Commercial, profitable fusion energy would be one of the greatest scientific and Macroeconomic breakthroughs of all time.
Scientists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have successfully achieved *“Scientific Breakeven” where the power obtained from the fusion reaction exceeded the power needed to create the reaction. NIF’s 2025 record of 8.6 MJ is only enough energy to boil about 25–30 liters of water, but it proves that we can successfully “bottle a star.”
Over $10 billion in private capital is currently flowing into fusion startups (like Commonwealth Fusion Systems or Helion), with several aiming for pilot power plants by the mid-2030s . Compared with the > $1 Trillion being invested in AI this seems pretty reasonable since clean fusion energy would completely change the economic picture.
On the other hand, that’s a long ways away. And I don’t see how the engineering breakthroughs needed coalesce with a media company.
Another Trump Financial Conflict, This Time With Nuclear Power
Trump Media plans to merge with a company developing nuclear fusion technology, putting the president’s financial interests in competition with other energy companies over which his administration holds sway.
A Trump-sponsored business is once again betting on an industry that the president has championed, further entwining his personal fortunes in sectors that his administration is both supporting and overseeing.
This one is in the nuclear power sector. TAE Technologies, which is developing fusion energy, said on Thursday that it planned to merge with Trump Media & Technology Group. President Trump is the largest shareholder of the money-losing social media and crypto investing firm that bears his name, and he will remain a major investor in the combined company… [end quote]
China is filling up its desert areas with solar power and battery storage. I wonder how this compares to small fusion power plants in both cost and throughput?
I suspect that ignorance and innumeracy informs less public policy in China.
And its been a long time since they have reported follow-up experiments. What’s happening? Progress in fusion moves at a snails pace at best.
Don’t hold your breath. These folks plan to keep this going at least until they retire.
Twenty, thirty years has been the estimate forever. Since development of the atomic bomb (which had to last to the end of the war to keep those scientists out of foxholes.)
On similar projects, my BIL out of MIT, has been retired for several years now from MIT. He is around 79 y/o. He still has his hands in three or four of these “groups”. He expects next to nothing. But that is a rude way of paraphrasing.
It’s a tiny bit more likely that Iran is sending a message - “see, we can kill your nuclear scientists too”. But neither one is very likely at all, it’s much more likely to be random.
The Loureiro murder is linked to the mass shooter at Brown University, Claudio Neves-Valente (a Portuguese national) here on a diversity visa, FWIW. The shooter has killed himself.
“The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (DV Program) makes up to 50,000 immigrant visas available annually, drawn from random selection among all entries to individuals who are from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.”
Definitely. And we’ll likely crack the problem, possibly within my lifetime (I’d guess I have 20-25 years left in me). It’s a difficult problem, but that they are net-positive in energy is HUGE. Putting money into this is a good idea, and not just Tokamak. Other approaches, if theoretically sound, should also be funded.
When this becomes viable, it will be as significant as the Industrial Revolution. It will P-O the Saudis, but who cares. All they’ve given us is 15 of the 19 hijackers.
Absolutely… A local thin film coating company coated the surface mirrors used in the Shiva fusion project, and that was back in the '90s, another project that came close, but stalled in the end… So I keep an eye on some of the progress, not sure I’ll ever see it, but not only will it tick off the Saudi’s, but all this coal areas as well, so some may be putting in stumbling blocks to save their jobs… It has to be yet another innovative idea that cracks the way to make it happen, no more ‘cold fusion’ scams, but the real thing has to be out there, maybe the one immigrant whiz-kid does it… Pro-science isn’t the current trend, setting us back another decade or more… Sad to see…
Among other provisions, the 1990 Immigration Act instituted the Diversity Visa Lottery Program. Starting in 1991, every year the Attorney General, decides from information gathered over the most recent five year period the regions or country that are considered High Admission or Low Admission States. A High Admission region or country is one that has had 50,000 immigrants or more acquire a permanent residency visa. The High Admission regions are not given visas under this act in order to promote diversity. There are 6 different regions…
The “Tyson Solar Square” is the notion, from Neil deGrasse Tyson, that a 100 mile square of solar panels, with suitable grid storage and distribution, would supply enough electricity for an entire day for the entire country. This is roughly one-fourth of one percent of the land area of the USA.
Seems to me this is much simpler than trying to bottle the Sun on the Earth.
I have solar on my home. I’m a big advocate. But there are issues with solar. Weather is a big one. I’m in Phoenix. 300+ days of sunshine per year. Other climates may not be as amenable to solar energy. Storage can only get you so far in terms of bad weather, and is more intended for supply during night. If you have a snowstorm for 3 days (I used to live in the midwest), that’s going to be a problem.
If you put all the solar in Arizona, you then have transmission losses over the power lines. The further you try to send the power, the greater the losses. Which is why you need it closer to where it is required. You’re not going to power NYC from a solar farm in the Southwest.
