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>We aren't on the home stretch, but that isn't a reason to stop, slow down, or even not speed up. Agreed, I'm very pro fusion but at this point you have compan
by adamsmith143 5y ago
>We aren't on the home stretch, but that isn't a reason to stop, slow down, or even not speed up.
Agreed, I'm very pro fusion but at this point you have companies like Commonwealth Fusion that have raised multibillion dollar amounts on their own so maybe that's a more viable path than DOE/NSF Grants to Universities?
- willis936 5y agoIt is quite exciting to see CFS' series B funding. I worry about commercializing too soon because companies need to turn a profit. The publicly funded fusion scientists and engineers are quite good at what they do and could efficiently spend money on research and new machines until the blueprint for a reactor is ready. The benefit of public programs is that they don't need to make quarterly profits and some problems are bigger than a year. CFS has a path to be profitable even if they don't make a blueprint for reactors. Research needs high field magnets and they're positioning themselves to be the supplier of them.
- adamsmith143 5y ago> I worry about commercializing too soon because companies need to turn a profit Is this really the case though when Tech Startups routinely go public without ever turning a profit and with no clear vision on how they eventually will?
- willis936 5y agoI don't fully understand it, but I think the answer is usually some form of "attention economy". Also, I'm not sure how often startups get 1.8 Bn USD in series B. That sounds like a lot.
- ncmncm 5y agoIt is, anyway, a lot to waste. It is not unusual for very large investments to yield zero. Any Tokamak effort will necessarily be one of those, because operating a plant would cost far more than the similarly-rated fission plant, and those are markedly uncompetitive. But none of the money will vanish: every penny goes into a ready pocket.
- willis936 5y agoWhat an awfully easy to make take that offers no insight.
- ncmncm 5y agoIt explains how those boondoggles get the investment they do. A nuke industry without pervasive corruption would have very different economics. But corruption is very hard to root out, particularly when it has instead been made wholly legal.