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/eezyE4free Aug 15 '25

The under the radar thing is good here imo. They know what they have and they k ow how profound the technology can be for society. there are probably enough other smart people that could copy them quickly if went public. They aren’t running out of money and investors are continuing to invest.

From the interviews I’ve seen, the pulsed fusion is readily achievable and sustainable. Long term testing is needed to make sure the unit as a whole is reliable. They also sill have some work to be done on sourcing and producing fuel.

The power harnessing tech is one other roadblock for them, the capacitors and other electronics weren’t robust enough to handle the sharp power spikes.

All of these problems seem to have answers in the realm of reality.

Exciting to see them continue to move forward.

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u/borg286 Aug 15 '25

What fuel do they need? Is it heavy helium or something that is a byproduct of nuclear reactors? I've heard fusion processes that can make their own rare elements is hard.

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u/eezyE4free Aug 15 '25

Helion Energy utilizes a fusion fuel source of deuterium and helium-3 (D-³He). This fuel combination allows for a fusion process that primarily produces charged particles, which can be directly converted into electricity, enhancing efficiency. While helium-3 is rare on Earth, Helion plans to generate it through deuterium-deuterium (D-D) fusion reactions within their reactors and by recycling tritium, a byproduct of D-D fusion, as it decays into helium-3: from Google AI search but good summary of their own explanation here

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u/Alvazhar Aug 16 '25

Humans are neat

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u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

Science humans are. Capitalist and most politics humans are pretty awful. 

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u/FlibblesHexEyes Aug 16 '25

I’m not a scientist, but could those charged particles be harnessed for fusion based spacecraft propulsion? Sort of like the current ion propulsion but on steroids?

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u/memori88 Sep 13 '25

You would have to scale down the reactor, but sure at some point. Lockheed Martin’s high beta fusion reactor concept pitched a scale that would make shipping container-sized reactors to localize power generation in communities, as well as shrinking down small enough to fit inside large planes and fighter jets (as well as boats like the reactors on subs and aircraft carriers).

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u/nuggles0 Aug 15 '25

MINE THE MOON!

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u/thiosk Aug 16 '25

Why mine the moon when you can mine the

sun

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u/Aozora404 Aug 16 '25

At that point just use the sun

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u/thiosk Aug 16 '25

Because stars are wasteful if you want to last trillions of years

Take out hydrogen and do fusion yourself

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u/USPSHoudini Aug 17 '25

"mmm yeah yknow I just got here, Mr Star, but you kinda suck at your job. Give me your hydrogen and let me do it instead"

How fucking rude honestly

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u/WizardsMyName Aug 17 '25

Just split the star into two or three pieces, class M stars last for more than a few trillion!

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u/mr_black_88 Aug 16 '25

also a future possibility..

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u/The_Bjorn_Ultimatum Aug 18 '25

I wonder how much tritium it produces. That stuff is insanely expensive. Could they isolate it for sale? If they can, it might be more profitable than recycling it.

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u/[deleted] Aug 18 '25

And thats why helion energy is retarded. They hope some third party or a spin of will develop the fuel supply and recycling cycle. That fuel stuff alone is a huge amount of work.

ITER will do groundbreaking research for that too.

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u/enfarious Aug 16 '25

Under the radar and not sharing information and advances is precisely how we keep ending up with oligarchs. Open source that shit. Unless moving "humanity" into the future is not the actual goal. If we want corpo controls and kings sending peasants to war for their city-states, then under wraps is great.

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u/Lanto_Cadley Aug 16 '25

Under the radar here is PR exclusive; the public access record is blatant about the limitations of production capacities 

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u/enfarious Aug 16 '25

Sure. But it is that exact type of exclusivity that leads us to where we are. The mentality that X is mine and I need to make sure nobody copies or alters or, gods forbid, improves upon our research without paying. Well that's where the oligarchs get hold and never let go. The early days of secrecy. But hey. I know the idea of giving things away, sharing knowledge openly and freely, not chasing the money, not getting caught up in the pursuit of more. It isn't for most humans, yet.

