Hacker News Reader

Comment by KingOfCoders | Hacker News Reader

From 2018:

"They are building full-scale, break-even-or-better that is to be ready in 2018. [...] If all goes well this year then Helion Energy machine that proves commercial energy gain would be a 50 Megawatt system built in 2021."

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/10/helion-energy-got-fund...

When people stop believing you, just double down. Not 50MW in 2021, but 500MW in 2030. In 2027 they will announce a 5GW plant in 2035.

View on HN

> David indicated a breakeven fusion machine would need about $35 million in funding. Seattle Business reports that Helion has raised the money and will complete this targeting breakeven machine this year.

> Nucor is making a direct investment of $35 million in Helion to accelerate fusion deployment in the United States.

Is fusion always $35 million away?

Their most recent scientific paper they published 3 months ago only says that scientific breakeven (Qsci > 1) is possible. Which has been claimed many times before pesky engineering challenges and unmodeled behavior starts to interfere. The paper actually mostly just rehashes their marketing so its impossible to judge how realistic their claims are. Regardless, they don't seem like they are close to any kind of actual prototype let alone one that can demonstrate scientific breakeven or the order of magnitude harder engineering breakeven.

Their claims seem very hard to believe to put it mildy.

In their defence, a lot of their past promises were explicitly conditional on receiving a level of funding which they did not receive until much more recently.

They still aren't making a 500 MW plant in 2030 though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com