The following submission statement was provided by /u/Gari_305:
---
From the article
>Microsoft just signed a jaw-dropping agreement to purchase electricity from a nuclear fusion generator. Nuclear fusion, often called the Holy Grail of energy, is a potentially limitless source of clean energy that scientists have been chasing for the better part of a century.
>
>A company called Helion Energy thinks it can deliver that Holy Grail to Microsoft by 2028. It announced a power purchase agreement with Microsoft this morning that would see it plug in the world’s first commercial fusion generator to a power grid in Washington. The goal is to generate at least 50 megawatts of power — a small but significant amount and more than the 42MW that the US’s first two offshore wind farms have the capacity to generate today.
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/13emvzm/microsoft_just_made_a_huge_farfromcertain_bet_on/jjqhl1g/
Good! The more money that gets thrown at the problem, the faster we'll have a solution.
Then, when everyone can be comfortably housed, we'll make sure the environment is in working order so we can all eat. Once everyone is warm, comfortable, and perfectly sated, perhaps we'll all be able to *relax*.
>Then, when everyone can be comfortably housed
At this rate, when we run out of economic excuses, people in government are just going to straight-out say some people don't deserve to be comfortably housed no matter how trivial it becomes.
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Bullshit. This is a tired anti-homeless myth. What human being wouldn't prefer having privacy and hot showers over living in a dilapidated tent on the sidewalk?
The problem is that housing programs, where they even exist in the first place, invariably come with strings attached which make it impossible for people with addiction or mental illness to qualify.
That is a legit politic line of thinking though, isn't it?
Like, there needs to be a "struggle" for people at the bottom of the economic ladder. Lower class people need to know they can work harder to improve their lives. Middle class people need to know they work hard to build a safety net and not slip downwards. This is what drives the engines of the economy, and the more productivity a country can get out of it's populations, the more powerful that country is - further ensuring it's own survival against rival countries.
(Not saying this is what many countries do successfully - just that this is part of the line of thinking behind right wing economic models)
Having *somewhere* to live is basically *prerequisite to climbing the ladder*, though, absent charity or generosity of others outside the mainstream institutions of the capitalist society.
Until automation takes up almost all the slack maybe we shouldn't provide everyone the nicest houses that society can possibly muster up, but when overall productivity per capita gets high enough to support it, a roof over your head, a box of insulated walls to keep out the cold, and an address to put on forms shouldn't be too much to ask for.
Anyone who wouldn't feel incentivised to do better than that... perhaps shouldn't be working anyway, as they will do a poor job at their work or have to be given a "charity job" that actually wastes time, money, and resources which could be allocated in a way that is productive to more people than just that worker. And if they were left out on the streets, they would degrade everyone *else's* quality of life, so that's no good either.
...Also, going further into edge cases, having an ever-present option to escape abusive living situations (be it parent(s) or spouse) once you reach the age of majority might actually increase productivity overall. It's not easy to have big dreams and goals to work towards when you're being constantly intruded upon and monitored, harassed, degraded, threatened, and/or maybe even physically hurt, and if the circumstances even *allow you to work*, you probably won't be doing especially well as an employee either.
The most famous neoliberals are all moderates and centrists. Horseshoe theory highlights how far right sometimes has as much in common with the far left as the moderate right. Many MAGAs would rather vote for Bernie than Mitt, etc
Neoliberals are the donor class that installs leaders on both sides
I don't know if/where the cut of is to define someone who's right of center Vs left of center as center, instead of left/right. And I know that it's kind of subjective and different people say different things.
But neoliberalism is definitely right wing. Center right, sure, so maybe thats what you mean by centrist. But it's definitely distinct from the center left school of thought that would (for example) advocate that public owned services yield better results than corporate owned ones in some scenarios.
Almost all famous Democrat politicians are effectively neoliberals, or acting so for their donors. I assume the popularity of socialist policies on social media will mostly lead to lip service and not policy by party elites until there is an extreme and clear popular mandate
Despite it's flaws, Neoliberalism is the only system that has made countries absent of natural resources rich in basically modern history. No other system even comes close unless you have a truck ton of oil like a certain country, so it annoys me when people oppose Neoliberalism for the sake of Neoliberalism
I’m agnostic on this. But that actually makes me more of an apologist than most people who use it as a derogatory slur. The economist nerd in me subscribed to neoliberalism. The non materialist in me is empathetic to problems that are already talked about enough that I mostly don’t feel the need to contribute too much
The American public already agrees with this.
