Michio Kaku on the inefficiency of solar energy.

[Yuppie Grinder]

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This should be of interest.

[Yazman]

I agree with him. Fusion power is the way to go. With proper investment it can revolutionise energy production. It's pretty clean, it's renewable, and better yet, has the potential to generate massive amounts of power.

Solar isn't anywhere near efficient enough right now, but maybe in the future it will be like he says.

Good thread Gourmet, and thanks for posting the video.

[LiberationTheologist]

Eww (teenage girl voice) what a nasty disgusting free market capitalist Michio Kaku is. Of course his reasoning is based on such free market fallacy thinking.

This is sedative complacency propaganda, thanks for putting it up for discussion.

The hurdles of efficiency and battery storage for solar and wind energy(which causes a lot of noise pollution) are not being overcome in 10 years let alone 100 and will not be overcome because capitalists own the government and will do everything to avoid disruption of their large scale monopoly, including massive environmental degradation in the form of shale gas.

If the capitalist energy monopoly were forced to use its resources to research, and produce more environmentally sustainable and less damaging energy then things would change.

Likewise the price of oil and Hubbards curve that he predicts will cross the price of solar energy will not occur in ten years time because the oil companies are heavily subsidized, have a monopoly, stifle innovation and regulate any competition to their monopoly out of large scale existence. Meanwhile the environmental damage caused by fossil fuels is causing massive, massive damage to humans and animals.

We need an environmentally conscious movement to battle the capitalists, they will not give up power or change their ways without a serious fight. Sitting around and waiting for the magic market will do no good.

[Ocean Seal]

I agree with him. Fusion power is the way to go. With proper investment it can revolutionise energy production. It's pretty clean, it's renewable, and better yet, has the potential to generate massive amounts of power.
The problem is that the fusion era probably isn't coming in the next twenty years. It requires the very delicate use of magnetic fields, and the models for plasma movement haven't improved in the past fifteen years. Also the US is shutting down a lot of fusion labs.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Scientists and laypersons have been talking about fusion since at least the 70s but we seem unable to actually bring it to fruition.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Scientists and laypersons have been talking about fusion since at least the 70s but we seem unable to actually bring it to fruition.

It's history goes back much further than that, but it's not easy to predict how it will progress in the future. Probably a good 20-30 years, either way.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Forty years ago scientists said that fusion was twenty years away, yet like a mirage in the desert the reality of fusion energy keeps receding another twenty years. Perhaps it will be realized in twenty years, but if it is in fact a hundred years away, then we are in deep trouble with respect to energy production.

[Zeus the Moose]

Fusion Power: just 20 years away for the past 40 years!

There's actually a scientists who works in plasma research (with potential applications towards fusion energy) that actually has history on the left. Eric Lerner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Lerner) was a former member of the National Caucus of Labor Committees (LaRouche's group before they went even more insane), and nowadays seems to participate in a (mostly inactive or at least clandestine?) group called the Workers Democracy Network (http://www.workersdemocracy.org/), and writes for an international Luxemburgist group (http://www.luxemburgism.lautre.net/).

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The problem as I see it is that most current advocates of solar energy are thinking too small. Scattering lots of little photovoltaic solar collectors all over the place isn't exactly a solution until PV becomes much cheaper (say, cheaper than paper) and more efficient, and by the time that happens it may be too late.

Instead, I think the paradigm for solar energy should be expanded. There are large parts of the world which would benefit from massive-scale deployment of solar thermal energy collectors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal_collector) in regions enjoying low cloud cover for most of the year, with High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) connections linking the plants to the electrical grids of nearby and adjacent population centres.

Current approaches to many kinds of renewable energy have been compromised by a petit-bourgeouis culture of individualism and small-scale "self-sufficiency". Too many renewables advocates have this retrograde manner of framing the question of energy generation, placing the emphasis on habits of individual households, companies, persons etc rather than realising as an industrial society, policy and development must be geared towards fixing industrial-scale problems, rather just fussing about around the edges.

[LiberationTheologist]

Current approaches to many kinds of renewable energy have been compromised by a petit-bourgeouis culture of individualism and small-scale "self-sufficiency". Too many renewables advocates have this retrograde manner of framing the question of energy generation, placing the emphasis on habits of individual households, companies, persons etc rather than realising as an industrial society, policy and development must be geared towards fixing industrial-scale problems, rather just fussing about around the edges.

So what you are saying my brother, and correct me if I am wrong, is that we have to overthrow capitalism in order to have mass scale solar energy?

[TheRedAnarchist23]

I agree with him. Fusion power is the way to go. With proper investment it can revolutionise energy production. It's pretty clean, it's renewable, and better yet, has the potential to generate massive amounts of power.

Fusion power? Like the sun? Are there even any prototypes of fusion reactors working today?


Solar isn't anywhere near efficient enough right now, but maybe in the future it will be like he says.

So we are not going to use solar because it is not efficient today, but we will use fusion power even though it is not nearly as developed as solar?

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Instead, I think the paradigm for solar energy should be expanded. There are large parts of the world which would benefit from massive-scale deployment of solar thermal energy collectors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal_collector) in regions enjoying low cloud cover for most of the year, with High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) connections linking the plants to the electrical grids of nearby and adjacent population centres.

Portugal used to have the largest sun power facility in the world (in 2008), it occupies 250 hectars, and produces 9300 MW of power per year.

[Yazman]

The problem is that the fusion era probably isn't coming in the next twenty years. It requires the very delicate use of magnetic fields, and the models for plasma movement haven't improved in the past fifteen years. Also the US is shutting down a lot of fusion labs.

magnetic fields? You should do some more reading - not all fusion labs are working on tokamaks/magnetic confinement. Many aren't. If you look into the field there's plenty of work being done in regards to inertial confinement fusion and similar methods (with lasers). Look to General Fusion (Canada), the National Ignition Facility (US), Laser Megajoule (France) and even Los Alamos (US) for examples. Although if you must talk about magnetic confinement there are still promising projects there - especially ITER.

But it simply isn't true that "it requires the very delicate use of magnetic fields". Magnetic confinement is not the only approach. As far as the US goes, well there's still plenty of work being done throughout the US and there are major fusion labs there. It's not true that they are all just being shut down en masse.

Besides - I'm not saying "in the next twenty years we should all choose fusion" - I'm saying that it's what we should be funding & building towards for the future. Kaku suggests it will be far more efficient in the future when we've developed it more, which is what is happening now, although there is still plenty of more work to do.