- #36
BWV
- 1,467
- 1,782
It's a rough and in exact analogy to Moores law, but the thing that really matters is cost per KWh, which is declining rapidly as production scales combined with perhaps a doubling or tripling of efficiency. No one really doubts that 20 years from now, Solar Pv will be far cheaper and more efficient than it is today where it already is at about grid parity. The issue with fusion is no one has any idea if it will be a viable source of energy in 20, 50 or 100 years. No one has come close to generating more power from fusion than is input into the reaction, let alone at an economical cost. The most optimistic projections of working fusion plants 20 or 30 years from now propose capitalized power costs of 2-3 cents per KWh - currently where combined cycle gas is in the U.S. and where solar will be in a few years. There are higher and better uses for the tens of billions of dollars it will take to gamble on these speculative projects.