Yet another good reason for fusion

[Mirannan]

The thread title is slightly misleading, in that I'm only really referring to two fusion approaches out of the four (I think) currently being pursued.

The four are tokamak, laser ignition, Polywell and focus fusion. Of the four, the first two are characterised by the probability that they will work only in enormous units; the latter two rather the reverse.

And that's relevant to what I'm here to start a discussion about - energy security. One of the potential problems with today's industrial civilisation is its reliance on electricity, and the fact that the electricity distribution network is vulnerable to various sorts of disruption.

The disruption can be caused by various factors. One is the weather; particularly in the USA, where huge areas are served by power lines that are above ground, extreme weather often brings down the lines and leaves people without power for weeks. And another, far more potentially dangerous, one is space weather, in other words the vagaries of the Sun.

A large CME that actually hits us has the potential to destroy the grid over continent-sized areas in such a way that it would take years to fix. The weak points are the transformers; the reason it would happen is that EMP events such as this are made much worse by having long conductors (such as transmission lines!) exposed to them.

The availability of power generation in relatively small (suitable for a few dozen houses, or an apartment building for example) units would mean much greater energy security, because the grid wouldn't be needed - or, at the very least, could be done without in extremis.

Go!

 

[Ray McCarthy]

CME wouldn't destroy the grid. At worst it knocks out circuit breakers. Certainly up to a week in some areas to recover, but most of UK would be less than a day. It might though knock out all Satellites. The Mobile Phone network and DAB Radio may fail without the GPS satellite timing signals. Only SFN DTT (Digital TV) would be affected. Much DTT isn't SFN. DAB is a stupid rubbish system anyway. But that's another story.
Many countries have a much more distributed and redundant network where the sorts of cascade failures and brown outs known in USA are unknown. The USA lacks proper regulation for many infrasturctures leaving it too much to the market. Unfortunately since the Regan Era and Margaret Thatcher the USA models are being increasingly copied in Europe, especially UK and Ireland as "Soft Touch Regulation". This totally broken concept resulted in the Irish Financial Regulator actually approving the madness of the Anglo Irish Bank and all the Leveraged buyouts of Eircom and Quinn's Empire built on debt and leveraged buyouts.

A CME isn't the same at all as an EMP from say a hydrogen bomb.

Currently fusion able to supply a country is almost fact. Fusion able to supply a dozen houses is firmly Science Fiction.
A properly implemented grid isn't a problem at all. The problem may be if the minimum size Fusion generator is enough Electricity for 2/3rds of France. It would need to be well guarded.