Caroline Joy Barnhart
There is not enough tritium in the world to run a single fusion reactor for more than a few months. The energy used for production of tritium (and to a much less extent the supply of deuterium) must also be subtracted from the total output of the fusion reactor. That could reduce the output substantially.
There are some good explanations of this in some YouTube videos. I watched one nuclear physicist – Daniel Jassby – who said that it’s a slim to none chance of it coming to break even by 2060.
Caroline Joy Barnhart
Yes, they bombard lithium 6 with neutrons for making the tritium for nuclear warheads. That’s where most of the tritium is used. The fusion proponents say that the fusion process will self-generate the tritium. That’s all fine. But after the lithium is converted, it must be processed to purify the tritium, and the same for deuterium. This all takes power and equipment. That must be subtracted from the total output of the fusion generator. You can’t expect any fusion generator to require more energy input than it outputs. It’s called LCoE, levelized cost of energy. All the costs of petroleum must be added up, from “well to wheels” to get it’s LCoE. Same for any other form of energy.
There are critics of fusion who say, with much justification that the LCoE for fusion of greater than 1 is a slim to none chance and may take an exceedingly long time.
And we don’t have a long time! Fossil fuels must stop adding CO2 to the atmosphere ASAP!
Caroline Joy Barnhart
Said, “The costs are obfuscated by the extreme resistance put up by the anti-nuclear crowd and the major increase is in legal fees, not engineering.”
I’m not sure what you mean by that. The problem with the new NPPs is multi-billion dollar cost overruns and decade long construction delays. Look at VC Summer and Vogtle 3 and 4, there are the problems. No matter what the anti-nuclear crowd demands, if the utilities see that there is no future in a form of electric generation then they will not contract for it. So far these cost overruns and delay problems have plagued new NPPs in the US, Flamanville in France, Hinkley in the UK and Okiluoto in Finland. The utilities are fed up with the mess that new NPPs are in. China is building new NPPs because they have a government that makes the businesses do what the government demands.
I have nothing against nuclear power. It’s just too little, too late. In eight years the fossil fuels must be replaced with energy that adds no CO2 into the atmosphere.
Quote: “”If the global warming reaches 4 deg. C by the end of the century, most inhabited areas will become unliveable.”” We are *already* more than 1/4 of the way there!
There are thousands of megawatts of wind and solar in the planning or construction phases, and it takes only a few years to complete these projects. There could be a place for new NPPs if they could compete. But that doesn’t seem to be happening.
