Comment by belter
5 days ago
Ok this was a terse comment, but so is a downvote. Please explain why is not 50 years away from first real industrial use. I am waiting....
5 days ago
Ok this was a terse comment, but so is a downvote. Please explain why is not 50 years away from first real industrial use. I am waiting....
As for "why not 50 years", even the pessimistic reports of that video have it at ~30 years. Besides, the point is "we won't really know a good estimate for when until it's already about to hit us in the face" not "we should just assume 50 years is a more correct guess than other ones".
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.
> As for "why not 50 years", even the pessimistic reports of that video have it at ~30 years.
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.
If that's the singular prediction a report makes it can be safely regarded as suspicious regardless of the timeframe.
And how about a honest discussion about whether 30 years away for fusion research may boil down to never ? We are in a contraction already,people voting for decomplexification of society because that is just a natural felt trade off- feed my family now with less tax and forget about leechers promising free energy since almost a 100 years.Its not reasonable , its not historically backed up (science saved the day multiple times ) but this window of research opportunities is closing rapidly and its time to find alternatives to finance such endeavours besides state and oligarchy conglomerate investment scams.
Sustained fusion is already a thing in the universe but while we can't undiscover what powers the sun we could certainly give up replicating it on Earth if we'd like. That would be less an estimate of how long it'd take and more a measure of what we want to invest our limited resources in though.
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.
https://news.mit.edu/2024/commonwealth-fusion-systems-unveil...
So according to the industry leaders, we will have the first 400MW plant within 10 years.
How can they build something commercial/grid-scale when not a single research-level reactor truly generates net energy out, and none can do it anywhere near continously enough to be of any practical use?
This news is either based on misleading the public, or I am about to be updated with where Fusion is?
I think you are about to be updated.
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...
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Because they are more or less certain (because of their magnets) they will get the necessary temperatures for ignition, giving more energy that it consumes.
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.
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What makes them industry leaders? Do they have a prototype? 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?
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.
> What makes them industry leaders?
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"
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I looked up this Commonwealth Fusion Systems company.
"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.
No, they have developed the world’s most powerful magnets based on superconducting tape which is essential for containing the plasma.
Their key tech development is the manufacture of high temperature superconducting magnets. This is the key to their reactor design.
Fake news: https://news.newenergytimes.net/2021/11/21/commonwealth-fusi...
"I am waiting..." was unnecessary.
True...But I am still waiting for the scientific and technical arguments to prove me wrong.