National Ignition Facility fires record laser shot—…a milepost on the way to fusion energy.

[OKIsItJustMe]

22. I don’t see that…

Let’s take the example of New York City, it’s a large urban area, with a preexisting power grid.

A significant portion of its electricity currently comes from a large, aging nuclear fission plant. OK, so let’s say we have a large nuclear fusion plant we can replace it with… this seems like a good thing™ to me.

Look to Southern Illinois:
http://www.coalage.com/index.php/news/news/1276-prairie-state-energy-campus-starup-just-a-few-months-away.html

[font face=Times, Times New Roman, Serif][font size=5]Prairie State Energy Campus Starup Just a Few Months Away[/font]

Thursday, 25 August 2011 09:57

[font size=3]The countdown is under way for the partial startup in December of Prairie State Energy Campus, a 1,600-megawatt mine-mouth complex in southwestern Illinois, the brainchild of Peabody Energy Corp. a decade ago.

Already, the new Lively Grove underground mine is producing some of the 6.3 million tons of high-sulfur coal that will be burned annually in the nearby supercritical power plant. Coal is being stockpiled in preparation for the commercial operation of 800-megawatt Unit 1. The twin second unit is scheduled to go on line next summer, perhaps sooner. Drawing upon a reserve base of 200 million tons, the mine has a projected life of 30 years.

…

The plant will generate enough electricity to serve some 2.5 million families in five states and produce about $785 million in annual economic benefits for Illinois, an Illinois Basin state whose coal production is on the upswing after two decades of decline and stagnation following Congressional passage of the Clean Air Act Amendments in 1990.

Rising from the surrounding countryside, Prairie State’s sheer size is impressive. It boasts a 700-foot-tall stack, 70 ft higher than the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, about 40 miles away.

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Clearly, the electrical infrastructure is in place to support a large fusion facility. I think that taking that coal plant off-line and providing power to those 2.5 million families from a centralized fusion plant would be desirable.

The LIFE concept calls for doing just this sort of thing.

https://life.llnl.gov/delivering_life/index.php

[font face=Times, Times New Roman, Serif][font size=3]…

The timeliness requirements for commercial delivery are compelling. Rollout from the 2030s would remove 90 to 140 gigatons of CO[font size="1"]₂[/font]-equivalent carbon emissions by the end of the century (assuming U.S. coal plants are displaced and the doubling time for roll-out is between 5 and 10 years). Delaying rollout by just 10 years removes 30 to 35% of the carbon emission avoidance, which at $100/megaton translates to a net present value of $140 to $260 billion dollars. For inertial fusion energy to achieve its full potential in solving our energy/climate challenges, a focused delivery program is urgently needed.


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