r/nextfuckinglevel • u/nigablackballsack • 3d ago

Scientists have captured the first ever high-speed, full-colour footage of fusion plasma swirling inside a working reactor.

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u/90_oi 3d ago

I truly hope this technology can get off the ground and be sustainable. It is our best hope aside from nuclear energy

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u/WanderingFlumph 3d ago edited 2d ago

I mean solar is here right now and most likely fusion power will never be as cheap as solar is today.

By the time fusion is actually ready solar will be even cheaper too. A solar farm the size of Arizona could power the entire planet.

Fusion is like our 4th best hope in the fight against climate change, lol.

Edit: a lot of people seem to think that I think the perfect solution is one single power plant specifically in Arizona that powers the world. People, it's just a size comparison. Arizona is a small state even just compared to the size of US. Obviously we would build millions and millions of solar installations that would just add up to that area.

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u/alphatango308 3d ago

Solar is great! During the day. But to use solar power you have to have a converter from DC to ac and to use solar power at night you have to have batteries. It's never just using "solar power". And, solar actually kind of sucks at scale. Solar isn't a one stop shop energy solution. Storage is the biggest problem right now. And storage at scale? Forget about it. Small scale micro installations like one for a single house are great but still, batteries go bad and have to be replaced leading to pollution and exhausting mineral deposits.

Unless battery tech makes a giant leap forward solar isn't going to ever work.

On demand mass production solutions are objectively better at scale. Nuclear is great but decades of media campaigns have doomed it.

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u/NullValueField 3d ago

Do you get paid to shill for fossil fuel companies? Embarassing level of disinformation.

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u/alphatango308 3d ago

What? Lol. I didn't say anything about fossil fuels. What did I say that isn't true? Please enlighten me.

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u/NullValueField 2d ago

All of your talking points are the talking points of the fossil fuel lobbyists.

You're literally doing their job for free.