Nuclear fusion: New record set at Chinese reactor EAST https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42917662 03-feb-2025
China's artificial sun burns for 1000 secs, creates record in fusion research https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42854306 28-jan-2025
1,337-second burn.
It should be a good time to be an engineer.
As for the comments about votes, they aren't a measure of terseness either. The point is to bubble comments likely to result in curious and thoughtful conversation to the top while comments which will distract from that kind of conversation (combative, vague, distractly offtopic, or whatever else the reason may be) tend to get hidden away. Whether a comment is totally on the money or absolutely incorrect, how you present the conversation starter has a far bigger drive on what types follow-on conversation will appear. Here, that also strongly implies what types of votes will appear too.
When a prediction is at a timescale where the person making the prediction will be retired by the time the prediction applies, you can safely ignore the prediction. That person has no reputational skin in the game.
I think everyone would agree we should find ways of investing that aren't scams. The hard part is who agrees on what is a scam. I don't mind more purely private investment myself though, which has seemed to be a trend in recent years.
So according to the industry leaders, we will have the first 400MW plant within 10 years.
This news is either based on misleading the public, or I am about to be updated with where Fusion is?
Watch this clip with Prof. Whyte from 8 years ago. It’s the team behind CFS(then still at MIT). Highly interesting. He will explain exactly what they will do(now doing), how they will do it, and why they will do it they way they are doing it.
Please note that they are pretty much on target since. I have been following CFS closely.
Essentially the breakthrough has been the ability to manufacture more powerful magnets. CFS makes the most powerful magnets in the world.
That was always the main issue, how to contain the plasma.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4&pp=ygUrYnJlYWt0aHJ...
The predecessor, the ARC reactor in the 2014 paper, had a power density of 0.5 MW/m^3.
In comparison, a commercial PWR, which you can buy today, has a power density of 20 MW/m^3.
So, even with all the HTSC hype, their machine is still a factor of 40 worse than existing proven fission technology.
How is such a bloated, much more complex machine even going to compete with fission, never mind the alternatives that have sidelined new fission construction? The capex will be completely out of bounds.
In a Nov. 17, 2021, news story, Ball wrote that scientists working with the MIT/CFS collaboration are planning to deliver the “first fusion machine expected to generate more energy than it uses” in 2025.
Actually, the MIT/CFS SPARC reactor is designed only to produce a fusion plasma that produces power at a higher rate than it consumes power. That measurement does not account for the input power required to operate the reactor. It’s the same trick that fusion promoters used to sell the idea of ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor."
I don’t know exactly what went on in that interview. I have not read it.
It’s a complex topic and easy to misunderstand.
> Please note that they are pretty much on target since. I have been following CFS closely.
And their credibility.
If they get ignitions, all the other problems will be solved very fast, because there will be an enormous rush from investors wanting to invest billions.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4&pp=ygUrYnJlYWt0aHJ...
"Necessarily" being your Zeno's Arrow. Necessary to what threshold? I can literally argue against anything to an arbitrary level of necessity. (Breathing doesn't necessarily ensure living.)
If they don't have a prototype, and are going straight to plans for a 400MW "commercial" plant, why should we believe this is possible? What evidence is there that these plans for a massive breakthrough ten years from now will work out?
This looks, walks, and talks like a ploy to get in on AI energy demand hype. It may not be, but it has all those features, and not many other features.
They have a plausible relatively well understood path to fusion, have credibility with their background (coming out of fusion research at MIT), and have raised something like 2 billion dollars in funding.
> Can they get Q>1, much less >5 or similar for what will be needed to break even on all the rest of the inefficiencies
They think so
> and are going straight to plans for a 400MW "commercial" plant
They aren't. They're currently developing "SPARC", a Q>1 demonstration plant targeting 2027. The 400 MW commercial plant, ARC, is a follow on design targeting 2030s.
> This looks, walks, and talks like a ploy to get in on AI energy demand hype
They predate the AI boom by a lot. The project started in 2018. They had a $1.8 billion dollar funding round in 2021.
The basic concept is "hey look, someone figured out how to build better superconductors. What if we took what ITER is trying to do, but used modern super conductors to make it smaller and actually achievable". I'm not saying I think they're certain to succeed, but I don't think they're a scam and I think it's very reasonable to include them amongst the group of "industry leaders"
"The company plans to produce its first plasma in 2026 and net fusion energy shortly after."
Looks like your argument is build on just promises, not backed by any tech developments.