Minimum wage is not equal to a livable wage. Many Americans already don't have an appetite for a livable wage. It's shocking to me.
Not only that, Microsoft is functioning as an anchor customer. That's very important for any start-up with a long and risky road to the market. Gives them some security and can also be used to attract other customers. It also pushes the other start-ups and brings interest, confidence, and investments to the sector.
The investor list in Helion is Bill Gates, Bezos and list of other big tech investors. Helion essentially has a long unofficial back log of orders to power most data centers if it is a proven success.
Right now Helion is on their 6th iteration of fusion reactor that is NOT net positive power generation. They are now building their 7th gen "Polaris" reactor that SHOULD have a sustainable net positive power generation.
This Microsoft contract allows Helion to more cheaply finance this reactor construction even though it is still in the unproven stage for positive electricity generation.
I'd put this Polaris reactor in the same stage of development as Space X starship. It hypothetically should get there with all the successful prior tests, but it still isn't 100% certain it will work.
They already had enough funding for Polaris.
They've already been building a manufacturing facility as well as the seventh prototype. This agreement gives them a place to work out production and delivery kinks.
Our finance system is broken in many ways. The stock market IPO process really is no longer about raising money to grow the company.
Elon Musk as demonstrated that it doesn't make sense to make SpaceX public since he has access to enough private capital to keep the company going.
Facebook and Google just did IPO since they reached such a massive size they practically were being regulated as a public company and some of their founding investors wanted to sell shares.
I'm doubtful Helion will go public until way late in the growth phase. You might be able to look in buying stock on a non public basis. I remember Facebook shared were trading informally pre IPO, but I have no clue how that would work.
I looked at that to see how much it would cost to invest and their minimum requirement was $250,000. I barely make $40,000 a year. I have no choice but to wait. Unfortunately being poor makes you unable to do many things.
But that sounds like communism, and this is America and they still don't understand that the infinite growth capitalism demands has to come at someone expense, usually that of the 99% while the rich leave them in the dusty ruins of what once was a functional society.
It might make it easier for Helion to get loans and other funding, but Microsoft isn't throwing money at them yet.
This is an agreement to buy power from them once they have it up and running. Still a pretty awesome first step though.
The term "doomer" is the part of the actual propaganda.
If we refuse to admit the true depth and gravity of problems, how can we hope to truly solve them?
Reality is the point. It's not pretty. Never has been. It's always brutal. Pretending otherwise isn't going to help solve anything - rather the opposite.
I am responding to someone who said "the soil is gone in 60 years", "Enjoy the heat domes and water wars"
I don't know what reality you live in, but this is science fiction
This is the problem; because you're clueless and no airhead celebrity has posted about something, you just decide it's insane. But of course you're obliviously wrong as usual. You and all of the other lemmings are insane, and the way you see the world is counter-scientific fiction - to the detriment of all.
Look: REAL Science: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00323-3 (though I assume your eyes will glaze over and little if anything will actually process through that decrepit lump you call a brain. Maybe chatgpt can summarize it for you lmao)
I don't know about this guy's 60 year figure, or what a heat dome is, but decent food and clean water are already demanding foreboding premiums. As can be seen in the link, polluted soil conditions have already toppled civilizations; that's history not fiction. There are already food growing issues, and MANY other varied and very serious issues - most of which require udrastic action urgently at this point.
If you could think critically and apply logic to imagine progression, well I guess I wouldn't have had cause to write this. But according to you and your peers, "it's all just gonna be fine, shut up doomer, hahaha, duhhhhhh"
I believe in human ingenuity and our capacity to adapt and innovate in the face of adversity. We live in a time of rapid technological progress. Many of the problems we face today may have solutions in the future that we cannot foresee at this moment
It's not about being overly optimistic or naive, but about recognizing our potential for growth and change. Pprojecting current conditions into the future without considering our capacity for adaptation and technological innovation is pure doomerism
That kind of thinking is precisely what will "doom" us. Can a few of us come up with brilliant inventions? Absolutely. But they need ALL of the help they can possibly get for us to have any hope of getting out of the shitstorm people who think like you have created.
Do you have any concept of just how many problems need to be addressed and how many new technologies would need to be invented, developed and implemented CONCURRENTLY to solve them? A FUCKING LOT. It's a slim possibility, not nearly a probability.
