Molecules Can Store Solar Energy Indefinitely

Mashable ^ | 04/16/2014 | TODD WOODY

[dhs12345]

Bummer. Good point. Frustrating. Because it would solve our energy problems.

[samtheman]

I hope I’m wrong. Fusion would truly make electricity “too cheap to meter”. Actually, that phrase was originally used with fusion in mind and then got misappropriated to fission, where it doesn’t apply.

[dhs12345]

Me too — I hope you/we are wrong. Containment is the issue because of the heat generated. Maybe they could come up with a way “control” the process much like control rods slow down the Fission reaction. Inject the plasma with an inert material that is stable at the high temps. Just a layman's ideas and I am sure that they have already thought of that.

I am not current on the technology other than I heard a few months ago that they were able to produce a net gain of energy. I think that they are shooting high power lasers at the core and igniting the reaction that way.

Another possible improvement: the heat is used to boil water and turn turbines. Maybe they should consider a process that excites electrons in a conductor and eliminate the steam turbine process all together. Maybe something that produces a massive magnetic field and eliminates the heat conversion process — much less heat, no spinning turbines, much more efficient, etc. Steam power is so 19th century. :)

[samtheman]

I know, it was big news about the net gain a few months ago, very close to “ignition”, but the “net gain” was very narrowly defined, measuring the energy of the laser beams themselves versus the energy output of the fusion, and there was a gain if you just looked at that comparison, but it ignored the total electrical power consumption of the laser devices, which was much larger than the fusion output. So there was a breakthrough of sorts but still far away from actual commercial power generation.

But we’ll see. A lot of clever people are working on it.

[dhs12345]

They are still years and years away. If they are successful, the tough part (not that it hasn’t already been tough) will be to build a practical implementation; a working power plant.

But I am crossing my fingers. We are going to need a lot more juice if everyone is going to be driving around in electric cars.