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Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

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Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

#251

Post by Earw0rm »

ccozan wrote: post #239
Earw0rm wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh, turns out I suck at math too. At least attempting it before coffee. The ship's capacity in MWh is 18620t x 33MWh/t = 614460MWh. At 45MW generating capacity, an electric hydrolyser at 80% efficiency delivers hydrogen at a rate of 36MW. That will unfortunately take about 70 years to fill the ship to its maximum capacity. On a more positive note, 36MW is still a heck of a lot of power, plenty enough to run a mid-si…

I am totally mesmerized by the idea of a floating hydrolizing platform , where ships can dock and load hydrogen fuel ( not sure what form suits best ). Must start some economics of it. Also marine environment is very unforgiving...

It is. But if we can handle maritime oil and gas rigs, which load/unload to tankers, hydrogen isn't MUCH worse.

It wouldn't be floating exactly though. Moored and piled into the sea bed, sitting above the waves like rigs and wind turbines.

Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

#252

Post by genewitch »

0x457 wrote: post #247
genewitch wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

trains in the US have electric motors that actually make the wheels turn. The issue with the US is the distances trains have to go. Mostly short distance trains will be(are?) fully electric but long distance and frieght is diesel series hybrid engines.

Sorry, I wasn't clear in my comment. I was talking about trains that can use grid or diesel engine to power those electric motors. And hydrogen comment was about this: https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/articles/usdot-announc... . My tinfoil hat theory is that every carbon-fuel company pushing for hydrogen knowing well it's energy density isn't enough, so the experiment will fail, and they're going back to diesel…

I'm still confused, but that's ok. I spoke to why we don't use electric trains in the US, because the distances are too far and the terrain is too varied. The rockies, the cascades, just to get imports from west to east. No matter what, the power plant will have to be on the freight trains in the US. In the US, all freight trains are electric series hybrids, with diesel power plants.

I doubt hydrogen will ever go, because people like me will say "Hindenburg, but already on the ground where it can do the most damage, plus moving at 50-80MPH"

Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

#253

Post by 0x457 »

genewitch wrote: post #252
0x457 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I wasn't clear in my comment. I was talking about trains that can use grid or diesel engine to power those electric motors. And hydrogen comment was about this: https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/articles/usdot-announc... . My tinfoil hat theory is that every carbon-fuel company pushing for hydrogen knowing well it's energy density isn't enough, so the experiment will fail, and they're going back to diesel…

I'm still confused, but that's ok. I spoke to why we don't use electric trains in the US, because the distances are too far and the terrain is too varied. The rockies, the cascades, just to get imports from west to east. No matter what, the power plant will have to be on the freight trains in the US. In the US, all freight trains are electric series hybrids, with diesel power plants. I doubt hydrogen will ever go, be…

I get that, but US freight doesn't want to eletrify railnetwork at all. From my understading this is because even where it's totatly doable, but financially not feasable for various reasons (IIRC one of them are double stacked containers?).

Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

#254

Post by phtrivier »

Earw0rm wrote: post #218
phtrivier wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cheap usable EV batteries I know this is going to sound harsh, but I will personnally consider EV batteries "cheap" only when they pass the very scientific "my mom can use the EV exactly like shes uses her car, and she does not notice" test: * on one charge, drive 10-50km daily for 350 days in a year * on one charge, drive 1000km in one go for the holidays * it must be less than 10kE at a local car dealership * it…

If you fix your goalposts for long enough, cohort effects will move around them. I'm not sure how old your mom is, but 1000km drives aren't something most people want to be doing past 75 ish. And newer cohorts adapt their lifestyles and expectations to available technology, whether that's charging time, on-demand rental for the occasionally needed longer distance EVs, and so on. Although I can't help thinking that hy…

> And newer cohorts adapt their lifestyles and expectations to available technology, whether that's charging time, on-demand rental for the occasionally needed longer distance EVs, and so on.

Alternatively, they will keep living their life exactly the way they have so far, and refuse to use the "new" technology until it has caught up with the "old" one.

"Regulations" could in theory help, if it served as enough of an incentive for car makers to pay some serious R&D and get the "new" tech on par with the old one.

Problem is, in practice, though, the option to "not care about the regulation and elect right wing people until it's dropped" is easier than paying chemist and physicists.

And selling my mom a 2t SUV is much better for the shareholders.

So, never mind. At some point, one "game changing revolutionary breakthrough" will actually break through something and change some game.

Or, my mum will die of old age, bitching about those stupid pseudo "cars" that their grand kids can't use to visit her because the battery is too small.

