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I don't see why would it be cheap. Nuclear is mostly capital costs, not the fuel. Fusion doesn't look any cheaper to build. Like any other bit of complicated i

I don't see why would it be cheap. Nuclear is mostly capital costs, not the fuel. Fusion doesn't look any cheaper to build. Like any other bit of complicated infrastructure, it'll have a limited lifetime. So, power cost is ((capital_costs + running_costs) / amount_produced) * profit_margin While I'm very much in favor of research, I don't understand the expectation of that it'll make power cheap. I'm pretty sure nothing will beat solar and wind because they're cheap, simple and very amenable to mass production in ways that fusion and fission can never be. At this point IMO neither fusion nor fission have a future as a main source of grid power. They're still worth researching, and will still have specialized uses in places like submarines and aircraft carriers.

energy123 2y ago
Helion says they want to make small, modular plants that are amenable to mass production, opening up the same scale economies that have benefited solar.
- dale_glass 2y ago
  That's assuming their stuff even works at all, which I believe there's some reasons to doubt. Perhaps all we'll get working in the end is a honking huge tokamak and then we're exactly in the same situation as fission. But let's suppose their stuff works as well as they imagine. IMO, not even then. Just look at their youtube videos. All sorts of big, complicated, and expensive looking magic. Huge capacitors, vacuum chambers, extremely high temperatures, etc. Will that scale better than nuclear? Maybe. Will it scale better than a tech that can be pumped out by the million, shipped to normal people and put on any random roof? Highly doubt it.
pjerem 2y ago
To my understanding, the time limit of fission is mostly due to political/security reasons. Of course keeping it indefinitely on will require huge maintenance costs but if the infrastructure is modular enough to be able to replace every elements, that may be doable. With fission the structure of the building is part of the infrastructure’s security so it’s harder to change when it’s too damaged. Maybe I’m wrong but it seems like fusion doesn’t require huge cement walls that would take a lot of constraint and which would effectively limit the maximum lifetime of the building.

energy123 2y ago

Helion says they want to make small, modular plants that are amenable to mass production, opening up the same scale economies that have benefited solar.

dale_glass 2y ago
That's assuming their stuff even works at all, which I believe there's some reasons to doubt. Perhaps all we'll get working in the end is a honking huge tokamak and then we're exactly in the same situation as fission. But let's suppose their stuff works as well as they imagine. IMO, not even then. Just look at their youtube videos. All sorts of big, complicated, and expensive looking magic. Huge capacitors, vacuum chambers, extremely high temperatures, etc. Will that scale better than nuclear? Maybe. Will it scale better than a tech that can be pumped out by the million, shipped to normal people and put on any random roof? Highly doubt it.

pjerem 2y ago

To my understanding, the time limit of fission is mostly due to political/security reasons. Of course keeping it indefinitely on will require huge maintenance costs but if the infrastructure is modular enough to be able to replace every elements, that may be doable. With fission the structure of the building is part of the infrastructure’s security so it’s harder to change when it’s too damaged. Maybe I’m wrong but it seems like fusion doesn’t require huge cement walls that would take a lot of constraint and which would effectively limit the maximum lifetime of the building.