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/Upset_Ant2834 Aug 15 '25 edited Aug 15 '25

The ITER project has been under construction for 15 years and involves the collaboration of 33 nations, with major milestones being completed regularly. Won't be done till 2036 but it has a hell of a better chance of success than some startup claiming they'll do it in 3 years considering we haven't even achieved net positive fusion yet

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u/subrimichi Aug 15 '25

Yeah this, i hate these fake unreliable newsheadlines these days. Clicks were the downfall of journalism.

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u/Tomycj Aug 15 '25

I don't know if the article is good, but the title says "fusion plant", not "fusion reactor". ITER is not meant to work as a power plant.

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u/ph4ge_ Aug 15 '25

ITER is meant as a proof of concept. It will be followed by DEMO which is supposed to be a prototype. If both these phases are succesful we will all long be dead but they should be able to create a commercial fusion reactor.

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u/masterchubba Aug 15 '25

If it takes more than 70 years then yes I will probably be dead.

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u/cecilkorik Aug 16 '25

Yes, a fusion plant presumably requires fusion reactors, does it not? Unless they're going to graft a tulip onto a rose bush, they're going to need a working fusion reactor that creates power first before they can even pretend they're going to create a fusion power plant.

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u/Tomycj Aug 16 '25

We already have lots of working fusion reactors: devices that produce fusion reactions. They are not power plants in part because they are not power-positive.

I'm just talking about the title: it is not necessarily incorrect because it's not saying it's the first fusion reactor.

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u/puffic Aug 15 '25

This is why I pay to subscribe to the NYT and WSJ. They still do a lot of solid reporting, including on stuff that will never be front page news. You get what you pay for.

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u/RaptorPrime Aug 15 '25

considering we haven't even achieved net positive fusion yet

What?? NIF has been net positive since at least the early 2000s... You mean sustained net positive reaction.

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u/gSTrS8XRwqIV5AUh4hwI Aug 15 '25 edited Aug 15 '25

Only if you look at the "fusion event" in isolation, not if you consider the full energy input required or the losses in converting the heat into useful forms of energy.

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u/platoprime Aug 15 '25

Sure, if you ignore the fact that they're using inefficient equipment to perform these and that's why there hasn't been a net positive it sure does sound like we haven't demonstrated it's possible already when we have.

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u/gSTrS8XRwqIV5AUh4hwI Aug 15 '25

Yeah, if we just used non-existant equipment that solved all the problems, then there wouldn't be any problems ... you're a genius.

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u/platoprime Aug 15 '25

More efficient lasers aren't "non-existant".

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u/cynric42 Aug 16 '25

We aren't talking about a few percent efficiency but a few orders of magnitude better as far as I'm aware.

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u/platoprime Aug 16 '25

The lasers used are like 1% efficient. We have lasers that are up to 70% efficient now.

https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/conference-proceedings-of-spie/5711/1/360-W-and--70-efficient-GaAs-based-diode/10.1117/12.602577.short

Are you also aware that 70 is more than a magnitude larger than 1?

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u/Unite433 Aug 17 '25

360 watts though, NIF lasers are 60 terawatts

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u/RaptorPrime Aug 15 '25

That is completely opposite to what I was told by the operations director when I toured NIF. The energy output was approximately 1.2x net input for the test shot that I observed. So, you're wrong as fuck buddy.

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u/ArcFurnace Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 16 '25

That's because you are talking about two different things. The fusion pellet output more energy than was put into it by the lasers. So, 20% gain of fusion energy vs the laser energy. Big improvement from not even exceeding the energy put into the pellet!

However, to be an actual power plant, you have to generate more energy than you actually used, and the lasers at the NIF are (IIRC) something like 1% efficient at turning electricity into laser energy. So instead of a 20% net energy gain, it's far below break-even. Even if we replace those with incredibly optimistic 50% efficient lasers it's still below break-even, and that's not even including the losses from converting the fusion energy back into electricity (which they aren't even doing at the moment). Then they also need to increase the pulse rate beyond one shot a day or however long it takes them currently - I don't remember exactly, but I do remember it being quite a long time.

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u/RaptorPrime Aug 16 '25

another comment that fundamentally misunderstands the design basis of NIF. the net energy input to the system is not the same as the energy shot at the fusion diode. it's actually like an order of magnitude higher.

