Fusion Reactor Concept Could Be Cheaper Than Coal

vinces99 writes Fusion energy almost sounds too good to be true – zero greenhouse gas emissions, no long-lived radioactive waste, a nearly unlimited fuel supply. Perhaps the biggest roadblock to adopting fusion energy is that the economics haven't penciled out. Fusion power designs aren't cheap enough to outperform systems that use fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas. University of Washington engineers hope to change that. They have designed a concept for a fusion reactor that, when scaled up to the size of a large electrical power plant, would rival costs for a new coal-fired plant with similar electrical output. The team published its reactor design and cost-analysis findings last spring and will present results Oct. 17 at the International Atomic Energy Agency's Fusion Energy Conference in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Comments

Costs

[BarbaraHudson]

They predict that the costs will be comparable to a coal-fired plant. Even if it ends up costing more, it might be worth it because the coal-fired plant isn't being held accountable for all the externalities of coal-fired plants - the extra deaths due to pollution, etc. Hopefully this time "in 20 years" will really be true.

Fusion isn't "expensive", it's lossy

[popo]

The problem isn't just "expense" as the summary pretends. It's that the energy output is less than the energy inputs.

Scaling the reactor is like the old joke about "losing money on every sale, but making up for it on volume."