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Nucor and Helion to Develop 500 MW Fusion Power Plant by 2030
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- avalys 3y agoThat’s nice, but seeing as they have not yet even demonstrated a machine that achieves energy breakeven, this seems like premature hype.
- whatshisface 3y agoIf you read the whole article it is something like, "yes we produce a huge amount of CO2, but we're investing in fusion energy to power our steel plants, so get off our backs for 7 years." Good luck to them though, steel plants are a great application for high power, continuous sources of energy that don't go away when the sun sets or the wind stops blowing.
- riffraff 3y agoIt would be nice but this reminds me of when Musk announced self driving cars in 2 years, 7 years ago[0]. ^0 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/686279251293777920 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/686279251293777920
- arcticbull 3y agoHe's announced it was one year away each of the last 10 years. [1] [1] https://futurism.com/video-elon-musk-promising-self-driving-cars https://futurism.com/video-elon-musk-promising-self-driving-...
- taylodl 3y agoI figure BYD is going to reveal the feature in an actual production car soon and blow everybody away.
- lm28469 3y agoDuring my first year of uni he already announced self driving car in three years. That was in 2012 edit: 2013, https://www.extremetech.com/cars/166826-tesla-motors-will-put-a-self-driving-car-on-the-road-within-three-years https://www.extremetech.com/cars/166826-tesla-motors-will-pu...
- giarc 3y ago1 year on Mars is 687 days. So 2 years on Mars is 3.7 years on Earth. So he's only slightly behind schedule. /s
- simne 3y agoHe just overestimate capabilities of computer inside Tesla. I'm now reading about Mercedes level 3 automated driving system. For me looks like, Daimler selling under-priced more powerful hardware, because for Daimler it is spare project (they could earn money on others), and with few times more RAM/FLOPs, they achieve better result. Plus, Daimler cheat rules, their conditions for usage automated system are significantly more limited than have Tesla. Unfortunately, Tesla cannot sell cars under-priced, and Tesla by definition whole world system. I'm not trying to advocate Musk, I'm Ukrainian and Musk said wrong things about Ukrainian war. But I must admit, just half year ago, I don't know what could do recent AI on my own computer.
- malchow 3y agoThe issue is that utilities spend more than 50% of their incremental operating expense getting that electron to you, not making/buying it in the first place. With that kind of cost-stacking, nuclear has little hope of competing with solar. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=50456 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=50456
- rubenv 3y agoBut more than half of the time the sun doesn't shine in my lovely country.
- toomuchtodo 3y agohttps://electrek.co/2023/10/03/worlds-first-artificial-energy-island/ https://electrek.co/2023/10/03/worlds-first-artificial-energ...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- KingOfCoders 3y agoI guess your country also has no oil? But gas stations? Magic, I know! Or it has oil and no chip industry but you have a computer? Mind blown. If your country has oil and a chip industry, chapéu!
- slibhb 3y agoMicrosoft disagrees with you: https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1705664458952151101 https://twitter.com/energybants/status/1705664458952151101 The "solar makes nuclear useless" line seems wrong. There are situations where solar isn't feasible (like in a spaceship or on a boat or submarine). There also may be space, reliability, and weather limitations that make solar less attractive. Finally, we're making solar panels very fast, but if we really go all-in, it will take a long time to build as many as we need. It's probably better to hedge our bets and build nuclear now. Re: Helion, I'm skeptical that their fusion reactor will ever be commercially viable but am not an expert and would love to be wrong. There's tons of Helion skepticism on the internet you can find if you look around.
- sebzim4500 3y agoCan someone familiar with Helion's plans explain how they are planning to make the deuterium fuse with the Helium-3 without making the deuterium fuse with itself to make tritium (and then D-T fusion etc.)? Also, where are they getting the helium-3 from in the first place?
- u320 3y agoBy making deuterium fuse with itself.
- sebzim4500 3y agoIsn't the whole point of their design that they aren't producing neutrons? What's the point of picking an aneutronic reaction if they are going to be having D-D and D-T fusion going on anyway?
- u320 3y agoThere will be barely any D-T fusion. Neutrons from D-D is a problem they will have to manage, but they have lower energy than D-T would have.
