There’s no “figuring it out.” Fusion waste isn’t radioactive. You can’t do radiolysis with it.
There’s a difference between radiation and radioactivity. Heat and light are radiation. Radiolysis requires radioactivity.
It’s not “more efficient” to take hydrogen, apply fusion to turn it into helium and generate power, and then use that power to “split” water molecules.
You already have the hydrogen from doing the electrolysis. The closest thing you could do is capture the power generated by the fusion and convert it into electricity, and then use that electricity to do more electrolysis. I’d have to look at the specific numbers to calculate loss, because fusion is weird and generates enormous amounts of energy, but it also isn’t captured with 100% efficiency. And besides, it takes power to run the fusion reactors, which is currently the main hurdle in the way of running it at scale.
If you’re in a space colony though, water is too precious to be splitting into hydrogen and helium. You would probably just get your hydrogen directly from a gas giant instead.
Otherwise, light and photosynthesis will basically always be the most efficient to grow calories for sustenance.
So we’ve come full circle, and you’ve admitted that nuclear fusion cannot generate calories. Great.
You also continue to ignore macro- and micro- nutrients. Dietary requirements are more than just “calories.”
Lastly, aside from aneutronic fusion being hardly more experimental than it is theoretical, that’s a complete red herring and has nothing to do with what we’re talking about.
So we’ve come full circle, and you’ve admitted that nuclear fusion cannot generate calories. Great.
Sure it can’t, because it doesn’t exist. I said that outside some fantastical sci-fi technology like fusion directly producing hydrogen, sunlight will always be more efficient to produce calories. And you only need a radiation source for radiolysis, radioactive waste is only one source of it.
Every single method we have to produce chemical energy is less efficient than sunlight and plants.
Because solar panels, LEDs, hydrolysis, all have low efficiency. You loose massive amounts of energy and therefor space when your goal is to produce calories.
And sure we need vegetables and for that vertical farming is fine, great even, except for calories. But if we wanted to solve climate change, the infrastructure like solar panels and pumps contain a lot of embedded energy that you could save. It’s only profitable under capitalism and land hoarding and in a society where we consume way too much meat.
One economic collapse or global conflict and all our complex supply chains go away. So if we’re dependent on tractors and heavy machinery and fossil fuel and fertilizers, or on or robots and electronics or LEDs or solar panels just to produce food - the vast majority of people remain slaves to industry for their very basic needs.
The real solarpunk for me is potato farming. Or some sci-fi genetic engineering to produce shrubs that produce all sorts of food without needing tilling or fertilizer.
So much of what you’re saying is actually an argument in favor of warehouse farming and you don’t even realize it, that it’s obvious you’ve never read the requisite literature, and I’m done trying to explain this to you.
There’s no “figuring it out.” Fusion waste isn’t radioactive. You can’t do radiolysis with it.
There’s a difference between radiation and radioactivity. Heat and light are radiation. Radiolysis requires radioactivity.
It’s not “more efficient” to take hydrogen, apply fusion to turn it into helium and generate power, and then use that power to “split” water molecules.
You already have the hydrogen from doing the electrolysis. The closest thing you could do is capture the power generated by the fusion and convert it into electricity, and then use that electricity to do more electrolysis. I’d have to look at the specific numbers to calculate loss, because fusion is weird and generates enormous amounts of energy, but it also isn’t captured with 100% efficiency. And besides, it takes power to run the fusion reactors, which is currently the main hurdle in the way of running it at scale.
If you’re in a space colony though, water is too precious to be splitting into hydrogen and helium. You would probably just get your hydrogen directly from a gas giant instead.
So we’ve come full circle, and you’ve admitted that nuclear fusion cannot generate calories. Great.
You also continue to ignore macro- and micro- nutrients. Dietary requirements are more than just “calories.”
Lastly, aside from aneutronic fusion being hardly more experimental than it is theoretical, that’s a complete red herring and has nothing to do with what we’re talking about.
Sure it can’t, because it doesn’t exist. I said that outside some fantastical sci-fi technology like fusion directly producing hydrogen, sunlight will always be more efficient to produce calories. And you only need a radiation source for radiolysis, radioactive waste is only one source of it.
Every single method we have to produce chemical energy is less efficient than sunlight and plants.
Because solar panels, LEDs, hydrolysis, all have low efficiency. You loose massive amounts of energy and therefor space when your goal is to produce calories.
And sure we need vegetables and for that vertical farming is fine, great even, except for calories. But if we wanted to solve climate change, the infrastructure like solar panels and pumps contain a lot of embedded energy that you could save. It’s only profitable under capitalism and land hoarding and in a society where we consume way too much meat.
One economic collapse or global conflict and all our complex supply chains go away. So if we’re dependent on tractors and heavy machinery and fossil fuel and fertilizers, or on or robots and electronics or LEDs or solar panels just to produce food - the vast majority of people remain slaves to industry for their very basic needs.
The real solarpunk for me is potato farming. Or some sci-fi genetic engineering to produce shrubs that produce all sorts of food without needing tilling or fertilizer.
So much of what you’re saying is actually an argument in favor of warehouse farming and you don’t even realize it, that it’s obvious you’ve never read the requisite literature, and I’m done trying to explain this to you.