China May Be Ready to Use Nuclear Fusion for Power by 2050 (yahoo.com) 38
China plans to commercialize nuclear fusion for emissions-free power generation by 2050, with its first operational project expected around 2050 after a demonstration phase starting in 2045. Bloomberg reports: China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC) last year formed an industry alliance and set up a new national fusion company, the China Fusion Corp. It has attracted about 1.75 billion yuan ($240 million) in investment from CNNC and Zhejiang Zheneng Electric Power Co. for cutting-edge tokamak devices, which use magnetic fields to confine and control superheated plasma to produce power without emissions or significant radioactive waste. CNNC also plans to scale up production of its homegrown designs for regular nuclear fission reactors and small modular reactors over the next five years, the company's Vice General Manager Xin Feng said at the briefing.
China is set to leapfrog the US and France as the owner of the world's biggest reactor fleet by 2030. About 10 new reactors have been approved every year since power shortages emerged in 2022 and the country is expected to keep up that pace through 2030 to meet climate goals, CNNC said on Friday.
China is set to leapfrog the US and France as the owner of the world's biggest reactor fleet by 2030. About 10 new reactors have been approved every year since power shortages emerged in 2022 and the country is expected to keep up that pace through 2030 to meet climate goals, CNNC said on Friday.
Hahahaha (Score:3)
Um, ok. Predictions about stuff that will happen 5+ years from when it's made are nearly always wrong. It usually means we're missing some fundamental breakthrough. Mind you I believe we'll have fusion energy eventually, and need toward towards that. But when you start putting dates to it, that's BS.
dupe (Score:5, Informative)
https://slashdot.org/story/25/... [slashdot.org]
Re:dupe (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
In 25 years... (Score:2)
In 25 years from back to the future we had flying cars and hoverboards. Ok, the Mets but shaddup.
I can throw a dart at a dartboard and eventually get a bullseye. That doesn't mean that the first throw is anything to write an article about.
Re: (Score:1)
a) we have flying cars. Probably half a dozen types
b) no one ever talked about "hover boards" as they are physically impossible. Unless you want to talk about fancy boards that have 4, 6 or 8 propellers: those exist, too!
Re: (Score:2)
a) we have flying cars. Probably half a dozen types
Where can you buy one? Keeping in mind, it has to be able to take off from and land in a parking space, or at least a highway, or it's not a flying car.
Confused (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
That is bad! Fusion is supposed to be feasible in 10 years. I heard that for years, decades. Now they say it is 25 years away? How is that progress? Now I am very confused... (/s)
China is 25 years away. They have to wait until someone has something they can copy.
Rolling 25 years (Score:5, Informative)
So no change there then. Nuclear fusion has been a rolling 25 years away for decades.
Re: (Score:2)
That's true of Tokamak type designs, but Helion's approach seems much less problematic.
LOL! ... Fusion: Always 30 years in the future! (Score:2)
EOM
Re: (Score:2)
I used to have this seafood place nearby called Joe's Crab Shack. Painted on the back of the restaurant, there was a sign that said "FREE CRAB TOMORROW". The joke of course is, just as Bill Murray said in the movie Groundhog Day, "Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today!", that it never is tomorrow - it's always today.
Fusion power (as in the kind of plant that'd be producing juice for the grid in an economically viable way) is like that free crab you could have "tomorrow". It sounds w
So they were wrong yesterday? (Score:2)
Looks like the schedule slipped by a day.
2050 (Score:2)
Any predictions made so far into the future are absolutely useless.
2050 (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, it's gotten further away since they realized they had no way to get the bulk of the energy of the reaction into a useful form. Pity they couldn't have figured that out sooner.
Alternately: It's gotten further away since they realized they could keep printing grant money by promising a solution to our power woes that may never actually bring improvement and which we don't actually need.
Re: (Score:2)
Twenty four years and 364 days, according to the last Slashdot article.
Again? (Score:2)
Did they not already get there a few days ago?