- sebzim4500 3y agoReally? Based on this[1] I was assuming that there would be more D-D fusion than D-He fusion and any resulting tritium nucleus would react almost immediately. Unless they are planning to use an insanely high temperature (like 1B K or something) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion#/media/File:Fusion_rxnrate.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion#/media/File:Fus...
- u320 3y agoNo the resulting T would not react immediately. This doesn't happen in existing D-T reactors, why would it happen here where the T/D ratio orders of magnitude lower? Most atoms in a cycle will never fuse.
- TechTechTech 3y agoIf you want to learn more about Helion, I recommend you watch this excellent video by Real Engineering https://youtu.be/_bDXXWQxK38 https://youtu.be/_bDXXWQxK38
- sebsebmc 3y agoFor a skeptic's response I recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vUPhsFoniw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vUPhsFoniw
- NortySpock 3y agoExcellent production quality, but I would have appreciated a bit more skepticism on the part of the host of Real Engineering. In particular, adding tritium to a fusing deuterium plasma does not just make all of the fusion a-neutronic. It just makes some percentage of the fusion events a-neutronic. So you're "just" adding a fuel additive that "just" changes the emissions somewhat Plus, apparently D-T fusion tends to release gamma rays -- I'm sure that will also be tricky to either convert into useful energy or shield against. I'm all in favor of trying, and I wish them luck, but it all smacked of a last minute publicity event to try to reassure investors that they were just one last upgrade away from producing power. I would suggest the (longer, dryer) fusion master class series by Dr. Matthew Moynihan https://youtu.be/BGu0cxrWWCA?si=lozD5-5MT1d-WEp9 https://youtu.be/BGu0cxrWWCA?si=lozD5-5MT1d-WEp9
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- foobarqux 3y agoThis is a PR stunt just like all the Boom Aerospace PR stunts years ago. Go read the comments on those old Boom posts that defended accusations that it was empty marketing.
- angst_ridden 3y agoI'm an old man, and pretty much my entire adult life, we've had fusion energy as being "just ten years away." Given this is the era of zero-consequence big lies, Nucor and Helion just shifting the horizon a bit to greenwash their operations. I'll see it when I believe it.
- placesalt 3y agoThe meme was that fusion was always 30 years away. This is obviously a lot closer, so if nothing else it doesn't deserve to be tarred with that brush.
- justin66 3y agoI cannot find it via google (so perhaps I'm remembering it wrong), but DoE or NSF created in the seventies - as part of some larger report - what I thought was a fairly well known chart guesstimating the time needed to develop working fusion energy generation, based on how much money was spent on the endeavor. The idea being that to do it relatively quickly we'd have to spend a pretty extravagant amount of money on research and development, and as the amount of money spent decreased the timeline extended further into the future. The unintended joke was/is that the U.S. has never spent anywhere close to the amount money the DoE estimated was needed to develop fusion power, so we haven't even tested the accuracy of the chart.
- whatshisface 3y agoHere is the chart. I wouldn't call $3B/year in 2012 dollars an extravagant amount of spending for a program, which is the level the authors call "moderate." https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._historical_fusion_budget_vs._1976_ERDA_plan.png https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._historical_fu...
- justin66 3y agoThanks. I'll have to brush up on the details of this report, it's been a while. I read recently that in total, the US has spent about $50 billion dollars on fusion energy generation research over the years. Regardless of the chart's usefulness, that puts us in the "fusion never" realm of the chart.
- jacamera 3y agoThis doesn't appear to be just a PR stunt to me given that Nucor is also directly investing $35 million in Helion as part of the agreement. If you're going to post the usual fusion naysayer comment I think you should at least address this part of the announcement as well.
- sebzim4500 3y agoThey wouldn't be the first company to spend $35M on marketing. They also don't specify the payment schedule, if they are supposed to give some of it in 5 years then there is a decent chance Helion won't exist once it is time to collect.
- KingOfCoders 3y agoOr payment/milestone criteria.
- foobarqux 3y agoNucor's net income for 2022 was $7.5 billion dollars. This isn't a meaningful investment.
