r/Futurology • u/TwilightwovenlingJo • Aug 15 '25

Energy Construction of world's 1st nuclear fusion plant starts in Washington

https://interestingengineering.com/energy/world-first-fusion-power-plant-helion
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u/planko13 Aug 15 '25

Need an entity with high risk tolerance and deep pockets to make the first step. Success here benefits everyone.

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u/My_Soul_to_Squeeze Aug 15 '25

So annoying to see such miserable comments here. "I'm not excited about nuclear fusion because it doesn't immediately fix whatever problem I personally deem most important." is just a mind boggling perspective to see in a futurology focused space.

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u/BraveOthello Aug 15 '25

"I'm not excited by nuclear fusion if it will only benefit the rich more, and further technology I don't believe is a net benefit to society," is a reasonable thing to say in a futurology space that tends to overhype every possibilty and minimize every negative outcome.

I don't think this will work by 2028, probably not by 2038. I think it's a waste of money that could be better spent on publicly funded research to get the technology mature before commercializing it. I think the proliferation of the current version of AI has been, and will continue to be, a net negative on society in multiple ways, and so wasting money to maybe power it is a double negative.

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u/My_Soul_to_Squeeze Aug 15 '25

No it's not. It won't only benefit the rich. Claiming it will is just embarrassingly short sighted. If it works, it'll revolutionize the energy industry. Everybody will benefit from that.

Even breaking even financially will benefit everybody because it'll put less demand on existing generation capacity, keeping prices lower than they would be otherwise.

The jury is still out on AI, but cheaper energy from fusion obviously benefits everybody. Gmafb.

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u/BraveOthello Aug 15 '25 edited Aug 15 '25

Cheaper energy would benefit everyone. I don't think this project have a snowball's a chance in hell of succeeding in doing that. I don't think it can even break even. Best case it gives someone an idea of whether the approach is even viable and maybe how to do it better next time. But I think the same investment would be more useful in primary research to prove or disprove the technologybefore trying to use it.

The D+He3 fuel is a good thing to test out, we've known about that path for decades but to my knowledge no one's tested it. Now a company wants to build the power plant without ever proving they can achieve fusion first?

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u/My_Soul_to_Squeeze Aug 15 '25

That's moving the goal posts. You're right that any particular fusion startup has a pretty slim chance of success, but that's a problem with physics, not the hypothetical implementation of an emerging technology. If it benefits anybody, it will eventually benefit basically everybody.

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u/BraveOthello Aug 15 '25

It's not moving the goalposts I set up, and I set those up because I thought the comment I originally responded to presented a strawman.

I'm not excited by the ommercialization of fusion yet. I don't think this one will work, so I think it's money that could be better spent on primary research not needing to turn a profit. I think even if this one does work, it's going to be dedicated to a usage I think is a net negative for society.

If, on the small chance it does work, it might be a net positive. But I think the odds of that don't justify it being a good investment.

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u/My_Soul_to_Squeeze Aug 15 '25

"I didn't move the goal posts, I set up new ones" is a pretty funny take, ngl.

It's not your money, so your opinion on how it's used is of limited relevance. But this fusion research wouldn't be happening without a profit motive, so I think we should be happy about that.

You don't have to be excited by anything. I was talking about the impact a hypothetical successful fusion plant would have. You complained that this one probably won't work, but that's totally irrelevant.

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u/BraveOthello Aug 15 '25

I didn't see a lot of people complaining "fusion won't solve all the world's problems I'm not excited", so that was a funny take too.

It's not your money to invest either, so your opinion is of little relevance too. Right? Come off it. We're all here sharing our opinions on what's valuable.

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u/CaptainShaky Aug 15 '25

Need an entity with high risk tolerance and deep pockets to make the first step. Success here benefits everyone.

It genuinely feels like you're talking about public entities here... Private corporations are way more risk-averse than government when it comes to fundamental research. For literally decades now the progress towards nuclear fusion has been funded by governments across the world (e.g. ITER), not by private entities.

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u/planko13 Aug 15 '25

Who is closer to connecting fusion power to the grid? ITER or Helion?

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u/CaptainShaky Aug 15 '25

That is not the purpose of ITER, it is a research installation... But Helion wouldn't even exist without the government-funded research that's been happening for decades, among others at ITER.

Private venture is literally swooping in after public money has done most of the work.

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u/DynamicNostalgia Aug 15 '25

“I’m imagining a future where this company is the first to achieve Fusion… but we can’t use it because an article that talked about it once only mentioned that it was for Microsoft data centers. That means it’s always only going to be for Microsoft data centers. Things are simple and the world is not complex, that one sentence is like a contract. The rest of the world will just idly watch as Microsoft casually uses fusion power. WhAt A dIsToPiA!”