If We Had Fusion Power, Would Everybody Get "Free" Energy? Should It Work That Way?

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Imagine that we are able to shift to mass scale fusion energy in the next few years, rather than the decades-to-never time frame currently under discussion.

Would fusion power be a public utility or privately owned? Would people get all the "free*" energy they want, or a "free*" allowance for ordinary use - or would they have to pay for every electron they consume? Something else?

What would you like to see happen? What do you think will happen?

*Just to avert the usual deflections, I mean "free" in the same sense that public schools and roads are free - they are paid by taxes and we get to use them with suitable restrictions. Obviously fusion power can't be free because the facilities and grid need to be built, maintained and operated, but we could pay for some or all of those costs through taxes.

 

[markfromj]

No. Same claims were made for fission-based nuke power.

 

[Bank of Hawk]

Electricity rates to the end consumer might be a little cheaper. There will be many of fortunes made.

 

[JMNSHO]

It will not be ready until the right people have properly monetized it.

 

[binsfeldcyhawk2]

Imagine that we are able to shift to mass scale fusion energy in the next few years, rather than the decades-to-never time frame currently under discussion.

Would fusion power be a public utility or privately owned? Would people get all the "free*" energy they want, or a "free*" allowance for ordinary use - or would they have to pay for every electron they consume? Something else?

What would you like to see happen? What do you think will happen?

*Just to avert the usual deflections, I mean "free" in the same sense that public schools and roads are free - they are paid by taxes and we get to use them with suitable restrictions. Obviously fusion power can't be free because the facilities and grid need to be built, maintained and operated, but we could pay for some or all of those costs through taxes.

You have to build and maintain the facility that produces fusion energy and pay the workers that make that happen. You also have to pay to maintain the infrastructure that gets that product to the consumer. So no....not free...but it should be much cheaper.

Initial cost will probably be still equivalent to what we pay now because they have to pay for the facilities and infrastructure that was built. Will decrease dramatically over time...

 

[seminole97]

The best way to find the most accurate answers to how much of what we want and can afford is a free market.
Resources (raw materials and labor) have to be committed and they could always be committed to other tasks. Free market prices are how we find out what (and critically, how much) people want from all the available choices.
The central planner can’t really know if you want another kilowatt of power to your house, or a new roof on it. If you’re taxed to provide a ‘free’ kilowatt of energy, but you need something else more urgently, the ‘freebie’ isn’t making you better off.

 

[NDallasRuss]

You have to build and maintain the facility that produces fusion energy and pay the workers that make that happen. You also have to pay to maintain the infrastructure that gets that product to the consumer. So no....not free...but it should be much cheaper.

Initial cost will probably be still equivalent to what we pay now because they have to pay for the facilities and infrastructure that was built. Will decrease dramatically over time...

I agree with this, up until where it'll decrease over time. Things like this would never decrease. They'll always find a use for the money, and justification for rate increases.

Just like toll roads- even after they're paid off, the tolls (at least for the ones here) keep going up periodically.

 

[SolarHawk]

Electricity rates to the end consumer might be a little cheaper. There will be many of fortunes made.

lol, sure. The utilities are a monopoly, and access to energy is gonna be a dogfight in the coming years. The public utilities in Florida paid millions to buy votes from republicans to gut net meter and solar power. Thank God Desantis killed the bill on his desk or the solar industry in Florida would be dead. All the while these utilities are posting RECORD profits. Guys, if you own your home and your state has net metering, get your solar now before the 1% steal it away from us. They just did in California of all places. The one thing we have going for us is the advancement of battery storage, as that will be the key to thwarting the utilities efforts to control our energy consumption.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

The best way to find the most accurate answers to how much of what we want and can afford is a free market.
Resources (raw materials and labor) have to be committed and they could always be committed to other tasks. Free market prices are how we find out what (and critically, how much) people want from all the available choices.
The central planner can’t really know if you want another kilowatt of power to your house, or a new roof on it. If you’re taxed to provide a ‘free’ kilowatt of energy, but you need something else more urgently, the ‘freebie’ isn’t making you better off.

The free market gave us the hoola hoop and pet rocks. Government subsidies gave us the H-bomb.

Clearly the free market is safer.

Kidding aside, your statement that "The best way to find the most accurate answers to how much of what we want and can afford is a free market" is ludicrous.

 

[seminole97]

The free market gave us the hoola hoop and pet rocks. Government subsidies gave us the H-bomb.

Clearly the free market is safer.

Kidding aside, your statement that "The best way to find the most accurate answers to how much of what we want and can afford is a free market" is ludicrous.

What other system measures what we want by how much we want and can afford it?

I see a lack of understanding regarding the role of prices and competition (between all products and services, not just the same products and services) in moving production in alignment with demand on your part.

Of all the other systems mankind has tried, nothing delivers the abundance and cornucopia of the free market.

Look at the car market in East Germany, with the 7+ year waiting list for the Trabant, a two cycle engined car foisted on the public by the bureaucracy without even so much as a gas gauge for over three decades.
Contrast that with the parking lots full of cars to choose from across the iron curtain in western Germany. Choices from VW, Porsche, BWM, Mercedes, etc.
I don’t see how people can look at the outcomes and say, ’let’s apply the Trabant method to some other industry, it will work out better because….?’

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

What other system measures what we want by how much we want and can afford it?

This only makes sense if you think that goodness is determined by wants and wealth. Surely even a staunch marketeer like yourself can agree that those criteria can lead to disastrous choices. The fentanyl and climate crises are obvious examples of the market failing to produce the best outcomes.

 

[BioHawk]

We run a privatized system in the US so you will still have to pay for your electricity. In fact, you probably wouldn't notice much at all as the changes will all be at the generation end of it. Companies will build fusion power plants that will replace all the coal, oil, and gas power plants. You will still need to pay for those to be built. You will do this with your fees and likely billions of dollars of government handouts to encourage power companies to accelerate building these plants. I would think there's a good chance that fusion would also replace much of the wind and solar power we see right now as well. Private solar panels on homes might still be a thing though.

The biggest difference is that we would no longer be generating electricity with fossil fuels and if China starts paying us to build fusion plants there, we can make a crap ton of money on it. Combined with electric vehicles we will make the two biggest steps to preventing the worst effects of climate change that we can make. I don't know if it will be enough to prevent 3 degrees of change, but that depends a lot on how quickly the power plants can be created.

Assuming the recent discovery can actually be used to generate electricity my guess is that we are still 30 years away from having homes powered by fusion power. I guess it depends on how long it takes engineers to figure out a way to effectively collect the energy produced and then use it to somehow produce electricity.