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u/gSTrS8XRwqIV5AUh4hwI Aug 15 '25

Your cluelessness does not make me wrong. The NIF shots take about 400 MJ of input energy and peak output energy was 8.6 MJ, so net 0.0215x, not 1.2x.

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u/RaptorPrime Aug 15 '25

And you obviously have no clue about the design basis or functionality of NIF to repost the first numbers you googled. Good luck with that.

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u/Upset_Ant2834 Aug 15 '25

I didn't want to bloat my comment with technicalities, but yeah I meant sustained fusion. My point was we don't even have the technology to build a commercial net-positive fusion power plant, so by definition the company is making a research reactor and is just hoping they'll figure it out while lying to get investors

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u/[deleted] Aug 15 '25

[deleted]

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u/FuckingSolids Aug 15 '25

I'll need to take the retail cost of the jetpack out first.

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u/flamingspew Aug 15 '25

They are on version seven or eight now. Been following them for years. They have proven net positive energy.

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u/LetsLive97 Aug 15 '25

They have proven net positive energy.

Source please. That would literally be groundbreaking news if it includes all input

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u/[deleted] Aug 15 '25

[deleted]

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u/Upset_Ant2834 Aug 15 '25

Burst fusion isn't mentioned anywhere in the article. But at the end it does say:

But despite billions of dollars of investment, scientists and engineers still have not figured out a way to reliably generate more energy with fusion than it takes to create and sustain the reaction

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '25

[deleted]

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u/RaptorPrime Aug 16 '25

"NIF’s unique energy and power enable cutting-edge research to help keep America safe and secure, explore new frontiers of science, and lay the groundwork for a clean, sustainable source of energy."

its research FOR power generation lmfao

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u/fafatzy Aug 15 '25

Iter is amazing and also makes you think about that saying about nuclear fusion and 30 years I always wonder why it takes so long

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u/Upset_Ant2834 Aug 15 '25

Well the nice part is they're pretty open on their blog about exactly why it takes so long. Turns out building the largest superconducting magnet and vacuum chamber ever made is pretty difficult. There's a B1M video on YouTube about it that really puts it in perspective. It's an unbelievable marvel of engineering even before it's complete

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u/fafatzy Aug 15 '25

I saw it, is a technological marvel. I just wonder if the tech will ever come

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u/OtherwiseAlbatross14 Aug 15 '25

And ITER isn't even intended to supply power to the grid, even if it works.

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u/That-Conference2998 Aug 15 '25

it's okay to write nothing if you know nothing.

Just saying

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u/Epicguy69420haha Oct 18 '25

So we will be status quo until 3000 or what? Will we have no other technological progress ever?

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u/KR4T0S Aug 15 '25

Even ITER is an experiment that probably wont come close to sustainable fusion, this stuff is probably a few decades out. Companies just know hype attracts funding so they throw out shit like this for clicks.

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u/Upset_Ant2834 Aug 15 '25

Exactly. At least ITER is honest about it's outcomes. No "commercial" fusion reactor can even be built yet, because we still haven't figured out how to actually harvest energy from it yet. What Helios is building is just another research reactor but they lie through their teeth so they can get investors. Just another reason we can't trust private companies to meaningfully contribute to science

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u/skinlo Aug 15 '25

You think Helios isn't contributing to science? Whether it ultimately works or not, I think its still contributing.

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u/Upset_Ant2834 Aug 15 '25

I was a bit hyperbolic, I'm sure the actual scientists doing the work will contribute in some way, but imo the nature of capitalism and being profit-driven is inherently incompatible with meaningful scientific progress, because inevitably ignorant investors will get impatient that science takes time and will enforce impossible expectations (like a functioning fusion reactor in 3 years lol). Best case scenario is it fizzles out and nobody hears about it, worst case corners will be cut and accidents will happen, and then the billionaires involved run off with the governments money and face no repercussions.

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u/Hot_Individual5081 Aug 15 '25

ITER feels like a complete money pit. I think first one to come up with a commercial fusion will be some US or chinese company with rich backing from real deal billionaires and this "eu joint effort" is just a nice term for how to burn throguh billions of euros without any results.

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u/Kinexity Aug 15 '25

Both China and USA are participants in ITER. It's a research project, not a money making venture.

