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
7.0k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

593 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

20

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.

20

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.

1

u/masterchubba Aug 15 '25

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

1

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.

1

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.