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A1_B t1_j0bjhrk wrote

Reply to comment by billdietrich1 in Fusion energy breakthrough and national security implications explained by TheScienceAdvocate

I'm not so sure about the idea that steam turbine = old mature, therefore unscalable, kind of goes against reality where Nuclear is in use and how much power it generates.

What do you specifically mean with the generalization "renewables?"

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billdietrich1 t1_j0c4pvs wrote

> old mature

Certainly it is old and mature: it has been optimized to the max because it is in so many power plants and industrial processes. Don't expect some large improvement in steam tech.

> therefore unscalable

Again a matter of steam and temperatures and cooling etc. Scaling nuclear large is less of a problem than scaling small. I doubt SMR nuclear will go very small or be successful. Whereas some renewables scale down to the level of a single house.

> What do you specifically mean with the generalization "renewables?"

The usual definition: solar, wind, tidal, wave, geothermal, hydro.

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