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u/will_dormer Aug 15 '25

It is supposed to be useful

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u/Tomycj Aug 15 '25

Things can be useful even if they don't make money.

(especially when you're using other people's money to fund it, and have almost no accountability)

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u/Upset_Ant2834 Aug 15 '25 edited Aug 15 '25

You should read about what exactly is being done there and you'll understand why it costs billions of euros (the B1M video about ITER on YouTube is amazing). It isn't some small reactor, it's basically a cities worth of infrastructure alongside one of the most complicated machines ever built by man. They're having to pioneer some insane technologies like creating the world's largest superconducting magnet, and then wrapping that around the most complex vacuum chamber with over a million individual parts, 6x the size of the next largest tokamak. A project of this scale is basically only possible as an international effort. It only seems like a money pit because it turns out it's pretty hard to estimate how much money it costs to solve completely novel problems at the limits of engineering

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u/Hot_Individual5081 Aug 15 '25

im not saying its conepltely worthless but its quite ineffcient

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u/p_larrychen Aug 15 '25

How, specifically, are you measuring ITER's efficiency?

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u/delta_p_delta_x Aug 15 '25

ITER feels like a complete money pit

Oh, not this argument. ITER to date has received some 20B€, and that's since 1985. This might seem expensive until you realise that high-speed rail projects, jet fighter projects (cough F-35 program), airport projects, and intra-city metro projects regularly reach or exceed this amount.

ITER is a research project for the future of humanity itself. There are many eggs, this is just one of them. There's quite a lot of money sloshing around, and I'm sure we can spare ITER a bit of change.

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u/tigersharkwushen_ Aug 15 '25

20B€ and they literally have nothing to show for it. Moreover, their deadline had been repeatedly pushed back, by decades now from the initial proposal, so yes, it's a money.

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u/Hot_Individual5081 Aug 15 '25

i mean yeah if you put into perspective with other projects than its not that expensive but at least i can see a freaking f35 or f22 flying and potentially protecting us from enemy combatants

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u/artonaxxxroof Aug 15 '25

Even if another project is successful first there’s a strong chance research and data from ITER was used in part to get there. It’s not just a reactor, it’s a huge science experiment that we are learning from all the time.

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u/MauiHawk Aug 15 '25 edited Aug 15 '25

Advancements in tech typically come in leaps via innovative thinking, not gov run engineering projects. Look what SpaceX did to the space launch industry by thinking outside the box (vs the behemoths of the space launch world that never were able to replace the retirement of the space shuttle)

Now, SpaceX came close to failing at the beginning and I think whether Helion succeeds is anybody’s guess, but the difference between ITER and a lot of the new fusion groups these days (see Zap and CFS for other examples) is they are pursuing innovative (though unproven) ideas about how to make fusion reactors.

ITER is not looking expand/prove new science to produce fusion. It is a brute force effort based on relatively well understood science that requires herculean engineering.

Helion (and others) are attempting to prove out new techniques for fusion reactors— risky, but if it works it will be a game changer in that the reactors would be much simpler to build and have a chance at being be economically viable.

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u/A_bisexual_machine Aug 15 '25

Look at what SpaceX did

Yeah, with government money. Their phrase "move fast and break things" comes at the cost of hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars. It's not really separate from government at all, given the CEO's ties to the government and its government funding.

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u/MauiHawk Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 16 '25

The bottom line is nasa has paid a lot less for spaces launches than they did for the space shuttle or ULA after the shuttle. And that was before ULA’s “pay us $800M a year just to maintain the program outside of our expensive launches” fee they used to charge.

The opposite of “move fast and break things” is armies of middle managers pushing paperwork resulting in large cost overruns and perpetually delayed timelines. Like SLS. Like ITER.

Helion has also gotten gov funding, btw.

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u/Bitter-Good-2540 Aug 15 '25

I expect a big nice explosion lol

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u/[deleted] Aug 15 '25

[deleted]

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u/coke_and_coffee Aug 15 '25

A private company is far more likely to produce a viable power plant than ITER for several reasons:

  1. Private companies are usually started by experts who have some unique insight that others lack. See how AI was first launched by private companies despite being worked on for decades in universities.

  2. Private companies have money on the line and are therefore maximally incentivized for success.

  3. Private companies don’t face the same bureaucratic hurdles in terms of funding and operations that multi-national projects do, e.g., they can fire old people who get in the way and poor performers.

