Nuclear fusion-breakthrough

[colly]

Whatever happened to geo-thermal? It's kind of low tech in that essentially you just need to drill a bloody great deep hole in the ground, a bit of plumbing and hey presto.

OK I know it's isn't quite that easy but once the hard work is done all you have is some maintenance. If it's being touted as a solution for home heating and deemed a good idea then it's just a matter of scale. And I do know Iceland has volcanoes aplenty and we don't but whats a few thousand meters drilling between friends?

 

[Petrichorwheels]

Electricity too cheap to meter; I've already got my budgie smugglers on.

I remember as a youngster - our primary school had an info poster on Windscale or rather its old anme - great british achievement - we WERE told for sure that the power would be too cheap to meter.
Then I went to secondary grammar school where we were told that computers would do most of the work, we would all work maybe 15 hours a week max while the dosh rolled in and our major challenge would be to find things to do with all the leisure time.
But they still drilled the homework in to us and set us on the exam treadmill.
So not sure the teachers and head really believed the tales.
Otherwise surely they would have been teaching us knitting and taking us on extended bike rides to look at flowers?

 

[matticus]

Whatever happened to geo-thermal? It's kind of low tech in that essentially you just need to drill a bloody great deep hole in the ground, a bit of plumbing and hey presto.

OK I know it's isn't quite that easy but once the hard work is done all you have is some maintenance. If it's being touted as a solution for home heating and deemed a good idea then it's just a matter of scale. And I do know Iceland has volcanoes aplenty and we don't but whats a few thousand meters drilling between friends?

How serious is this question??

 

[MichaelW2]

Whatever happened to geo-thermal? It's kind of low tech in that essentially you just need to drill a bloody great deep hole in the ground, a bit of plumbing and hey presto.

OK I know it's isn't quite that easy but once the hard work is done all you have is some maintenance. If it's being touted as a solution for home heating and deemed a good idea then it's just a matter of scale. And I do know Iceland has volcanoes aplenty and we don't but whats a few thousand meters drilling between friends?

If we went 100% geothermal, we would use up all of the heat energy within 17 billion years, according to Wired.

 

[matticus]

If we went 100% geothermal, we would use up all of the heat energy within 17 billion years, according to Wired.

Does that allow for all the extra jacuzzis we'd buy?

 

[figbat]

If we went 100% geothermal, we would use up all of the heat energy within 17 billion years, according to Wired.

Well that's OK because within 5 billion years the sun will become a red giant and we won't have to worry about heating. There will be a run on air conditioning though, so get in early.

 

[PK99]

Whatever happened to geo-thermal? It's kind of low tech in that essentially you just need to drill a bloody great deep hole in the ground, a bit of plumbing and hey presto.

OK I know it's isn't quite that easy but once the hard work is done all you have is some maintenance. If it's being touted as a solution for home heating and deemed a good idea then it's just a matter of scale. And I do know Iceland has volcanoes aplenty and we don't but whats a few thousand meters drilling between friends?

Geothermal is a form of Fracking with all the same issues wrt spoil and earthquakes etc.
In Iceland it is easy. Scratch the surface and the rock is hot. Pump water through and it boils.
Home heating via ground source heat pumps us a very different technology, is marginal in UK and requires an enormous ground area.

Plus geothermal has a very high upfront cost and long lead time.

 

[colly]

How serious is this question??

Tongue in cheek serious. But maybe it could offer some contribution. IDK.

 

[colly]

If we went 100% geothermal, we would use up all of the heat energy within 17 billion years, according to Wired.

So ....short term solution then?

 

[FishFright]

The amount of energy produced is still far exceeded by the amount of energy needed to make it happen, it's not just the lasers, it's the energy needed to keep the hydrogen at a low enough temperature for it to work. The principle is marvellous but it has something akin to the search for a perpetual motion machine at present. It does look as if progress is being made, but it's going to be a while yet before it becomes viable.

This is the first time they have produced more energy coming out than went in.

 

[Tenkaykev]

This is the first time they have produced more energy coming out than went in.

Certainly an advance but they didn’t count the massive amount of power that was used. There’s a more in depth analysis on Ars Technica one paragraph says:

“Before we get to visions of fusion power plants dotting the landscape, however, there's the uncomfortable fact that producing the 2 megajoules of laser power that started the fusion reaction took about 300 megajoules of grid power, so the overall process is nowhere near the break-even point. So, while this was a real sign of progress in getting this form of fusion to work, we're still left with major questions about whether laser-driven fusion can be optimized enough to be useful. At least one DOE employee suggested that separating it from its nuclear-testing-focused roots may be needed to do so.”

 

[FishFright]

Certainly an advance but they didn’t count the massive amount of power that was used. There’s a more in depth analysis on Ars Technica one paragraph says:

“Before we get to visions of fusion power plants dotting the landscape, however, there's the uncomfortable fact that producing the 2 megajoules of laser power that started the fusion reaction took about 300 megajoules of grid power, so the overall process is nowhere near the break-even point. So, while this was a real sign of progress in getting this form of fusion to work, we're still left with major questions about whether laser-driven fusion can be optimized enough to be useful. At least one DOE employee suggested that separating it from its nuclear-testing-focused roots may be needed to do so.”

This was some science and not prototype commercial reactor so are far as proof of concept goes it was advancement in the science.

That's Ars Technica for you , they really found their niche when they decided negative reporting gets more ads shown.