Not likely to be decentralized, considering how complex a fusion reactor is.
But fear not: fusion power has been "only 30 years away"...for the past 50 years. Small gains are not big steps.
Fission power, however, can be decentralized. Companies are now offering modular nuclear reactor powerplants down to the 10s of megawatts. But there are economies of scale for large powerplants and they work just fine.
Don't get me wrong, keep building fission infrastructure until fusion is ready. I think when it is, it won't be long before they scale it down to local power plants.
My point, though, is that the idea that fusion is superior to fission rests on assumptions that are not true. If we run out of lithium, we run out of fusion. And we still have the radioactive waste problem.
Not likely to be decentralized, considering how complex a fusion reactor is.
But fear not: fusion power has been "only 30 years away"...for the past 50 years. Small gains are not big steps.
Fission power, however, can be decentralized. Companies are now offering modular nuclear reactor powerplants down to the 10s of megawatts. But there are economies of scale for large powerplants and they work just fine.
Don't get me wrong, keep building fission infrastructure until fusion is ready. I think when it is, it won't be long before they scale it down to local power plants.
My point, though, is that the idea that fusion is superior to fission rests on assumptions that are not true. If we run out of lithium, we run out of fusion. And we still have the radioactive waste problem.