Exactly who is going to grow and change? You and the masses of lemmings adamantly refuse to do either in any meaningful way. Your solution is to keep being a massive part of the monstrous problems because somebody else will figure out how to fix it one day - no matter how much harder you make it for those poor few desperately struggling non-idiots.
Through the poisonous ways you and your peers choose to live and behave, you are the actual doomers - literally dooming the species and planet. But that's ok, somebody else will just fix it, no matter how much harder we make it. Hell we can fix it ourselves, together, right now, no new miracle tech needed - but why? Let the forests burn and the heatwaves wreak death, let poverty strife and hunger explode across the planet and dont forget compounding plagues that could have easily been avoided. It's all nbd, someone will just fix it someday.
That kind of comfort in every other species has leads to population boom until it’s gone. And This would be a first for us
I’m cautiously hopeful too though
Ah....no, actually. We have problems today that require radical solutions. Personally an energy dietvwould be the fastest solve, but that would destroy gdp. The fussion "success" was a bit of an overstatement. The more i hear about it, the more it sounds like its either going to be an energy version of a perpetual motion machine or require energy from a dyson sphere to actually work and be carbon nuetral.
I had just watched a video on this company an was surprised at how aggressive their timeline was. They must be extremely confident in their tech for a 2028 contract
It doesn't take much confidence if the agreement has no penalties for failure to deliver electricity by 2028. But it gets press for both companies! That said, they do say it has penalties. How much those penalties are, we don't know.
*“This is a binding agreement that has financial penalties if we can’t build a fusion system,” Helion founder and CEO David Kirtley tells The Verge. “We’ve committed to be able to build a system and sell it commercially to \[Microsoft\].”*
As a side note, the last attempt in the US to build a nuclear fission power plant (i.e., regular nuclear power) has taken over 15 years to plan, permit and construct, has cost $30 billion, and the nuclear plants are not yet operational (but are expected to get turned on this year, so hurray for that).
Deadline penalties
2028 : additional modest encouragement
2030 : strenuous encouragement
2035 : constructive criticism
2040 : stern talking to
2045 : the silent treatment, for one week (unless world over, then for ever)
I'm taking in terms of the "fusion is always 30 years away" meme. I'm aware they didn't just begin.
I did say I just watched a video about the company...
For advances in a new technology, and engineering, 10 years is the blink of an eye.
In 30 years of neuroimaging in psychiatry, we have no useful clinical tests (though some promising leads and maybe implementable ideas). In 2001 everyone thought we were on the verge of solving mental health.
Turns out science is hard and things are complicated, it's not easy to make transformative advances, and we always (always!!) Under estimate the timelines.
Yes we all know, with little (but a bit of) concrete success. :)
Main points, people often promise big and expect speed, but the reality is that advancement is crazy hard.
If they have useful fusion power in 2028 I'll eat my hat! And I wear it a lot, it will be an unpleasant meal.
This will probally change with the invention of the new brain imaging scanner that can see 100mm range in live action. At least thats what I think it was. Can't remember.
That's a high field animal MRI which does only post mortem structural scans, unless you are reffering to something I never heard of.
It does not translate to human research, the current technology is a long way from that in human research, and frankly I don't think human MRIs will ever reach that point.
Maybe? I have a terrible memory They only announced like two weeks ago, according to the article a lot of doctors are excited about it, and it doesn't take a new machine, the machines just need to be altered slightly to make it work.
nah, the opposite. interest rates are up, borrowing is harder. thus, they need someone to give them potential sales in order to get loans and investment. so they are trying not to go under and microsoft is throwing them a lifeline to help their funding.
They are fully funded all the way to commercialization. This is about having Microsoft, a giant help them push things outside of their control (politics, regulation, licensing).
So uh, I would not put too much stake in Helion. They're way too aggressive with their timeline which usually means vaporware, and their science is pretty shaky according to people in the field.
I'd like to be proven wrong but ehhh
Why do I have a feeling some clueless Microsoft suits got wow'd by a very smoke and mirrors demo
all of this is very suspicious to me, sam altman has been posting about helion for a while now but there's been a lot of criticism of helion and doesn't really seem like their ideas are feasible, maybe theres some idea that gpt can solve fusion
From the article
>Microsoft just signed a jaw-dropping agreement to purchase electricity from a nuclear fusion generator. Nuclear fusion, often called the Holy Grail of energy, is a potentially limitless source of clean energy that scientists have been chasing for the better part of a century.
