Sabine Hossenfelder has pointed to an article in Scientific American about the huge cost overruns, technical manufacturing issues, and delays in start up, in the ITER fusion project.
My hunches about fusion never being a practical source of energy seem to be getting more justified.
Oh, and there was another story that has now come to my attention about some sillier fusion deal:
Private U.S. nuclear fusion company Helion Energy will provide Microsoft (MSFT.O) with electricity in about five years, the companies said on Wednesday, in the first such deal for the power source that fuels the sun but has been elusive on Earth.
I would bet my house on this being pure PR that means nothing. In fact, it almost sounds close to fraud to attract investors.
does it lead to confusion?
ReplyDeleteIn a recent video she argued that because there are so many startups surely one will succeed. There is even a group in Australia. New technologies almost invariably have huge cost overruns, decades of development, and a multitude of problems. I wouldn't write it off just yet, especially the one that generates electricity without the need for heat transfer.
ReplyDeleteJohn: the thing that is an obvious alarm bell to me is that it seems Helion has no independent assessment of its technology; instead, it seems to make fund raising announcements. This is so, so similar to other start ups that are headed by convincing sounding owners, promising a radical way of doing something that is going to revolutionise the field, raise lots of money on the promise, but then never achieve it.
ReplyDeleteSmart people (from other fields) with lots of money to invest are not immune from sales pitches.
You may be right Steve. There is that spurious energy output they use which is deliberately dishonest. The investors in these schemes are very savvy but how many investors can adequately analyze the technology? A very few have so much money to burn that losing a billion or two is of little consequence to them. That alone may encourage them to place their bets and hope for the best.
ReplyDelete