ramp in non renewable sources at this time. This is why you need to support initiatives that pump water up a hill during the day to be recaptured as hydro power in the evening (called "pumped hydro"), heating a liquid with the sun during the day so it boils through most of the night, or batteries to store photo voltaic energy for night use (or second by second load balancing due to how responsive it is). Note nuclear's low but steady contribution. Nuclear power does not turn up or down easily at all. It provides reliable but inflexible power supply. Since power must be used the second it is created, nuclear contribution must be set at the minimum possible daily power use...usually around 3am. Which basically means that nuclear powers our millions of refrigerators and street lights."
We have enough, it's just yet again the current financial system getting in the way. Tbh I can see many people just using selfdriving ubers instead. "Despite their name, rare-earth elements are – with the exception of the radioactivepromethium – relatively plentiful in Earth's crust, with cerium being the 25th most abundant element at 68 parts per million, more abundant than copper. However, because of their geochemical properties, rare-earth elements are typically dispersed and not often found concentrated in rare-earth minerals; as a result economically exploitable ore deposits are less common. " Rare-earth element - Wikipedia
A fairly balanced view here: EUROPA - Electric vehicles and critical metals - Jamie Speirs, Imperial College Centre for Energy Policy and Technology | SETIS - European Commission
Scotland is in a very fortunate place in the world where it can produce the majority of its energy via renewable energy sources. Most of the world doesn't have that luxury unfortunately. I think the idea of Nuclear power is a good thing too. Would prefer fusion but I'll take what I can get.
when I visited Iceland a few years ago and found that they were 100% renewable energy I was pleasantly surprised. The obvious limitation of that is not everyone has volcanoes to population ratio to achieve that, and the obvious dangers of it.