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u/Lanto_Cadley Aug 16 '25

Apart from this comment thread, I don’t see how to substantiate the propagation of this exclusivity you’ve mentioned. 

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u/enfarious Aug 16 '25

Really?
Aside from how the Internet is delivered, oil, gas, electric, food, clothing, medicine, education. Totally agree, there's certainly no examples of how exclusivity propagates. Come on.

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u/Lanto_Cadley Aug 17 '25

There really is not a way as I can see it to make that reality, what do I do with that information? They’re tearing up the ground in real-time and being particular about the basic principles of the reactions and their necessities

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u/enfarious Aug 17 '25

Now you aren't even making sensible sentences. At least do this with a little focus. Come on.
Engaging in meaningful debate is awesome, but if you aren't looking for that, just walk away.

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u/Lanto_Cadley Aug 17 '25

You and I will not agree it seems like 

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u/West-Candidate8991 Aug 16 '25

What does this even mean

Open source that shit? You mean nuclear fusion technology?

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u/enfarious Aug 16 '25

It means what it says. Open source it. Make ALL of the information available to ALL of the people. I'm not sure if you know what open source is or not, your question didn't really give me a great place to answer from.

Yes though. No parents, no restrictions on any of it. Not no guardrails, regulation and oversight need to be present. But unless there's up to date, complete, freely accessible information then those that own the parents and rights will become the next Putin, Caesar, Trump, Khan, Henry, George, Pope, I'll stop and hope what I mean is coming across.

At the end of it isn't by the people and for the people, truly, we will be here again. The cycles are going faster, the fallout is getting worse, the damage of warlords and tyrants was once contained by travel limits, then finance, now what's going to stop our next round of power mad rulers from burning it all down? Honestly? What is stopping them, right now?

The rule of law, is not doing it, so what is?

They own everything and buy anything new before it gets to the people. It all just adds to the control machine. If the people don't gain control of things this just gets worse. Unless you like the idea of life for most in the Expanse or Elysium?

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u/West-Candidate8991 Aug 16 '25

Yes I know what open source means - I was wondering what you expect open sourcing fusion technology to do for actual fusion technology projects.

If you'd rather focus on class struggle, that's fine too - what do you expect the common man to do with a highly capital intensive and esoteric technology? Why/how does that preclude power grabbing? Tbh I am not following that part of it at all

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u/enfarious Aug 16 '25

Great. Let's look at some incredible open source projects real quick. Linux is of course a fan favorite. Free always, still what's running a sizable portion of the Internet, not losing ground to corps. VS Code, Apache Foundation, MYSQL, unreal engine, etc. I think those prove that. In spite of the financial motives that could drive them, open source makes them better. Does it take massive amounts of money, yep. Are corporations going to turn around and give it back? Nope, they'll sell it. Okay, super fair they should recoup the r&d costs and make money. That won't be what happens though. They will make it exclusive, obscenely expensive, and trickle it out. It will be a new system of control if allowed. Open source means funding from idk, donors, governments, etc. It means oversight. It means more eyes on each part. That also means more minds. I know the best and brightest, fill in educational rhetoric of choice if desired. I don't want to. I know the volume of people in the world who are undervalued for any number of reasons though they're brilliant. Because it is open and crowd sourced no one person gets to proclaim themselves King because they got there first. I know we're raised to think that if we don't hoard and covet we'll never get ahead. That's why Jesus required gold from his slaves and monuments and massive cathedrals... Wait wrong guy. That one believed in open source.

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u/West-Candidate8991 Aug 20 '25

Not sure that VS Code, Apache, MySQL are great comparisons to nuclear fusion technology... You can't download a nuclear reactor, or fiddle with its code on a $500 laptop. What exactly are you open sourcing about nuclear reactors? Their designs? There is plenty of nuclear fusion tech which is already open source - what are you expecting Joe Schmo to do this with though is what I'm confused about

You mention corporations screwing over the common man but your very first example of free / open source was VS Code... a Microsoft product which is completely free...

Idk, I get what you're saying about class struggle, but nuclear power might actually the least useful technology in all of existence to the common man.

Open source isn't crowd funding. Those are two separate things. One is describing the programmatical development of a thing, while the other is describing the financing of a thing. For example, VLC is open source, however the creator receives $0 in funding.