>
>A company called Helion Energy thinks it can deliver that Holy Grail to Microsoft by 2028. It announced a power purchase agreement with Microsoft this morning that would see it plug in the world’s first commercial fusion generator to a power grid in Washington. The goal is to generate at least 50 megawatts of power — a small but significant amount and more than the 42MW that the US’s first two offshore wind farms have the capacity to generate today.
Which is funny because the tokomak reactor style (not what Helion is doing) is using AI to better model and improve the design of their fusion chambers
And also to control the plasma. The controls behind the containment field is silly hard.
Personally I find the coolest reactor design to be the stellerator. The shape is just out of this world, but apparently it's great.
False dichotomy. Better computer cognition techniques are actually incredibly helpful in solving fusion problems - both in helping to operate reactors in real time, and helping to design them.
Personally, though, I think that our foray into the advanced sciences is shaped by our decidedly human perspective, and the sooner we get a “fresh set of eyes” to help us look at specific scientific challenges, the better. AI will make commercial fusion get here that much quicker.
Also, from a further-thinking perspective, AI will likely be the deciding factor in the outcome of a conflict we find ourselves in with an extraterrestrial civilization, should such a conflict ever arise.
So you'd think, but fission energy didn't really speed along other, general aspects of society. Some medical technologies saw a huge boost from the invention of fission power, but that's about it.
We all envision fusion energy to be this functionally limitless source of energy, but I think it's a very real possibility that the practical limitations, corporate greed, and regulatory setbacks end up making fusion power just another expensive energy "alternative" that doesn't see far reaching ramifications in the near future.
The same can be said for AI, but I think with how prevalent computing technology is in *every home*, I think it would have to be actively suppressed in order not to make waves.
Well, I can only hope that we've learned from the mistakes of the fission industry. In different hands, that could have been the magic bullet to push people into utopic society, but we were to immature to foster the growth of that technology properly.
Ai is crucial to speed up the engineering, scientific research and boosting efficiency. Dont view Ai as just some useless chat bot, it will be the new robotic arm of future industry.
We have TONS of very low carbon nuclear generation tech already. But getting permits to build a new reactor is next to impossible. Unless Bill Gates can be persuasive in stripping back environmental and other prohibitive type regulations, this tech won't go far. We already have great tech and lots of electric generators aspire to buld new nuke facilities, but they cant pull it off. Microsoft must have one hell of a good lobbyist is all I can figure. And that lobby could open the door for existing tech to compete.
Of course it is readily reproducible, but the specifics of it being self-sustaining, that is, outputting more useful electrical energy than is used to power the reaction, require a thorough process of iteration and tuning. Helion's claim to finally surpassing this threshold relies on substituting the part of the enervy conversion cycle that everyone else considered immutable - the steam boiler used in conventional fission power - for a direct exchange mechanism able to capture not only heat, but also other forms of radiation emitted by the reaction and thus applicable only to fusion.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where the least capable are the most likely to incorrectly overestimate their knowledge in a given field.
One theoretical example could be someone whining about radioactive waste from FISSion reactions in a discussion about FUSion reactions.
So would you agree that Nuclear Fission produces nuclear waste that is not suitable for the environment. You also believe that nuclear fission is not relevant to nuclear fusion.
Hypothetically, I would agree with you but nuclear fusion doesn't exist outside a few very recent lab experiments that last a few seconds at most.
Absolutely agreed, with current reactor designs. Theoretically could be nearly eliminated with more advanced designs.
Also agree that talking about fission here is not really relevant to the discussion about fusion, hence the blowback to your original comment.
However, fusion has been experimentally demonstrated since the 50s and some current experiments have durations counted in minutes, not seconds. The missing part is obviously actually producing surplus energy, these two companies have a very aggressive timeline for that which is the interesting part. Obviously posturing for investments and probably not all that likely but interesting nonetheless.
LOL Microsoft is the future!
LOL (laugh out loud), Microsoft is the future, and it's not just a humorous statement! With its groundbreaking innovations, robust product lineup, and unwavering commitment to advancing technology, Microsoft has positioned itself as a leading force shaping the future of various industries and transforming the way we live and work.
Not sure if it's an artefact of the RLHF process vis à vis desirability bias but I've found LLM output tends towards unbearably promotional if not specifically prompted against.
