absolutely agree that there have been a lot of dead ends.
no one believes that ITER will amount to anything more than a declaration of faith in fusion. (which in some ways is very important—because where there is a will there is a way.)
there is still a worldwide group that studies cold fusion but again they seem on the fast track to nowhere.
my vote for the most likely to succeed fission group is one from indonesia. they’re testing in american labs. they’re doing some version of g4 fission. They’re already working on a plant to mass produce them and get costs down to the .02@kwh range. I think they want have them fully built to put them on barges next to coastal cities.
I would have absolutely agreed with your take on all these fusion start ups maybe 18 months ago. But something is happening. liken it to a warm front that passes over a half dozen states in the summertime. the warm front generates thunderstorms along its edge. liken those thunderstorms to the small fusion start ups that are popping up all over. liken too the convergence of a couple systems/techniques/technologies/tools to the warm front passing over a couple states in summer that generate the thunderstorms/fusion companies.
another words—the proliferation of fusion companies is not about the companies but rather the ideas/systems/techniques/technologies/tools that generate them.
None of these do I understand well. Nor do I have the time or expertise to understand well.
But you do.
“my vote for the most likely to succeed fission group is one from indonesia. they’re testing in american labs. they’re doing some version of g4 fission.”
G4 is Generation 4. It is a timeline, not a type of fission.
“I would have absolutely agreed with your take on all these fusion start ups maybe 18 months ago. But something is happening.”
They keep revising their milestone projections.
“no one believes that ITER will amount to anything more than a declaration of faith in fusion. “
ITER’s mission was only to produce a good faith reaction. The whole world and $40 billion for goof faith by 2025.
And you Ave faith that a startup and a billions dollars will have a licensed power plant by 2028.
NO WAY!
What’s significant about this is the collapsed time frames for their expectations. Likely like a lot of Musk deadlines—they’ll blow past this one—but they’re not talking about getting the job done in 10-20 years.
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Commonwealth Fusion predicts it will have the world’s first net-energy fusion device by 2025 and is already building a factory in Devens to make the machine.
Work is in high gear as Richard Holcomb, director of construction and facilities, walks the 47 acre site in Devens.
https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/12/02/massachusetts-fusion-power