- barryrandall 3y agoGiven the history of fusion announcements, I suspect the only thing people are willing to listen to is "we successfully delivered power from a fusion reactor fueled by $fuel to a paying customer in $place, and the only byproducts were $waste_product."
- runako 3y agoHelion likely will spend a portion of that $35 million purchasing steel for its reactors. This smells like a form of vendor financing.
- lucas_membrane 3y ago> $35 million Putting $35 million on the table to accomplish what has eluded us for so long and is supposed to sustain modernity for the next 1000 years is small enough to convince me that this is more promotion than promise. That's about about 1% of the cost of this steel mill, (https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/sep/17/us-steel-to-build-3-billion-mill-as-rally-endures/ https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/sep/17/us-steel-to-bu...) which is called a mini-mill in the link. Boxers have earned much more for a single fight; $35 million might buy a CEO for a year, but it is less than half the cost of a Hollywood film, of which we get a few each week, or of a 10-bedroom home on 5th Avenue.
- jacknews 3y agosure all they need are the $$$ to make it happen
- kogus 3y agoThe related WSJ article is here: https://www.wsj.com/business/a-futuristic-plan-to-make-steel-with-nuclear-fusion-2a18ac35 https://www.wsj.com/business/a-futuristic-plan-to-make-steel...) or, at the archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20230927135925/https://www.wsj.com/business/a-futuristic-plan-to-make-steel-with-nuclear-fusion-2a18ac35 https://web.archive.org/web/20230927135925/https://www.wsj.c...
- boringg 3y agoMy guess is they are looking for funding right now. Also add on 20 years to that statement at the earliest - wish it weren't so though.
- ngvrnd 3y agohttps://youtu.be/3vUPhsFoniw?si=L-c0aOqeyP4rvOLg https://youtu.be/3vUPhsFoniw?si=L-c0aOqeyP4rvOLg
- nabakin 3y agoAdditional resources for people who want to read or watch more on the subject: https://youtube.com/watch?v=wK5v1Nw98xs https://youtube.com/watch?v=wK5v1Nw98xs https://www.reddit.com/r/fusion/comments/10ohto9/livestream_video_by_improbable_matter_re_helion/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fusion/comments/10ohto9/livestream_... /u/ValAslanyan is Improbable Matter and he gets into some interesting debates about Helion https://www.reddit.com/r/fusion/comments/133ttne/can_we_talk_about_helion/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fusion/comments/133ttne/can_we_talk... https://www.reddit.com/r/fusion/comments/10g95m9/the_problems_with_helion_energy_a_response_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fusion/comments/10g95m9/the_problem...
- KingOfCoders 3y agoFrom 2018: "They are building full-scale, break-even-or-better that is to be ready in 2018. [...] If all goes well this year then Helion Energy machine that proves commercial energy gain would be a 50 Megawatt system built in 2021." https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/10/helion-energy-got-funding-for-possible-breakeven-fusion-device-this-year.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/10/helion-energy-got-fund... When people stop believing you, just double down. Not 50MW in 2021, but 500MW in 2030. In 2027 they will announce a 5GW plant in 2035.
- johntb86 3y ago> David indicated a breakeven fusion machine would need about $35 million in funding. Seattle Business reports that Helion has raised the money and will complete this targeting breakeven machine this year. > Nucor is making a direct investment of $35 million in Helion to accelerate fusion deployment in the United States. Is fusion always $35 million away?
- cpleppert 3y agoTheir most recent scientific paper they published 3 months ago only says that scientific breakeven (Qsci > 1) is possible. Which has been claimed many times before pesky engineering challenges and unmodeled behavior starts to interfere. The paper actually mostly just rehashes their marketing so its impossible to judge how realistic their claims are. Regardless, they don't seem like they are close to any kind of actual prototype let alone one that can demonstrate scientific breakeven or the order of magnitude harder engineering breakeven. Their claims seem very hard to believe to put it mildy.
- sebzim4500 3y agoIn their defence, a lot of their past promises were explicitly conditional on receiving a level of funding which they did not receive until much more recently. They still aren't making a 500 MW plant in 2030 though.