I love money flowing into these projects. More = better. Nothing is lost. WORST case scenario: some intelligent people will learn new stuff and get to know like minded people.
Who knows what they will come up next!
Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft
161–170 of 258 posts
Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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…
"Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World" is a book that makes an excellent attempt to answer this.
Isn't this book about the low-hanging fruit stuff like universal access to healthy drinking water? And isn't it about basically the course of history through the 20th century compared to the previous millennium? That's much more macro, world-wide kind of stuff than whether or not startups in developed countries nowadays feel almost exclusively exploitative versus how they felt innovative 15, 20 years ago.
Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft
#163Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it doesn't cost MS a bean until Helion have something working, but to Helion it means they can raise money for the actual construction of the first-production machine with the investors knowing someone will pay them for it if it works.
> Because it doesn't cost MS a bean until Helion have something working I doubt that (unless you have some source for it which I missed, in which case sorry). It seems really unlikely that Helion would commit to a contract with penalty clauses if they didn't get money before they got fusion working. Once (if) they have commercial fusion working they're golden, it will be trivial to raise money on excellent terms, and…
Fair; but I think their problem is that they'd like to get money to start to build the production reactor before they've demoed they have it working - of course that's risky as hell. But if they're right, and can start going the basic building and construction on the next phase while finishing the current phase it chops a couple of years off. But being risky as hell anyone sane would be more worried about making a loan or investment - so some encouragement in the opposite direction from a customer would help them get that loan.
Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are worse ways to destroy capital, and the VC capital destruction is going to happen anyways. Might as well put it towards fusion. The criticisms raised in the video are fair, and also the first youtube comment has an interesting point: > Why would he allow this reckless behavior? Why would he himself be standing right there with them next to the device while it was in operation? Then I watched the video more c…
A better way to destroy that capital: have it appropriated by the government and used to fund actual science.
Where "actual science" is defined (from a NSF/big granter perspective) by various science in-groups to benefit their respective communities. Having served my time in the grant-funded science world, this is hardly a panacea.
Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
A better way to destroy that capital: have it appropriated by the government and used to fund actual science.
Where "actual science" is defined (from a NSF/big granter perspective) by various science in-groups to benefit their respective communities. Having served my time in the grant-funded science world, this is hardly a panacea.
I'll take the lesser of two evils, thanks.
Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft
#167HN, 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?
What percentage of the negative comments come from chatbots that are part of foreign influence campaigns to spread negativity in this largely Western world (or even largely US) forum?
Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft
#168Does 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?
Because it isn't just about power production. People use that power to then go off and do things. The question I'm asking is what does that look like? Because how we do things still requires oil and other destructive acts, for example.
An analogous situation is electric cars. Electric cars, eventually over the lifetime of use (not immediately), save emissions over combustion engine cars. However, building a single mile of road is something like 10x or 100x (I forget the exact multiplier, but it's at least an order of magnitude and maybe greater) the emissions of a car (electric or combustion). So given the idea that electric cars actually bolster if not increase the love and use of cars, then that has a downstream effect of more roads being built and maintained, which is far more polluting than the cars themselves.
So you need to look at things as a system. I'm not arguing for anything but looking to understand things. I think fusion is obviously something we should do. What I'm wondering is how do we get people to realize it isn't a one-stop shop for staving off even more environmental change.
Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft
#169HN, 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
Fwiw to my memory, 8 years ago people complained about cynicism and negativism on HN just as much. Eg people never stopped quoting that famous top comment on Dropbox's HN launch (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863#9224).
I strongly doubt this attitude ever changed. It's always been
- first comments are dismissive gut reactions
- a bit later some nuanced/positive comments arrive
- depending on mood and luck, one or the other kind floats to the top
Re: Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft
#170HN, 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?
You can be optimistic when you’re just making an app to rent your room out or to find a dog walker. You can hustle and sell useless SaaS services long enough to get acquired for no real reason except managerial power plays in large companies. In the world of software you can kinda make almost any idea work with sweat and political maneuvering. You can literally see that they’re trying to play the same games here. How…
You say that but biological medicine and Technology continues to improve. The trajectory is positive.
Will every startup be successful? Of course not! But as a whole, technology continues to March forward and improve.