403
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
403 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
59334 readers
4728 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Fissionable isotopes are yet another nonrenewable fuel.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe.
With reprocessing, which we already do, and new Gen IV power plants, there’s enough energy to last us thousand of years with currently known resources. And that’s before we start scooping it out of the water.
That's assuming a lot of ifs resolve our way, and without power needs increasing. It's more sustainable than coal/gas/oil for sure, but with current energy development needs it's barely long term (IIRC about 60-140 years)
Also, on centuries timescale, we will need to find more fissiles in space. And according to our current understanding of the universe, they should be quite rare, especially compared to hydrogen.
Basically, figuring out fusion power would solve our needs for the first level on the Kardashev scale, and has the potential to be portable fuel for the rest of the lifespan of the universe.
My aim is not to stop research on fusion - just making the point that we know how to do nuclear and it seems to me we are letting perfect be the enemy of good.
Oh, we need both for sure, and renewables as well.
Then we are in remarkable agreement. Nuclear, fusion and TONNES of renewables. The quicker, the better.