Reply To: p-Li7 fusion

[Brian H]

texaslabrat wrote:

Indeed…however if the predictions on the ultra-low cost per unit and per kWh hold true…you can bet that there will be millions of them built and then much more overall waste heat will be produced as we consume orders of magnitude more power in our society due to the near-free cost of it 😉 That old supply-and-demand curve thing.

No one would ever need more than a megawatt.

Just as no one would ever need more than 640K bytes of memory in their computer.

-Dave

ROFL absolutely!

There’s an interesting POV one can explore concerning fusion (or fission) power vs. combustion/hydro, etc. The latter are directly or indirectly released energy stores from solar radiation (through the carbon or hydrological cycles). Nuclear energy, however, is released from stores built up at the time of the Big Bang (fusion) or supernova explosions (fission). As such, they are “new” energy in the terrestrial environment. It is possible, theoretically, that enough could be released to add to the total thermal balance of the planet.

However, since Warm Spells are historically boom times for humanity (and virtually all other species), and Ice Ages are periods of stress, extinction, and suffering, I say ‘Bring it on!’ The more Global Warming the better!