How long has ITER been promising fusion power? (Score:2)
I recall an interview with a physicist that was working on ITER on his predictions for viable fusion energy and his predictions weren't all that ambitious. ITER was just the first step to fusion energy, after it is complete and tests were run for several years then would come DEMO, a demonstration reactor to do more tests for several years. After DEMO would be PROTO, a prototype reactor that could conceivably be something that after more tests were run could prove a viable and profitable source of power.
Re: (Score:2)
We don't even know how much waste, especially radioactive waste, it will produce until we build some useful prototypes.
I have no issues with fission technology, but we do know, even now, that fusion would only produce relatively small, calculable quantities of low-grade, fast decaying material and would be inherently safe from any runaway effects. Fuel would be nearly unlimited and universally available.
Money is being splurged, in comparatively obscene quantities, on much less promising things.
Re: (Score:2)
The benefits of fusion are numerous. It's incredibly efficient (insanely low quantities of fuel required), the fuel source is available everywhere on the planet (no need to rely on Russia or Turkmenistan two key countries in producing nuclear fuel), there's no waste issue at all as all fuel is used, it's an inherently safe system making accidents impossible, and they would provide base load.
You're misinformed. The fuel for nuclear reactors is not readily available, in fact its far harder to source than any
Re: (Score:1)
The benefits of fusion are numerous.
The benefits from nuclear fusion are theoretical until we can construct a working and profitable power plant prototype.
Since we have yet to build a working fusion power plant the benefits of nuclear fusion are out of reach.
I saw a presentation on nuclear fusion energy production and with the data given I saw that to get a viable nuclear fission reactor it would have to be quite large. The presentation was of a nuclear fusion reactor funded by some kind of US Navy nuclear propulsion research fund and so I b
Re: (Score:2)
Then in the 1980s some idiots in high places thought nuclear fission was too dangerous
And then Chernobyl proved them right,
But what really happened was that nuclear power was not really commercially viable. The industry was relying on government subsidies and was costing far more than the hyperbolic claim of power "too cheap to meter." Plants were far more expensive to build, had huge construction lag times and many turned out to be unreliable. By the time you added all the costs no commercial companies were willing to continue to bet on them with the huge investments required.
Then Fukushi
Re: (Score:1)
And then Chernobyl proved them right,
All that proved was the failure of a Soviet government.
I should really watch the HBO/Sky mini-series on Chernobyl but from what I've heard the series was more about the dangers of a dictatorial government then that of the dangers of nuclear power. Chernobyl proved that we can't trust nuclear power to people that have little concern for the safety of their own citizens.
But what really happened was that nuclear power was not really commercially viable. The industry was relying on government subsidies and was costing far more than the hyperbolic claim of power "too cheap to meter." Plants were far more expensive to build, had huge construction lag times and many turned out to be unreliable. By the time you added all the costs no commercial companies were willing to continue to bet on them with the huge investments required.
There's over 400 civil nuclear power reactors in operation today. You want to claim that they are not reliable? Not profitable? We don't
Re: (Score:2)
We don't judge an entire industry on the basis of individual failures
We do when the individual failures add up. The reality is investors decided the risks of investment in nuclear power were not worth the value created.
The problem is that every instance of removing nuclear fission from the electrical grid has resulted in higher energy prices, lowered reliability, and in general a lowered standard of living.
Which is one way the cost of individual failures add up. A lot of nuclear power plants removed themselves from the electrical grid. Which is why people stopped investing in them.
There's over 400 civil nuclear power reactors in operation today.
All of them built with enormous government subsidies. Which is why there is this full court press PR campai
The Future! (Score:2)
Fusion power (Score:5, Insightful)
is 8 minutes away, and has been for 4 and a half billion years.
Slashdot finally dup-free in 2050! (Score:4, Funny)
Another moving target.
By 2050 (Score:2)
Breaking news: By 2050, Slashdot will be down to one dupe per week.
Starting only 25 years from now (Score:2)
They're actually getting close. This is the first time anyone's said it's less than 30 years away...
Uh Huh. Fusion in 25 years. Yawn. (Score:2)
And the last 10% takes 90% more time...
it might, or it might not. (Score:1)
This is China, after all. Start with "they're lying" and then try and disprove it.