This company will fail. Most likely it will be a huge opportunity cost for the founders and set them back financially by a huge chunk. I hope it will be a good time. Spend some YV funds on a keg.
Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships
261–267 of 267 posts
Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd be ready to bet that the boring, international, big gouvernement funded ITER will be the only place to reach anything meaningful, long before the hip VC-backed startups ship anything. Source : I generally don't believe VC-backup startups anymore, but that says more about me than about them (thankfully, sometimes they do stuff, like, 140 chars and useful tools for Russian trolls.) But let's see how it goes !
Do you believe MIT? They used to run the Alcator C-Mod, which had the highest magnetic field of any tokamak in the world, did preliminary work with the new superconductors, and based on all that they designed ARC before they spun off a company to actually build it.
I'll believe whoever first powers a light bulb from fusion.
I can completely imagine that it goes through stages like
Half a century of painful research at universities -> decades to build multiple prototypes -> years to build a POC -> decades to industrialize the POC -> years to connect the POC to the grid -> ???? -> light bulb moment -> ???? -> profit
I'm not sure we much further than the beginning of step 2. Indeed, (sorry to say that), I'd trust an MIT startup to do that more than a YC startup. But real life will serve as evidence.
Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships
#263What's wrong with putting ordinary reactors in ships again? Already tried and tested, yet still extremely under-tapped...
Plus, you know, your startup will have a chance of landing a customer within a human lifetime, so there's that.
On "because regulation", sounds like that's the problem. Maybe you make a ship that's reactor can pop out and float when you approach national waters, pick it up on the way back.
Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships
#264I love your enthusiasm for an ambitious technological goal, and love the idea (always have) of fusion power being used for as many things as possible, especially for ships, but all that aside, color me skeptical of success. ITER and the U.S. fusion projects have barely gone anywhere despite billions in investment and I don't see that changing soon.
Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?).
4.5MW of power for GE 6000 locomotive (might be incorrect but it comports with other comments here), and i routinely see freight trains with 3 or more locomotives (i've seen way more than 3, but i don't have a picture or anything). In the midwest, where it's flat, trains can be miles long. I've counted over 250 on a single train before. and that's 4+ locomotives, so >18,000,000 watts.
I guess they could keep freight trains real short so they're single engine, but that's still 4 and a half million watts stall. Each one can move itself plus at least 10,000 tonnes (i don't know the conversions, nor care, it's a lot of mass) The world record is 82,000 tonnes, 4.5 miles long, 682 cars, 8 locomotives - in Australia, with american locomotives, hauling iron ore.
I have to ask, are you from or in the US?
GE does make a battery powered locomotive, designed to be used for regenerative braking, it can run at full power by itself for a half hour or so https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabtec_FLXDrive 3,200,000 watts.
Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships
#266I wish n-gate.com was still around.
I converted the entire site into json.
uh, as proof i loaded the json of the entire site into a markov chain (json, random libraries only).
I present the very. first. output.
> "contextualize for a good old-fashioned shitfight about the internet. Hackernews does software they vote on their eggs in Google's ultimate"
receipt: https://i.imgur.com/bMhz5JE.png
btw i remembered both of you that mentioned it this week, and got up and pwshed it out.
Re: Launch HN: Maritime Fusion (YC W25) – Fusion Reactors for Ships
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Very true.