Elon Musk 'We don't need Nuclear Fusion, renewables FTW'

Elon Musk talks about SpaceX, Twitter, Presidential Candidates, AI, China, getting to mars, Succession, Tesla, OpenAI, ChatGPT, Microsoft and more when he was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal's Thorold Barker.

#elonmusk #wsj #AI

Video courtesy of the Wall Street Journal:

[jamesmaybury]

I live in Scotland and can state that the Sun does not ‘show up every day’. I haven’t seen it for weeks.

[mwishart]

Elon: My recommendation is the tech I'm heavily invested in.

[kobusdowney]

Nuclear fission is probably the most important type of power we should invest in while we figure out fusion energy

[foshizzlemanizzle]

The sun puts out tons of energy, relatively very little of it reaches earth though. With the current best solar technology, we would still need over 100, 000 sq miles of solar panels to meet current energy demands. That’s only about 0.3% of Earth’s land area but all of humanity’s constructions only cover about 1.5% of Earth’s land area so that’s a 20% increase in land coverage solely for energy production. There would surely be huge environmental impacts just from that area being covered, not to mention from mining all the resources needed to make them.

That’s the biggest problem with solar- energy density. You could have a few dozen fusion reactor sites that cover maybe a combined total of a few hundred acres producing the same amount of energy as those solar panels. The impact of constructing those sites, gathering, and refining the fuel resources would be far less than solar panels while also providing a more stable source of energy. Solar has it’s uses, being the primary energy supply of humanity is not one of them.

[mleboeuf]

Managed forest are the best and most cost effective solar farm. It provide wood to be used when you need it. Just need to think ahead 20 years in advance.
My grandfather did plan and we could have rebuilt a wood shack, but stupid local laws were put in place so we could not cut the 50 trees that were planted specifically for that shack.

[ranbran]

Because solar panels and batteries comes from nowhere and don’t need to be maintained.

[chrischavez]

Fusion is economically more important than going to mars atm

[timlasson]

...says the guy selling the batteries. It's like asking a barber if you need a haircut.

[SwingVoter-hznn]

I work in the industry. There are tremendous technical hurdles to getting to 100% renewables. How do you supply reliable power during the Alaska winter? Line losses on transmission would be tremendous. Additional capacity to account for winter and weather events, hail knocking out whole solar fields, storage to allow reliability is an amazing huge ask. I know he sells batteries, I’ve worked projects with Tesla BESS systems and their documentation is great. Well, by comparison, but some of the required infrastructure is very specific and special order (nonstandard pad mounts for instance).
Then, battery fires due to low quality of cells, not necessarily his. Have heard about his battery systems eating themselves except the cars.

[wernerclarssen]

"...ohhh - forgot to mention: I'm in the battery-business, so please, stick to it..." 😂

[notyouraveragegoldenpotato]

"THERE IS A SOLUTION, I HAVE IT FOR SALE. BUY MY BATTERIES!"

[unitedwestand]

Fusion is clean unlimited energy. Elon likes batteries that create pollution when mined

[zomgoose]

When fusion becomes commercial, it'll be a huge benefit to mankind.

[meljordan]

My only question is, what happens to the unrecyclable parts of solar? The used solar panels, the batteries, etc. From what I understand they just get put in a heap and cannot be recycled. That pile will grow larger and larger.

[chriss]

Musk seems to have forgotten the issue with getting enough silver to make all those panels.

[madman]

lol he is a battery salesmen of course he don't want nuclear fusion plants it would put him out of business

[karkkosvolfe]

Let's completely ignore that PVs have a 25 year lifespan (after which efficiency drops rapidly). Or that it is highly dependent on the angle between the solar panel & sunlight, reference efficiency. That batteries are not even close to power conversion or storage efficiency needed.

So no, how about NO! I would rather be investing in Nuclear Fusion-Fission system than PV. Unless of course, Elon is suggesting here that we build a Dyson Array and "beam" energy back to earth (somehow). Which would be a Tier 1 civilization on the Kardashev scale. If he is suggesting a Dyson Sphere that would be a Tier 2 Civilization. Btw, the Earth as a WHOLE is a Tier 0. That is being highly generous.

[Thomk]

The pocket check was me 100%. 😂. Always gotta do the tap the pockets check.

[aliendroneservices]

"...we already have a giant fusion reactor in the sky called the sun..."
Then why don't any of your factories run on it? You promised they would.

[benf]

"Fusion isn't the future because it won't benefit me financially."