3 ms·

I'm no expert, but 15 years seem like an awfully small timeframe to produce a commercial reactor with a still unproven technology.

sgt101 9y ago
The argument is that they can make it small - room sized, with the new magnates. This reduces the every one of the subsidiary technical challenges to doable, basically you don't need big machines to dig big holes, you don't need 30000m^3 of concrete here, there and everywhere, you don't need a supply chain that involves 20000 people in 40 countries... so the co-ordination costs go away as well. It's pretty like the idea with data analytics or software ; if you can do an iteration / update by yourself in 10 minutes you will be able to solve the problem (for reasonable problems) in a few weeks for sure. If you need to spend a month assembling the data and compiling the code before you can commit a change you are simply not going to ever be able to make progress.
- vidanay 9y ago
  I think the "for reasonable problems" is the question for fusion.
  - sgt101 9y ago
    I have no idea of the value of my impression of the work - I saw the MIT PI present on this a year ago and have read up since, but well - that's it. However, I think that they think that the main challenges are solved as per ITER and that they are on a mission to resolve the engineering; and this is the way to do that. They don't think that there is anything left which is a show stopper apart from the need to trouser $50m++ to build the proof of concept.
boomboomsubban 9y ago
It took sixteen years from our realization that fission based power was possible to the first plant running. Seems possible.
lucozade 9y ago
The trick is not to be too precise about when you start counting from
tim333 9y ago
I figure they could probably build a reactor that produces power - the MIT design looks like it would work if built. Making it profitable without government subsidy is a whole different thing though which I doubt will happen in 15 years. There are a lot of problems to deal with eg see "Fusion reactors: Not what they’re cracked up to be" https://thebulletin.org/fusion-reactors-not-what-they%E2%80%99re-cracked-be10699 https://thebulletin.org/fusion-reactors-not-what-they%E2%80%... There's also a Reddit discussion of that saying the problems aren't quite so bad https://www.reddit.com/r/fusion/comments/67rqqg/fusion_reactors_not_what_theyre_cracked_up_to_be/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fusion/comments/67rqqg/fusion_react... If I were a politician I'd vote for subsidising the thing by say buying the electricity at 30c/kWh to advance human understanding, so I think it could be built. I think MIT estimated $5bn + to build a 200MW generator which is not a huge amount in government terms.

sgt101 9y ago

The argument is that they can make it small - room sized, with the new magnates. This reduces the every one of the subsidiary technical challenges to doable, basically you don't need big machines to dig big holes, you don't need 30000m^3 of concrete here, there and everywhere, you don't need a supply chain that involves 20000 people in 40 countries... so the co-ordination costs go away as well. It's pretty like the idea with data analytics or software ; if you can do an iteration / update by yourself in 10 minutes you will be able to solve the problem (for reasonable problems) in a few weeks for sure. If you need to spend a month assembling the data and compiling the code before you can commit a change you are simply not going to ever be able to make progress.

vidanay 9y ago
I think the "for reasonable problems" is the question for fusion.
- sgt101 9y ago
  I have no idea of the value of my impression of the work - I saw the MIT PI present on this a year ago and have read up since, but well - that's it. However, I think that they think that the main challenges are solved as per ITER and that they are on a mission to resolve the engineering; and this is the way to do that. They don't think that there is anything left which is a show stopper apart from the need to trouser $50m++ to build the proof of concept.

boomboomsubban 9y ago

It took sixteen years from our realization that fission based power was possible to the first plant running. Seems possible.

lucozade 9y ago

The trick is not to be too precise about when you start counting from

tim333 9y ago

I figure they could probably build a reactor that produces power - the MIT design looks like it would work if built. Making it profitable without government subsidy is a whole different thing though which I doubt will happen in 15 years. There are a lot of problems to deal with eg see "Fusion reactors: Not what they’re cracked up to be" https://thebulletin.org/fusion-reactors-not-what-they%E2%80%99re-cracked-be10699 https://thebulletin.org/fusion-reactors-not-what-they%E2%80%... There's also a Reddit discussion of that saying the problems aren't quite so bad https://www.reddit.com/r/fusion/comments/67rqqg/fusion_reactors_not_what_theyre_cracked_up_to_be/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fusion/comments/67rqqg/fusion_react... If I were a politician I'd vote for subsidising the thing by say buying the electricity at 30c/kWh to advance human understanding, so I think it could be built. I think MIT estimated $5bn + to build a 200MW generator which is not a huge amount in government terms.