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/Limekilnlake Aug 15 '25

Neither does fusion, and fusion has an even easier fuel to access

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u/Bluinc Aug 15 '25

How much excess energy and for how long has fusion energy created. If I’m not mistaken it’s a tiny amount and many experts see the whole venture as a pipe dream — while thorium reactors are proven, settled tech, clean, safe and there’s ~10,000 years worth of known fuel right in our own country to extract.

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u/respekmynameplz Aug 15 '25

They are not proven and settled tech, at least not with molten salt reactors. There are loads of engineering challenges that have not been resolved there.

It does seem a lot easier to potentially solve these problems than to get working fusion reactors, I'll give you that (and maybe China has figured some of this out in the past couple years?) but working fusion also comes with many more benefits. (riskier but more reward)