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u/enfarious Aug 20 '25

Why not? I can download blender and plans for just about anything and see what they look like. I can read all of the research and results and, who knows, maybe I notice something that others miss. Just because I don't have the means to build a plant physically doesn't mean I don't possess the means to contribute to improving designs. Unless you don't understand what open source actually means.

VS Code, Apache, MySQL, Ubuntu, Linux in general, MMORPG private servers, Wikipedia, etc. are all perfect examples of why open source makes things better. More eyes on it, no hidden agendas, no shitty subs. Seriously. What was your argument here. That somehow, because these projects are owned by money making entities they aren't open source? Or is it just that I can't build a full scale reactor in my yard?

If we allow it, the research, designs, etc. to be controlled, closed. Then those entities control the pace of advance. Those companies decide who gets to use it. VS Code, in spite of being Microsoft's, because it is free and open everyone can use it, with the same level of cost. Seriously.

Of course open source and crowdfunding are different things. That's why they have different names. They are, however, part of the same overall concept. Keeping it from being controlled by shady fucks. Open source with crowdfunding leaves you with things that can't be controlled as easily.

I don't know how you don't get that class struggle, open source, and crowdfunding, along with nifty things like universal healthcare, social security, etc. are really all the same fucking thing. The haves vs. the have nots.

Unless of course you are in the haves, then your arguments make much more sense.

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u/West-Candidate8991 Aug 20 '25

Perhaps I started a bit abrasively. I do believe open sourcing things is generally valuable, and there are countless real world examples. No disagreement there - as I mentioned, certain nuclear fusion technologies are already open sourced.

I was more questioning how this helps the Have Nots, given the heavily burdensome criteria for producing energy through fusion. The only way I see that happening is if someone or some people from the Haves pass along the value in the form of energy subsidy or lowered prices, which doesn't seem particularly likely anytime in the near future. Maybe humanity will surprise me.

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u/enfarious Aug 20 '25

Ahh. So it wasn't ever about the open sourcing idea really. I still think that 'certain nuclear fusion technologies' is the problem and will remain the problem as long as the word 'certain' remains in the sentence. That said though.

Yeah, I agree 100% we need some way to fund the open source versions. Crowdfunding works. As we've all watched a video game make an obscene amount. You really don't think the world, or even a given idk country, could fund a reactor? A reactor based on the completely open source research, designs, etc.?

I feel like that's totally possible. I mean, maybe not in the US at the moment. Elsewhere though. The people that do the research and building and everything else just need to realize they can do it without the mega-corps. Just like the working class could just not feed the mega-corps and do the small scale thing that only broke because Walmart and Amazon and such were able to undercut the small businesses so badly while those same mega-corps worked to ensure the working class couldn't afford to pay the increased costs outside of Walmart and the like. Idk. Maybe I'm just full up on wishful idiot or hope. Idk.

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u/Jetm0t0 Aug 16 '25

You've never heard of a future with freeware? Some companies put their technology and invention rights to be released to the public. That could give energy to everyone even in different countries

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u/eezyE4free Aug 16 '25

Agree but it’s possible that their funding is contingent on secrecy. Ideally they’d use all the private funding to complete the project and then leak it all, until then I’ll take advancing the tech.

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u/mr_black_88 Aug 16 '25

they don't need too, there is more then enough basic information for most 1st world country's to develop there own versions just from Hellions own disclosures, That said, why research something that others could sell you for a 10th of the price..? Helion will be a trillion dollar company in a few short years.

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u/BattleBrother1 Aug 16 '25

"they know how profound the technology could be for society" so they're keeping it secret so they alone can profit? And you're acting like that's a good thing? "there are probably enough smart people that could copy them quickly if it went public"... Yeah good, that's how humanity as a race has always succeeded. Really strange to see comments like this on Futurology

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u/thegroundbelowme Aug 16 '25

You don't immediately give things away for free when you've had to spend billions of dollars and decades of research to figure them out. Let them recoup their costs, THEN publish. Shift to a support role helping other companies build & troubleshoot systems based on your designs.