mystlurker

mystlurker t1_j1a4avk wrote

Reply to comment by Nescio224 in How do fusion scientists expect to produce enough Tritium to sustain D-T fusion (see text)? by DanTheTerrible

You are misinterpreting my post, I’m not saying I necessarily agree or support various aspects of this, just explaining why there is this mythical aspect to fusion.

Facts about fission haven’t done well to change public perception. And public perception has an outsized impact on government policy.

Fusion theoretically offers the upsides of fission without the downsides and it theoretically offers better scaling than existing renewables. But as you said this is all theory. But that is what makes it the holy grail, in theory it has major upsides but it’s far off from production. Dismissing the human element here is to dismiss a large part of what defines the allure of fusion.

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mystlurker t1_j19sve9 wrote

Reply to comment by Nescio224 in How do fusion scientists expect to produce enough Tritium to sustain D-T fusion (see text)? by DanTheTerrible

Isn’t part of the holy grail aspect of fusion that it lets you have a nuclear power source that has much lower radioactivity concerns than fission, making it easier to deal with both from a safety perspective but also a public acceptance perspective?

All the futurology stuff around fusion I saw always talked about how it was an unlimited CLEAN energy source. Nuclear power stopped growing partly due to insane costs and partly due to waning public acceptance after multiple disasters. It a fusion reactor exploded there may be major loss of life but it wouldn’t make the surrounding environment toxic for long periods, or at least that’s the idea.

Obviously if you need lithium it’s clearly not truly unlimited, but the idea of something you could scale out much faster than solar/wind is rather appealing.

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mystlurker t1_j08qv8n wrote

Reply to comment by thehourglasses in [OC] Over the last decade, Chile has risen to become the world's third-largest producer of cherries, only behind Turkey and the United States. 🍒 by latinometrics

Pretty similar to the western US (particularly California and Arizona) growing the water heavy crops mostly for export (to China). In particular almonds and alfalfa stand out as crops primarily grown for export but are extremely water intensive.

The western US has been in a similar drought to Chile for the past few years (its second major drought in the last decade, though it’s all probably one big drought). Have to imagine they are related.

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