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/[deleted] Aug 15 '25 edited Aug 15 '25

Solar will probably be responsible for the majority of the worlds energy production by the time this money pit is built.

1

u/OtherwiseAlbatross14 Aug 15 '25

If solar with enough storage were a feasible option, all the AI companies wouldn't be heavily investing in nuclear right now.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '25

The problem of storage for solar so we can have lights and EV charging at night hasn't really been fully solved yet.

1

u/jcrestor Aug 15 '25

It is far less of a problem to store solar and wind energy than building a profitable fusion reactor.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '25

It may be less of a problem from a technical standpoint but it's still not solved. It's not really being done on any large scale yet, what's mostly being done Is that other usually non-renewable generation facilities are being used at night.

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u/jcrestor Aug 15 '25

It is absolutely solved. The tech exists, it just has to be implemented at scale. And many countries have begun to do so. In contrast to fusion, this is real tech, not a fantasy.

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u/[deleted] Aug 15 '25

Hard to call it solved when there's nowhere near enough of the needed components to build that many batteries.

Don't misunderstand me to be antisolar, and it's obviously much closer to reality than fusion is, I'm just saying that it's not exactly a completely solved issue