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Comment by actionfromafar | Hacker News Reader

Why specifically target maritime? Getting a stationary reactor to 25MWe at all would be an incredible feat in itself.

True there would be other land based uses for a 25MWe fusion reactor, the thing is it will be quite expensive and hard to compete on $/kWh against other energy sources... it's easier to compete in maritime / there aren't as good alternatives.

> we’re focusing on large commercial shipping (>10,000 TEU) and mobile military vessels to provide ship-to-shore power capability

I can't tell for sure what this means, if it's propulsion or a temporary ship to shore power plant. I suppose this gives them the latitude to target both. Or perhaps the idea is to get exposure to maritime shipping investors.

A mobile power plant might be useful for deep sea mining, or meeting seasonal energy demands for major cities.

Unlike what the nuclear Navy does today which is directly mechanically link the steam turbine to the propeller... we have the turbine spin a generator that creates a high voltage electric bus, which can than power a motor for propulsion. But you can 'easily' swap out the motor and tap off that HV bus for any other electrical load. Agree with all those other potential applications for mobile power at sea, there's a ton! Even disaster relief after hurricanes sort of thing, if the grid goes down we sail over and support.

> nuclear Navy does today which is directly mechanically link the steam turbine to the propeller

Not exactly, but very close to true. As I hear, newest Virginia class of US submarines are planned to be all-electric, but rumors said, they are extremely expensive, so all currently commissioned ones have close to classic propulsion system.

Probably because on-land there are better way to get the same output and it doesn't require unproven technology.

Maritime makes sense from that point of view. However, this point of view ignores that fusion is hard for us right now.

I bet it's a case of someone not understading this field properly and thinking that just throwing money at it will solve everything.

It seems like if you can get the reactor working then you're floating right on top of all the fuel you could ever want, provided you're doing hydrogen fusion.

Mounting a fusion reactor (largely automated - these ships have a skeleton crew) on every big ship seems ambitious enough, why would you...sure, why not, package an automated deuterium fuel refinement facility in a box on the ship too. In another ten years you'll be getting them in Christmas crackers.

where can I read about fully-automated, ship-stable, ~zero maintenance deuterium sea-water extraction systems?

YC32

Fusion fuel is so compact, there's really no need for that. To get an idea of it, deuterium is less than 0.1% of the hydrogen in water, and there's enough in your morning shower to provide all your energy needs for a year.

Nuclear aircraft carriers go thirty years without refueling, and fusion could easily do the same.

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