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Zarathustra[H]
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2000
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As an update to this story from last year, a new story is making the rounds this morning.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems, an MIT spinoff, has now raised $1.8B and has broken ground on their new headquarters and SPARC reactor site at the former Fort Devens site in Massachusetts.
SPARC is a Tokamak reactor utilizing a new type of superconducting magnets to contain the fusion reaction.
The previous reactor built inside of the former Nabisco factory off the MIT campus was able to run, but the copper-based electromagnets needed to contain the reaction required ~20megawatts of of power, consuming all the energy theoretically able to be produced by the reaction.
The new superconducting magnets are able to contain the reaction using only 20W of power, one 10 millionth of the power required in the previous design, and if it all works will make this plant the worlds first energy positive fusion reactor.
Nuclear Fusion is the opposite of the Nuclear Fission used in existing nuclear power generation. Instead of splitting atoms into a chain reaction to generate energy - as the name suggests - Hydrogen atoms are fused to produce Helium and Energy. It is a safe process. Unlikle Nuclear fission it is not a runaway chain reaction, and does not produce any radioactive waste. The waste product is just helium.
Theoretically just one quart of Hydrogen gas generated from seawater could be used as fuel to power 10,000 homes for a year, with no dangerous waste, and no carbon emissions.
Some may roll their eyes at the list of investors. The Gates foundation, George Soros, Marc Bemioff, and John Doerr have all contributed large sums in the Series B fundrasier resulting in a total of $1.8B, but like these guys or not, one thing is for sure. They did not become billionaires by making poor investments. When serious money is betting on the technology to win, we can feel pretty sure that energy positive Fusion is no longer the stuff of Science Fiction.
These are exciting times. I'm tempted to send them my resume. I don't know if I have the skills they need, but this is exciting enough that I want to be a part of it if I can.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems, an MIT spinoff, has now raised $1.8B and has broken ground on their new headquarters and SPARC reactor site at the former Fort Devens site in Massachusetts.
SPARC is a Tokamak reactor utilizing a new type of superconducting magnets to contain the fusion reaction.
The previous reactor built inside of the former Nabisco factory off the MIT campus was able to run, but the copper-based electromagnets needed to contain the reaction required ~20megawatts of of power, consuming all the energy theoretically able to be produced by the reaction.
The new superconducting magnets are able to contain the reaction using only 20W of power, one 10 millionth of the power required in the previous design, and if it all works will make this plant the worlds first energy positive fusion reactor.
Nuclear Fusion is the opposite of the Nuclear Fission used in existing nuclear power generation. Instead of splitting atoms into a chain reaction to generate energy - as the name suggests - Hydrogen atoms are fused to produce Helium and Energy. It is a safe process. Unlikle Nuclear fission it is not a runaway chain reaction, and does not produce any radioactive waste. The waste product is just helium.
Theoretically just one quart of Hydrogen gas generated from seawater could be used as fuel to power 10,000 homes for a year, with no dangerous waste, and no carbon emissions.
Some may roll their eyes at the list of investors. The Gates foundation, George Soros, Marc Bemioff, and John Doerr have all contributed large sums in the Series B fundrasier resulting in a total of $1.8B, but like these guys or not, one thing is for sure. They did not become billionaires by making poor investments. When serious money is betting on the technology to win, we can feel pretty sure that energy positive Fusion is no longer the stuff of Science Fiction.
These are exciting times. I'm tempted to send them my resume. I don't know if I have the skills they need, but this is exciting enough that I want to be a part of it if I can.