(No, wait, HN tells my mum will actually not die, thanks to some "game changing AI-powered breakthrough in biotech")

Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

#255

Post by usrusr »

ccozan wrote: post #239
Earw0rm wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh, turns out I suck at math too. At least attempting it before coffee. The ship's capacity in MWh is 18620t x 33MWh/t = 614460MWh. At 45MW generating capacity, an electric hydrolyser at 80% efficiency delivers hydrogen at a rate of 36MW. That will unfortunately take about 70 years to fill the ship to its maximum capacity. On a more positive note, 36MW is still a heck of a lot of power, plenty enough to run a mid-si…

I am totally mesmerized by the idea of a floating hydrolizing platform , where ships can dock and load hydrogen fuel ( not sure what form suits best ). Must start some economics of it. Also marine environment is very unforgiving...

Platforms are does-not-scale hard though: they require mooring and every bit of ocean floor is different. Drilling platforms come in multiple "species", as different as spiders, fish and birds. Roaming hydrolysers on the other hand would be one design fits any ocean. You'd want to build lots of them, more Model T than Death Star. And where a stationary platform would have to be able to brace a hurricane, the roaming unit would just go to a neighboring sea with a friendlier forecast. Or ride along on the edge, if power throughput has enough headroom.

Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

#256

Post by usrusr »

Earw0rm wrote: post #250
usrusr wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sailing technology has gone beyond "we can go downwind, yay!" for quite a while now...

Certainly of course, but not while delivering maximum continuous energy from a kite to a turbine.

Boats go considerably faster, as in overcoming more water drag, going crosswind than going downwind. I suppose that adding extra drag with a hydrogenerator will change the maths of that relationship, but certainly not so much that it would be prohibitively wasteful to not specialize a hydrogenerator carrier to downwind-only. (if the downwind-only setup can be competitive at all, not sure I'd take that as a given)

Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

#257

Post by hobscoop »

This cannot work: the power balance doesn't close for a 25 MWe tokamak. Otherwise people would have made plans to build one already. Tokamaks want to be big for physics reasons, way before economics reasons. This is part of why DEMO is so big. If ARC could be any smaller it would be.

Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

#258

Post by api »

hobscoop wrote: post #257

This cannot work: the power balance doesn't close for a 25 MWe tokamak. Otherwise people would have made plans to build one already. Tokamaks want to be big for physics reasons, way before economics reasons. This is part of why DEMO is so big. If ARC could be any smaller it would be.

Is there a limit to how big before the effect falls off, or will we see twenty gigawatt net power output mega-tokamaks with rings five stories tall?

Fission seems to like to be big too but for different mostly logistical reasons. It makes all the nasty and hard aspects a lot easier if you do a lot of it on one site rather than a little on many sites, and it avoids having to ship nasty fissile material around too much.

Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

#259

Post by oldgradstudent »

protocolture wrote: post #186
codelion wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's a fair point... sometimes announcing early is about securing mindshare and attracting talent, even if the final product is still a ways off. maybe they're trying to get ahead of potential competitors? or perhaps gauge public interest before committing further resources.

Yeah there have been a few good instances of this in the past. Like Billy G selling DOS before he owned it. But the lead time on such a business proposition has to be pretty short right? Like less than a decade? So if I was founding a startup in the fusion space, I would either have a solution for Fusion less than 2 years away, or know someone with an unannounced promising solution in the fusion space.

> Like Billy G selling DOS before he owned it

DOS actually existed. It just had a different owner.

Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships

#260

Post by defrost »

algo_trader wrote: post #219
defrost wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Addendum: I should have addressed this in my peer comment, from the Launch HN header above Why ships? They don’t have great alternatives—the shipping industry is desperate to decarbonize. Hydrogen and ammonia are being explored, but come with serious downsides: low energy density, flammability, leaks, and massive infrastructure challenges. Is a bit odd from my PoV as it skipped over methanol .. the "green" fuel of ch…

Here is latest (2025) bio methanol project from China [1], at $150/barrel of oil equivalent And its not even true e-methanol which will be $200-$300boe [1] https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Va0XYtSXQJLVrOZsW5obXA (if u have any actual contact with the maritime industry would love to connect and chat)

My background is more mining, exploration geophysics, and global mineral resources. I have an interest in related production projects, eg: marine transport is part of mining and we (Australia) have several green methanol projects ~300K tonne per annum coming up this year, entering a global market of some 330 million tonne of general marine fuel.
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