Helion is expected to have its fusion generation device online by 2028 and to reach its target power generation of 50 megawatts or more within an agreed-upon one-year ramp up period. When the fusion device is fully up to speed producing 50 megawatts of energy, it will be able to power the equivalent of approximately 40,000 homes in Washington state.
While Helion’s deal with Microsoft is to get 50 megawatts online, the company eventually aims to produce a gigawatt of electricity, which is one billion watts, or 20 times the 50 megawatts it is selling to Microsoft.
Microsoft will pay for the megawatt hours of electricity as Helion delivers them to the grid.
Seems less likely to succeed than my startup Hellion, which seeks to generate nigh-unlimited amounts of clean energy by opening a portal to the Infernal Abyss.
nigh-unlimited amounts of clean energy by opening a portal to the Infernal Abyss.
Brb - googling.
Also - I don’t mean to derail your this sub-thread but could you give us an update on your Hellion’s Torment Nexus project?
Not at all, thanks for asking!
Hellion is making massive strides on the Torment Nexus project, with record-breaking reports of dissatisfaction among volunteer beta testers. We’re still working on clearing the necessary hurdles to achieve mass torment at scale, but our prototype devices are capable of delivering steady streams of up to 100 agons per hour at standard loads, and incidences of spontaneous combustion into clouds of of brimstone-scented smoke and the insane giggling of a being driven beyond the pale of sanity whose warped mind can no longer be considered fully human are way down from our alpha testing. The engineering team feels like we are currently well ahead of our initially projected timeline to market. We plan to begin delivering affordable torment to customers in select US markets by Q4 2025.
delivering steady streams of up to 100 agons per hour at standard loads…
Fantastic!
We plan to begin delivering affordable torment to customers in select US markets by Q4 2025.
Impressive! Seriously though - I thought affordable torment was at least ~10 years away. This is indeed great news.
Hey, I’ve seen this done before, it’s basically limitless power. In Minecraft.
No, really, in Minecraft - albeit modded. Some sort of chunk loader in the Nether, plus some means of pumping fluids, plus some sort of interdimensional transport of fluids, plus some sort of lava-fueled power generator (all pretty standard and easy to make in an average tech-type modpack) equals unlimited free power.
Way back when I was admining an FTB server running on Minecraft 1.7.10 and dealing with lag issues (fucking Railcraft tanks…) I just decided to put an infinite lava source at spawn using the EnderTanks mod so that players wouldn’t need to put chunkloaders all over the Nether to get their lava power fix. They could just tune their own receiving tank to the same “frequency” (a three colour code) and voila, lava for power (or whatever else, like Tinker’s Construct smelteries, I love that mod) without lagging the whole damn server.
I will bet $200 that helion is not the first net positive fusion reactor. I will bet a further $200 that the first such reactor is in China. That said, talk is cheap and I doubt many here would take that bet against me.
My prediction: China will have the first working net positive fusion reactor deployed in the field, but some US company will preempt the announcement by claiming to have the first one.
US fusion deployments won’t happen for 2-3 years after that announcement, at which point China will have half their grid running on fusion power.
Americans will all widely proclaim to be the “inventors” of fusion and winners of the space race, despite all reactors sold coming from China. Any attempts to present this information to them will result in a screed about “China stealing” or some shit.
Lol in 4 years it’s most likely that company gets acquired by another giant corpo and get scrapped while some dickheads in that startup run away with the cash.
Me, reading a sentence involving “Microsoft”, “AI”, and “electricity”.
I hope it works 😆
