3 ms·

See "Induction systems"[1] The concept was proposed in 1963, but nobody ever made it work. That's the plan. Magnetohydrodynamic generators [2] do work, but they

See "Induction systems"[1] The concept was proposed in 1963, but nobody ever made it work. That's the plan. Magnetohydrodynamic generators [2] do work, but they have electrodes in the gas. That works for jet engine type MHD generators, but fusion plasma is too hot for any solid material. What they're trying to do is known physics but very hard engineering. They're also trying for aneutronic fusion, using helium-3. If the plant generates large volumes of neutrons, it chews up the first wall between the reaction and the outside. It also makes what it hits radioactive, so there's a waste problem. Aneutronic fusion uses reactions that (mostly) generate alphas and betas. This is, again, known physics but very hard engineering. If they can get a demo machine going which solves either problem, that would be a huge advance. So far, that does not seem to have happened. There are other startups in this space. It's probably the way commercial fusion power will eventually be done. Not via the tokamaks, like ITER. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_energy_conversion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_energy_conversion [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetohydrodynamic_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetohydrodynamic_generator [3] https://spectrum.ieee.org/aneutronic-fusion https://spectrum.ieee.org/aneutronic-fusion

XorNot 1y ago
> There are other startups in this space. It's probably the way commercial fusion power will eventually be done. Not via the tokamaks, like ITER. There is literally no evidence to suggest this: Helion are making big claims but as noted have shown little incremental progress on their machines. The balance of history says if it happens it'll come out of a large government funded project: that's how fission happened, and there's plain old fission startups too who also are yet to deliver anything and we know fission works.
- pfdietz 1y ago
  There is plenty of evidence. This is your ignorance speaking here.
  - XorNot 1y ago
    I feel very comfortable saying in 5 years Helion won't have anything. Because HackerNews was soooo confident that a startup style skunkworks initiative would lead to over-unity fusion in 5 years[1]...in 2014. Then they were soooo confident that MIT was going to blow past ITER to over unity fusion[2] ... in 2020. It's 2025, and the latter project is still running but now predicting it'll finish it's big reactor post-2030. Helion are currently now reporting no new results, but claiming they'll hit net-energy in 2028 somehow despite little technical detail. After claiming they'll show net-energy fusion in 2024.[3] So there's my evidence. Where's your evidence? It should be noted that I'm not actually against private fusion research - more research is great. But the unfounded confidence with which HackerNews users make predictions of the obvious superiority and success of private industry in achieving fusion has a track record of "we still don't have fusion" despite company's dating back as early to early last decade when we're mid-2020s now. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8458339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8458339 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24629828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24629828 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helion_Energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helion_Energy
    - pfdietz 1y ago
      I like how your mode of argument would have led you to confidently assert SpaceX was going to fail. Please conduct some QA on your logic, mkay? Who here is "soooo" confident Helion will succeed? One can be excited about a company without thinking they're a sure thing. The world is going to spend maybe a quadrillion dollars on energy in this century, so even low odds bets can be very worthwhile. Those two HN links there were to stories about companies other than Helion. I agree the DT efforts are dubious. Helion has been reporting results, btw. Have you been reading? Maybe you're complaining they haven't finished all of the next machine yet? "They didn't snap their fingers to make their machine, therefore they're frauds!" isn't a good look. https://x.com/helion_energy?lang=en https://x.com/helion_energy?lang=en
      - DangitBobby 1y ago
        SpaceX had a ton of help from NASA. Also: > Fusion generates electricity by ramming atoms into each other, releasing energy without emitting significant greenhouse gases or creating large amounts of long-lasting radioactive waste. But despite billions of dollars of investment, scientists and engineers still have not figured out a way to reliably generate more energy with fusion than it takes to create and sustain the reaction. Helion is still working on how to do that with its current prototype, called Polaris, which is housed in Everett, Washington, where it plans to build components for the machine to be built at Malaga, called Orion. 1. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/helion-energy-starts-construction-nuclear-fusion-plant-power-microsoft-data-2025-07-30/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/helion-energy-starts...

XorNot 1y ago

> There are other startups in this space. It's probably the way commercial fusion power will eventually be done. Not via the tokamaks, like ITER. There is literally no evidence to suggest this: Helion are making big claims but as noted have shown little incremental progress on their machines. The balance of history says if it happens it'll come out of a large government funded project: that's how fission happened, and there's plain old fission startups too who also are yet to deliver anything and we know fission works.

pfdietz 1y ago
There is plenty of evidence. This is your ignorance speaking here.
- XorNot 1y ago
  I feel very comfortable saying in 5 years Helion won't have anything. Because HackerNews was soooo confident that a startup style skunkworks initiative would lead to over-unity fusion in 5 years[1]...in 2014. Then they were soooo confident that MIT was going to blow past ITER to over unity fusion[2] ... in 2020. It's 2025, and the latter project is still running but now predicting it'll finish it's big reactor post-2030. Helion are currently now reporting no new results, but claiming they'll hit net-energy in 2028 somehow despite little technical detail. After claiming they'll show net-energy fusion in 2024.[3] So there's my evidence. Where's your evidence? It should be noted that I'm not actually against private fusion research - more research is great. But the unfounded confidence with which HackerNews users make predictions of the obvious superiority and success of private industry in achieving fusion has a track record of "we still don't have fusion" despite company's dating back as early to early last decade when we're mid-2020s now. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8458339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8458339 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24629828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24629828 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helion_Energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helion_Energy
  - pfdietz 1y ago
    I like how your mode of argument would have led you to confidently assert SpaceX was going to fail. Please conduct some QA on your logic, mkay? Who here is "soooo" confident Helion will succeed? One can be excited about a company without thinking they're a sure thing. The world is going to spend maybe a quadrillion dollars on energy in this century, so even low odds bets can be very worthwhile. Those two HN links there were to stories about companies other than Helion. I agree the DT efforts are dubious. Helion has been reporting results, btw. Have you been reading? Maybe you're complaining they haven't finished all of the next machine yet? "They didn't snap their fingers to make their machine, therefore they're frauds!" isn't a good look. https://x.com/helion_energy?lang=en https://x.com/helion_energy?lang=en
    - DangitBobby 1y ago
      SpaceX had a ton of help from NASA. Also: > Fusion generates electricity by ramming atoms into each other, releasing energy without emitting significant greenhouse gases or creating large amounts of long-lasting radioactive waste. But despite billions of dollars of investment, scientists and engineers still have not figured out a way to reliably generate more energy with fusion than it takes to create and sustain the reaction. Helion is still working on how to do that with its current prototype, called Polaris, which is housed in Everett, Washington, where it plans to build components for the machine to be built at Malaga, called Orion. 1. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/helion-energy-starts-construction-nuclear-fusion-plant-power-microsoft-data-2025-07-30/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/helion-energy-starts...