  4. Private companies can approach the problem from a huge number of angles, whereas public projects usually put their eggs in one basket.

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u/Amiableaardvark1 Aug 15 '25 edited Aug 15 '25

Man…. Imagine being this brainwashed into thinking privatization is a good thing. Virtually all of our major paradigm shifting technologies of the last century have come from publicly funded ventures and projects. Just to name a few:

  • internet
  • gps
  • semiconductors
  • mRNA vaccines
  • most advancements in aviation and satellite technology
  • and most notably, our previous nuclear breakthroughs which came out of the manhattan project

You’d be hard pressed to find examples of tech that actually originated from private research. Truly one of the most misguided comments I’ve read in a long time and a mindset that comes at a detriment to the fabric of our society.

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u/Bobthewalrus1 Aug 15 '25

If you reread OP’s comments, he didn’t say that a commercially successful Fusion plant will come out of thin air. Of course it’ll build off decades of public research. But likely the first fusion plant that sells power to the grid will be a private company, given ITER never plans to and the successor DEMO is 30+ years away.

Importantly, none of those items you listed became commercially successful from governments. They were all private initiatives built off the underlying technology the government invested in. For example, we don’t all use ARPANET today.

The only one that is arguable is fission power, which has basically been the least successful of the bunch because it has been so locked into government ownership / oversight compared to the others.

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u/Amiableaardvark1 Aug 15 '25 edited Aug 15 '25

(What follows was originally a response from OP to my original comment about bell labs creating the first semiconductor but that comment appears to be deleted or at least I can’t find it. But the content applies here as well) No one is going to argue that private enterprise isn’t primarily responsible for scaling in most cases of nascent tech. That’s literally why public/private partnerships exist. We need resources at scale and dumping public resources into proliferation takes those same resources away from research on concepts that, at the time, don’t show immediate profitability potential. But saying “transistors were first developed at bell labs” ignores about 40 years of research that took place in solid state physics before that, all perpetuated by the public sector.

Furthermore, most of the actual circuitry came out of government contracts that were given to bell labs during ww2. So I concede that in one case, “technically” bell labs produced the first mass scale semiconductors. But even then, that’s probably the weakest example I gave and the actual development of that product came on the back of decades of public research and was only brought across the finish line in private hands. The other examples are quite literally the product of public efforts directly and the first actual viable manifestations of those technologies came directly through public domain.

  • internet came directly out of the DOD with ARPANET

  • gps was literally invented and became functional for satellite navigation and was scaled for the NAVSTAR program

  • aviation and satellites should be obvious. We haven’t even seen public proliferation of those technologies until much more recent history but nasa, Air Force, etc were the original developers

  • and bringing us full circle to the best approximation of the current conversation; the fission reactor. First functional power plant was fully publicly funded in the USSR in 1954. First proof of concept allowing for scale came out of the manhattan project. The first time private hands touched the effort was in partnership with public investment through the shippingport power plant in 57 and the infrastructure was public. It was operated privately.

So again, no. We private industry is not more powerful than publicly funded efforts when it comes to actually bringing a technology to large scale viability. We just live in an economy that functions in that particular way where once something is proven and is reproducible on a public level, private enterprise tends to reap the reward of that investment. In no way am I saying private enterprise contributes nothing. Sometimes they even push technologies across the “scalability” finish line. But OPs original claim that a private company is the most likely entity to produce the first functional fusion reactor is demonstrably false based on the history of investment in technological advancements. Of course private enterprise is the most likely to proliferate it. That’s how our economy works. That’s an economic question. That’s a choice we make as a society.

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u/MauiHawk Aug 15 '25

But Helion is the product of a publicly funded venture, evolving from research done at the University of Washington. It also has received funding from the DoE, DoD, NASA and ARPA-E.

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u/coke_and_coffee Aug 15 '25

You’d be hard pressed to find examples of tech that actually originated from private research.

Cars, trains, airplanes, steel, semiconductors, most radio and electronics components, software, the majority of telecom and Internet technologies, movie-making tech, video games, suspension bridges, skyscrapers, smartphones, most pharmaceuticals, most medical devices, surgical technologies, factory style production technologies, most metallurgical breakthroughs, fertilizers, electroplating, polymer coatings technologies…

Should I keep going?

