4 ms·

Completely agree with this. This is throwing money at an interesting problem with an incredibly low outcome of success. Given the amount of public dollars alr

Completely agree with this. This is throwing money at an interesting problem with an incredibly low outcome of success. Given the amount of public dollars already put into this without success and the amount of money they are going to have too continually pour into this to make it successful it seems like a serious hail mary. Even if they do have the brightest minds working on it. I wish them the greatest success - we need this. To your point it's an incredibly privileged investing position to be in and to be honest - he can take a lot of the gains he has already had in relatively uninteresting companies that have been successful and hope to something truly remarkable for humanity.

jacquesm 5y ago
s/outcome/probability/
chadash 5y ago
> This is throwing money at an interesting problem with an incredibly low outcome of success. But an incredibly high return if successful. Nuclear fission (edit... accidentally wrote fusion here), if we can figure it out, is potentially the golden ticket to reducing our carbon footprint. Unlike geothermal energy, it can be done anywhere. Unlike wind or solar, it can be done at any time. It doesn't have the safety issues associated with fusion, nor does it generate waste products nearly as hard to deal with. Right now, carbon emissions breakdown in the US are broken down by: Transportation - 29% Electricity production - 25% Industry - 23% Commercial and Residential - 13% Agriculture - 10% Land use and forestry - 12% By moving to fusion, you can all but eliminate fossil fuel usage in the first two (and largest) categories. You can knock a large chunk out of the next two categories, where much of the emissions is due to burning fossil fuels for energy (heating, etc.). You'll still have emissions from agriculture and land use, but you can clamp down on most emissions in a big way. If you can figure out fusion and get it working on an industrial scale level on par with other forms of electricity production (which is a big if), then you'll have achieved a monumental technological leap and you'll make a lot of money while at it.
- boringg 5y ago
  Listen I'm all for these kinds of investments. Its very high risk and potentially a high reward. I think likely the reward will be some technology development in the process that helps something else but not in the direction they currently are going. Thats just the way things typically shake out. Especially grandiose plans like this. They need to prove that the research works to actually produce net electricity - which requires a scientific breakthrough. Next after a research breakthrough - they need to make this a product -- then a commercial product. During that process they need to make this a commercially viable economically viable product that can compete against other forms of energy in the marketplace. They will need to get through serious regulatory requirements. And remember that they need to make this commercially viable to produce electricity at a very low cost - its super competitive at baseload power cost range. By the time this comes to market the energy landscape will be completely different. It is already moving incredibly quickly. Like I've said on other post - we need these kinds of moonshots but let's not have them distract against the other important work of deploying already commercially ready technology into the market.
  - DennisP 5y ago
    Helion might not work out like they hope but if it does, it'll use aneutronic fuel, producing only 6% of its energy as neutron radiation. That's low enough that they don't need a heat cycle, which gives them a shot at a pretty low cost per kWh. I think they've estimated four cents, which is pretty good for scalable, dispatchable power without batteries. The UK recently announced a regulatory regime for fusion, with significantly lighter requirements than fission since safety and proliferation issues are much less troublesome. That would be even more the case for aneutronic fusion. Possibly the US would be silly enough to get in the way but many other countries certainly wouldn't, including China.
    - throw9000 5y ago
      > Possibly the US would be silly enough to get in the way but many other countries certainly wouldn't, including China. As an American this is accurate and depressing.
Veedrac 5y ago
> an incredibly low outcome of success Why d'you think? Helion has been super successful with their demos so far. The timelines are optimistic but I don't see why you'd expect the technology itself to fail with, say, >80% probability.
- boringg 5y ago
  That's quite bullish. If it is an 80% probability of success I'd write a check myself if I could get in on the deal.
  - Veedrac 5y ago
    You misread my comment. 80% was in reference to a probability of failure. I think any chance of success 1:4 or greater can't exactly be called “incredibly low [probability] of success”, and even 1:4 seems unduly pessimistic.

jacquesm 5y ago

s/outcome/probability/

chadash 5y ago

> This is throwing money at an interesting problem with an incredibly low outcome of success. But an incredibly high return if successful. Nuclear fission (edit... accidentally wrote fusion here), if we can figure it out, is potentially the golden ticket to reducing our carbon footprint. Unlike geothermal energy, it can be done anywhere. Unlike wind or solar, it can be done at any time. It doesn't have the safety issues associated with fusion, nor does it generate waste products nearly as hard to deal with. Right now, carbon emissions breakdown in the US are broken down by: Transportation - 29% Electricity production - 25% Industry - 23% Commercial and Residential - 13% Agriculture - 10% Land use and forestry - 12% By moving to fusion, you can all but eliminate fossil fuel usage in the first two (and largest) categories. You can knock a large chunk out of the next two categories, where much of the emissions is due to burning fossil fuels for energy (heating, etc.). You'll still have emissions from agriculture and land use, but you can clamp down on most emissions in a big way. If you can figure out fusion and get it working on an industrial scale level on par with other forms of electricity production (which is a big if), then you'll have achieved a monumental technological leap and you'll make a lot of money while at it.

boringg 5y ago
Listen I'm all for these kinds of investments. Its very high risk and potentially a high reward. I think likely the reward will be some technology development in the process that helps something else but not in the direction they currently are going. Thats just the way things typically shake out. Especially grandiose plans like this. They need to prove that the research works to actually produce net electricity - which requires a scientific breakthrough. Next after a research breakthrough - they need to make this a product -- then a commercial product. During that process they need to make this a commercially viable economically viable product that can compete against other forms of energy in the marketplace. They will need to get through serious regulatory requirements. And remember that they need to make this commercially viable to produce electricity at a very low cost - its super competitive at baseload power cost range. By the time this comes to market the energy landscape will be completely different. It is already moving incredibly quickly. Like I've said on other post - we need these kinds of moonshots but let's not have them distract against the other important work of deploying already commercially ready technology into the market.
- DennisP 5y ago
  Helion might not work out like they hope but if it does, it'll use aneutronic fuel, producing only 6% of its energy as neutron radiation. That's low enough that they don't need a heat cycle, which gives them a shot at a pretty low cost per kWh. I think they've estimated four cents, which is pretty good for scalable, dispatchable power without batteries. The UK recently announced a regulatory regime for fusion, with significantly lighter requirements than fission since safety and proliferation issues are much less troublesome. That would be even more the case for aneutronic fusion. Possibly the US would be silly enough to get in the way but many other countries certainly wouldn't, including China.
  - throw9000 5y ago
    > Possibly the US would be silly enough to get in the way but many other countries certainly wouldn't, including China. As an American this is accurate and depressing.

Veedrac 5y ago

> an incredibly low outcome of success Why d'you think? Helion has been super successful with their demos so far. The timelines are optimistic but I don't see why you'd expect the technology itself to fail with, say, >80% probability.

boringg 5y ago
That's quite bullish. If it is an 80% probability of success I'd write a check myself if I could get in on the deal.
- Veedrac 5y ago
  You misread my comment. 80% was in reference to a probability of failure. I think any chance of success 1:4 or greater can't exactly be called “incredibly low [probability] of success”, and even 1:4 seems unduly pessimistic.