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Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft

helionenergy.com

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Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft

#131

Post by gpm »

marcosdumay wrote: post #122
gpm wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you do have to compete with grid hookups for pricing in data centers. I definitely buy that there's a market for small power plants that cost too much to be competitive on the grid (in some sense that's literally what generators already are), but I don't see how datacenters are in that market.

> but I don't see how datacenters are in that market Are you kidding? If datacenters aren't the majority of that market, they will be soon, and their share will keep growing on the short term. Only factories match their consumption, every other wholesale energy buyer is relatively tiny. But that market will pay at most a 3x to 5x markup on the grid price. There exists a smaller one formed by far from the grid activit…

Why would datacenters be willing to pay a 3x to 5x markup on the grid price when they could just connect to the grid?

Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft

#132

Post by anonuser123456 »

sebzim4500 wrote: post #125
bmitc wrote: post #117

Does anyone have some thoughts on whether fusion will actually help fight climate change? Of course, fusion is far more clean than coal or gas and less environmentally destructive, aside from the mining of materials required, than say hydro power plants. But from what I can tell, the primary contributor to damaging the climate and environment is consumption, as a process. I currently see no end result where fusion do…

I don't understand your argument at all. In a world where people can produce power through fusion cheaper than they can through coal or oil, why would use of non-clean materials increase?

The price of oil+nat gas will fall as alternative forms of energy come online. But when the price falls, consumption goes up (demand elasticity).

Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft

#133

Post by anonuser123456 »

sourcecodeplz wrote: post #114
schainks wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AIUI Helion’s bottleneck is the number of capacitors needed to run a sustained reaction at a given scale. The numbers don’t seem out of this world to me, and it’s probably smarter money than what we are throwing at ITER given time to market.

Wasn't the bottleneck that it was difficult to get H3?

It’s not that difficult. You can mine it from the surface of the moon, or produce it via Tritium decay.

Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft

#134

Post by corndoge »

thepasswordis wrote: post #58

HN, what the heck has happened to you? What is with all of these cynical comments? Helion is an awesome company, their technology is real, and this is cool. >oh no this might not work! Do you guys not understand that you’re posting on the forum of a venture capital firm/startup accelerator?

Bear market, come back in a year

Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft

#135

Post by crmd »

jbverschoor wrote: post #113
thepasswordis wrote: post #58

HN, what the heck has happened to you? What is with all of these cynical comments? Helion is an awesome company, their technology is real, and this is cool. >oh no this might not work! Do you guys not understand that you’re posting on the forum of a venture capital firm/startup accelerator?

See Dropbox’ first post on HN. Nothing new

The infamous Dropbox thread is a good example of old HN culture - shitting on a billion dollar business idea because the tech problem is “so easy to solve I could build it over a weekend”.

In this thread people are arguing that the problem is too hard.

It does lately feel to me like a culture shift.

Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft

#136

Post by alexb_ »

anonuser123456 wrote: post #132
sebzim4500 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your argument at all. In a world where people can produce power through fusion cheaper than they can through coal or oil, why would use of non-clean materials increase?

The price of oil+nat gas will fall as alternative forms of energy come online. But when the price falls, consumption goes up (demand elasticity).

If the logic works in this direction, it works in the other direction too - are you saying we should shut down renewable energy so that the price of energy goes up and consumption of it goes down accordingly?

Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft

#137

Post by hutzlibu »

piloto_ciego wrote: post #101
deweller wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8 years ago, HN was a place full of optimism and excitement. I've noticed a marked increase in cynicism in this place. Like most of the world, it suffers from extreme tribalism and group think. I miss the former positive HN. And the positive world. sigh

The cynicism is an op, or something - because I don’t have the evidence to say it’s definitively an “op” - as the kids say. But legitimately, there is a strong cynical bubble in the zeitgeist now, and it’s dangerous. There are a few things this cynicism says. 1. “People suck and are terrible.” 2. “People are stupid.” 3. “We can’t change anything.” 4. “Great calamity is going to happen and we are powerless to stop it.…

"The world doesn’t suck, it’s much better than it used to be"

Better then when and by what meassure?

It is quite subjective I think.

One satirical person offered this quote:

We optimized for the minimum of individual luck, to get the maximum of people.

I am not fully behind this quote, it is satirical, but I think there is too much truth behind it. Ecologically things look bad. Geopolitical the same.

But yes, the sun is still shining and spring is nice and we do are progressing to new technological heights every day. It is just how this awesome tech is used overwhelmingly, that is a bummer.

Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft

#138

Post by ohgodplsno »

deweller wrote: post #67
thepasswordis wrote: post #58

HN, what the heck has happened to you? What is with all of these cynical comments? Helion is an awesome company, their technology is real, and this is cool. >oh no this might not work! Do you guys not understand that you’re posting on the forum of a venture capital firm/startup accelerator?

8 years ago, HN was a place full of optimism and excitement. I've noticed a marked increase in cynicism in this place. Like most of the world, it suffers from extreme tribalism and group think. I miss the former positive HN. And the positive world. sigh

Because the world has gotten markedly more shit for the vast majority of people, and YC is directly one of the reasons. Most of us have seen our disposable income drop, seen bullshit companies making connected dog feeders get funded dozens of millions by money-centralizing VCs, and overall have seen the world get more and more unfair, unbalanced and unjust. Major climate disruption is underway, wars are hitting all over the globe and governments are all getting more and more undemocratic.

Needless to say, the world doesn't exactly lend itself to positivity about yet another fucking startup promising you fusion powered dog feeders.

Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft

#139

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

stu2b50 wrote: post #57
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they could build a fusion system, are they in any danger of not having customers to the point that they're selling futures now?

It’s a sliding scale in the end. You can have a fusion system that barely breaks even, or only slightly breaks even, and then is still more expensive than traditional energy sources after factoring in fixed costs and maintenance.

Even then, are there no sales possible? I'd think that a borderline fusion reactor would be commercially viable if only for research. You could probably sell a dozen of those around the world. But unless something really weird's going on with the physics, a borderline system is just the mark 1, and everyone expects mark 2 to be more efficient.

Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft

#140

Post by gcheong »

bmitc wrote: post #117

Does anyone have some thoughts on whether fusion will actually help fight climate change? Of course, fusion is far more clean than coal or gas and less environmentally destructive, aside from the mining of materials required, than say hydro power plants. But from what I can tell, the primary contributor to damaging the climate and environment is consumption, as a process. I currently see no end result where fusion do…

Good question. I think people are betting that even with dramatically increased consumption (for example all developing countries reaching developed country levels standard of living) we will eventually reach something resembling a steady-state of population and consumption. I think it's a big bet indeed but I think it needs to be made if nothing else than just to reduce the amount of suffering around the world caused by our current system. At worst, assuming fusion succeeds, we stave off the inevitable for a while longer in the hopes something else comes along to balance the equation.
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