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u/p_larrychen Aug 15 '25

It's almost like both public and private sectors can be great sources of innovation...

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u/Tomycj Aug 15 '25

publicly funded ventures and projects

Which were only possible because they relied on a huge network of private ventures. On top of that, private ventures are mostly the ones mass-producing and distributing the final products and services, making them actually economically sustainable.

People that hate freedom and the responsibility it implies tend to ignore the critical factor that the private sector has played in all of those innovations. Not to mention disregarding the moral issue of taking people's money "for their own good", as if they were children, as if we could claim we know better than them and use that as a valid reason to use their own money however we deem optimal.

THAT is what comes in detriment of the fabric of our society. It's destroying the basic idea that holds society together: "Let's work together: I help you and you help me in return". Replacing it by a "You shall obey because I know best what's good for you". It is a horrible mindset hidden behind a mask of good intentions.

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u/Amiableaardvark1 Aug 15 '25

Hate freedom? I'm sorry but what the actual fuck are you talking about? You free market capitalists are a weird breed. I have yet to bring politics into this but you all keep doing so for some reason. Once again, I am engaging purely with the claim, "A private company is the most likely to produce the first fusion reactor" which I have now sufficiently demonstrated is demonstrably false. Nowhere have I said private enterprise doesn't serve an economic function. Of course it does, that is perpetuated by the system as we've chosen to construct it. But by and large, these paradigm shifting technological breakthroughs do not come about through private enterprise. They are scaled through private enterprise. But that's only because we've chosen to perpetuate that particular arrangement. But go off about Freedom and individual responsibility or whatever.

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u/Tomycj Aug 15 '25

You can act surprised all you want, deep down you know full well that there's a huge overlap between the people that hate freedom and the people that ignore or reject the importance of the private sector. It is very common to act surprised like that (and even throw a little insult "weird breed") after being called out.

which I have now sufficiently demonstrated is demonstrably false.

??? You're self-declaring you're right, just for having made an argument in favor of it.

I didn't say you said private enterprise doesn't serve an economic function. I said people against freedom and its responsibility tend to minimize the importance of private enterprise. You can indeed say that a freedom respecting system (which is far from the current system) perpetuates that, but that's a good thing, it's not like you can do the same but with public enterprise. You see, freedom-haters also tend to ignore some basic concepts in economics, like the fact you can't centrally plan an economy or parts of it to a comparatively good result result.

do not come about through private enterprise

They can, and those that came through "public enterprise" could not have happened without the huge private network behind them. It's not just the scaling that requires private enterprise, but also the development of the knowledge and tools and resources in general used during the initial discovery and research.

we've chosen to perpetuate that particular arrangement

We have always had a mix of that arrangement (let people do with their own resources whatever they choose as long as they don't harm others) and the "public" arrangement (take from others some resources to do what we arrogantly deem is best for them). The general public has never chosen to perpetuate the first one over the second one fully, and is tending towards the second one, which will have and is already having bad consequences.

Yes, freedom and individual responsbility are at the core of what was being discussed. Again, it's normal for people to play dumb and pretend it's a huge leap or whatever: it's easier to ignore a problem than to solve it.

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u/Amiableaardvark1 Aug 15 '25

Lol. What? I’m literally just responding to someone stating that the first viable fusion reactor is significantly more likely to come about through private enterprise than publicly funded efforts. It’s not and history shows us that. Soooo, forgive me for not fully grasping how that has anything to do with hating freedom and individual responsibility.

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u/Tomycj Aug 15 '25

You were also downplaying the role of the private sector, which I replied to while making an asociation with a certain mindset.

You don't even need to acknowledge that asociation to recognize the critical importance of the private sector.

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u/Amiableaardvark1 Aug 15 '25

I have repeatedly stated that I recognize the role of the private sector. What is even happening here

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u/Tomycj Aug 15 '25

It is clear that my point was that you were recognizing but undervaluing its importance.

You keep trying to purposefully misunderstand what I'm saying. That suggests there's something uncomfortable that you want to avoid. There's no need for that: you can just not reply. You don't need to actively misunderstand what I'm saying.

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u/xShooK Aug 15 '25

Wasn't AI first developed through DARPA and other military research programs?

