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| Compact nuclear fusion reactor is 'very likely to work,' studies suggest (nytimes.com) | ||
| recommended by 1 user | 2020 | 622 points by Todd | energy & climate | original thread | | ||
| One user recommended this thread. What they said: |
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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
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24629828
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helion_Energy