Germany bets billions on nuclear fusion for energy future – DW – Berlin hopes the technology will provide abundant clean and reliable energy, but critics say it’s a waste of money as the technology won’t solve near-term climate and energy problems.
https://www.dw.com/en/nuclear-fusion-germany-bets-billions-on-technology-for-energy-future/a-74522109
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From the article
The German government has been implementing an [ambitious energy transition plan](https://www.dw.com/en/energiewende-transition-to-renewable-power-sources/t-17351905) to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. It completely phased out nuclear power in 2023, and plans to wean itself off coal by 2038.
To balance the energy and [environmental commitments](https://www.dw.com/en/climate-change/t-18614374), Berlin is also betting on new technologies such as green hydrogen and nuclear fusion.
# A smart bet?
Chancellor [Friedrich Merz’s](https://www.dw.com/en/friedrich-merz/t-60575802) Cabinet this month unveiled an [action plan](https://www.bmftr.bund.de/SharedDocs/Publikationen/DE/7/1112618_Aktionsplan_Fusion.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=10) to accelerate the development of nuclear fusion technology. It wants Germany to build the world’s first fusion reactor, allocating €1.7 billion ($1.98 billion) in funding for the project.
Berlin hopes the technology will provide abundant clean, safe and reliable energy in the future.
I know, how could limitless clean non polluting energy solve energy problems?
This is the same country that gave up it’s nuclear industry, turned to coal and cheap Russian gas.
With how long fusion is taking to get out of the experimental phase, I don’t understand how people can think it will rapidly become commercially competitive
I see it having some expensive niche applications for a long time before it gets enough scale to even try and compete with solar
Conservatives doing their best to blindly walk past the actual solution, just so they don’t have to agree with those evil Greens or something.
Most articles I see about fusion tend to ignore the tritium problem (https://encrypted-vtbn2.gstatic.com/video?q=tbn:ANd9GcTPiMlxkhoq7IAgZJ1S18sI8W00Ugr5BTEMVhL57vnPFJhN2Fad), and misrepresent the efficiency of current experimental results (they claim that output energy exceeds input energy, but they only include the energy for the lasers, and ignore the ancillary energy required for the total operation. When this is included, output vs input is still below that required for net power output).
Don’t get me wrong – I think it’s a great idea. But I also realize that it’s not nearly as close as some proponents claim.
It’s funny how people cling to “techo-solutions” that “will be there some time in the future” when the vast majority of what we should do is “less”.
It’s funny how science-fiction is being used as a “”””legit”””” argument about how we’ll power our future energy-hungry data-center societies.
It’ll be hilarious to witness the obvious disaster, the consequences of aiming for “always more” while ignoring that by trying to achieve that, we’re nuking the Earth’s systems that need to remain in that thin stable condition for us to keep going as a civilization (agriculture).
But rather than preparing society to “do with less easily available energy”, a lot of people will remain in some kind of techno delusion to stay in denial about our situation.
“Always more” is a human narrative and the consequences that are going to amplify this century will be here to remind us that there is a monumental cost to ignoring the consequences of using always more energy.
This is idiotic.
Research in fusion is ok, but that money should be used to construct more PV/Wind turbines/storage
It’s not a bet but just another way to transfer money from the government (thus the people) into the pockets of their rich buddies and donors.
As if any party in Germany thinks about the long term or what’s best for the people…
lol they just shut down all their nuclear reactors….. This is such a roundabout way of doing things.
But you have tons of renewable energy sources (wind, solar, geothermal) and clean (nuclear fission) that you can implement now. It is completely reckless to punt on current technology and put all of your eggs into the basket of a technology that may never come or be so cost intensive that it is completely illogical.
A lot of talk about people’s opinions, zero discussion about what his actual supposed plan is and whether it’s doable. What design is chosen? not a peep.
Worthless article
Billions would definitely be better spent on current nuclear and renewables tech.