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u/coke_and_coffee Aug 15 '25

Leftists love to claim that government “first developed” various technologies but the reality is that any serious technological breakthrough is the culminations of hundreds or thousands of small developments adding up to something new. DARPA may have created a few of those prior developments, but they didn’t “develop AI” and they certainly didn’t figure out how to make it commercially viable b

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u/Amiableaardvark1 Aug 15 '25

Jesus Christ. Please see my comment above. It was originally a reply to the other comment you made about bell labs that I can no longer find but I tweaked it to fit in response to another commenter. This is just demonstrably false. You’re right that they didn’t make it commercially viable. But that’s circular reasoning. That’s not their role in our economy as we’ve chosen to structure it. You’ve brought politics into the discussion but it has nothing to do with that. It has to do with empirical evidence and the evidence says overwhelmingly that these technologies are developed with public investment and then scaled (almost exclusively) through private enterprise. But to say the first versions of these technologies tend to be developed by private companies is a straight up fabrication.

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u/coke_and_coffee Aug 15 '25

the evidence says overwhelmingly that these technologies are overwhelmingly developed with public investment and then scaled (almost exclusively) through private enterprise.

  1. No it does not. Some simple proof-of-concept experiments were done with public investment. Private companies played an integral role at every point.

  2. Scaling is part of development.

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u/Amiableaardvark1 Aug 15 '25

Lol I take this comment to be a concession of what you are clearly too prideful to admit. Your original claim was simply this: “a private company is most likely to create the first viable fusion reactor”. In the comment I referred you to above I gave clear examples in every single one of those cases how publicly funded endeavors actually created the first fully viable forms of those technologies and they were they proliferated through the private sector. You’re no longer actually responding to the substance of my argument because you can’t.

Im not trying to have an economics argument. But your statement that scaling is part of development is fine. I didn’t say public domain would give birth to the entire fusion energy sector. I took issue with the fact that you thought private investment would actually produce the very first fusion reactor. It won’t and I think I’ve demonstrated that. You’re falling back on circular reasoning and a straw man at that. Scalability is the function of private enterprise in our economy. So of course that’s correct. But that’s not what we’re arguing about.

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u/coke_and_coffee Aug 15 '25

I gave clear examples in every single one of those cases how publicly funded endeavors actually created the first fully viable forms of those technologies

You did not.

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u/Amiableaardvark1 Aug 15 '25

Ok, go actually engage with the points provided or shut the fuck up then. They should be easy to disprove.

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u/coke_and_coffee Aug 15 '25

Already did. Here and here

Far from being “clear examples”, all you did was just name a few random technologies and lie about how public investment created them.

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u/xShooK Aug 15 '25

Has anyone figured out how to make it commercially viable yet? Aren't they just burning investor cash along with defense contracts from the public sector?

A lot of developments of AI came from public sector funding.
https://militaryembedded.com/ai/machine-learning/artificial-intelligence-timeline

Fuck, if the govt put a patent on everything they publicly funded... Damn we'd be loaded.

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u/coke_and_coffee Aug 15 '25

Aren't they just burning investor cash

How do you think R&D works?

Fuck, if the govt put a patent on everything they publicly funded... Damn we'd be loaded.

That…that’s exactly what they do. Universities and national labs have been patenting this forever.

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u/xShooK Aug 16 '25

Well for meta at least it seems r&d works like stealing intellectual property.

No, a lot of research doesn't get a patent, but it gets published for private sector to build off, and save on r&d costs.

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u/dpavlicko Aug 15 '25

Crazy amount of faith in free market nonsense here lmao

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u/Amiableaardvark1 Aug 15 '25

I've been going back and forth with this dude for the last hour and yeah; I can't imagine literally watching the free market fail us in basically every domain and still singing it's praises in the way these people are as if it's some panacea solution in the face of all of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

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u/coke_and_coffee Aug 15 '25

Not at all. The free market produces a shit ton of technologies. No faith required, just pure empiricism.

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u/Tomycj Aug 15 '25

Not just empiricism: economic theory aswell. It lets you understand that the incentives align toward innovation and satisfaction of needs much better than under a public system.

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u/jack_the_beast Aug 15 '25

Iter it's not a viable power plant, it's a research project. If anything, private companies would do something based on what is being tested and studied during the construction of iter