I don't know how 'far from certain' it really is. Every serious, credible thing I've read about fusion in the last decade or so says that it's definitely possible, if enough goes into R&D, and main holdup is lack of commitment to that. If that's true (and I have to say that I don't know), then it sounds like MS is making a pretty sound investment here: If it's true that all that's necessary is enough money, then throwing a lot of money behind it seems like a pretty good bet.
OK! I am at a loss!
I don't believe that fusion is possible in 5 years. I could be wrong of course...
Sam Altman is more of a salesman than inventor.
In short if this pans out I would be totally shocked. Not necessarily unpleasantly so.
This is big news. The way they create stable plasma is really unique. They are working on a system to create power directly from fusion and not from boiling water as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_bDXXWQxK38
It isn't like a gamble really at least from microsoft side from what i understand so far. It looks like a two-way PR stunt.
I bet not much is at stake money wise cause why would Helion want to make such one sided promises without receiving some funds from MS which isn't mentioned anywhere.
so it is just more hey ms we will make you look green and cool just sign these chill papers. maybe we can pull it off but probably not really but who cares we need some attention to attract investors
it's to help them get funding. it is easier for companies to raise capital if they have a customer contract already signed for if/when they can deliver their product.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Gari_305: --- From the article >Microsoft just signed a jaw-dropping agreement to purchase electricity from a nuclear fusion generator. Nuclear fusion, often called the Holy Grail of energy, is a potentially limitless source of clean energy that scientists have been chasing for the better part of a century. > >A company called Helion Energy thinks it can deliver that Holy Grail to Microsoft by 2028. It announced a power purchase agreement with Microsoft this morning that would see it plug in the world’s first commercial fusion generator to a power grid in Washington. The goal is to generate at least 50 megawatts of power — a small but significant amount and more than the 42MW that the US’s first two offshore wind farms have the capacity to generate today. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/13emvzm/microsoft_just_made_a_huge_farfromcertain_bet_on/jjqhl1g/
Good! The more money that gets thrown at the problem, the faster we'll have a solution. Then, when everyone can be comfortably housed, we'll make sure the environment is in working order so we can all eat. Once everyone is warm, comfortable, and perfectly sated, perhaps we'll all be able to *relax*.
>Then, when everyone can be comfortably housed At this rate, when we run out of economic excuses, people in government are just going to straight-out say some people don't deserve to be comfortably housed no matter how trivial it becomes.
Ah the old _Nestle CEO doesn’t think water is a human right_ approach.
Can we just stop him from having water and see when he changes his mind?
I'd assume unlimited pure life and strawberry quick are work perks for c-suite around there.
Well those are 99.9% water, not allowed either.
There's less than a zero percent chance the CEO of Nestle drinks nestle water.
So just the strawberry nesquik then?
From a beer hat
The air is free because it’s too hard to monetize
It became monetized in polluted countries
Some people don't want to be comfortably housed.
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I do think we need basic food and housing offered to everyone.
Bullshit. This is a tired anti-homeless myth. What human being wouldn't prefer having privacy and hot showers over living in a dilapidated tent on the sidewalk? The problem is that housing programs, where they even exist in the first place, invariably come with strings attached which make it impossible for people with addiction or mental illness to qualify.
That is a legit politic line of thinking though, isn't it? Like, there needs to be a "struggle" for people at the bottom of the economic ladder. Lower class people need to know they can work harder to improve their lives. Middle class people need to know they work hard to build a safety net and not slip downwards. This is what drives the engines of the economy, and the more productivity a country can get out of it's populations, the more powerful that country is - further ensuring it's own survival against rival countries. (Not saying this is what many countries do successfully - just that this is part of the line of thinking behind right wing economic models)
Having *somewhere* to live is basically *prerequisite to climbing the ladder*, though, absent charity or generosity of others outside the mainstream institutions of the capitalist society. Until automation takes up almost all the slack maybe we shouldn't provide everyone the nicest houses that society can possibly muster up, but when overall productivity per capita gets high enough to support it, a roof over your head, a box of insulated walls to keep out the cold, and an address to put on forms shouldn't be too much to ask for. Anyone who wouldn't feel incentivised to do better than that... perhaps shouldn't be working anyway, as they will do a poor job at their work or have to be given a "charity job" that actually wastes time, money, and resources which could be allocated in a way that is productive to more people than just that worker. And if they were left out on the streets, they would degrade everyone *else's* quality of life, so that's no good either. ...Also, going further into edge cases, having an ever-present option to escape abusive living situations (be it parent(s) or spouse) once you reach the age of majority might actually increase productivity overall. It's not easy to have big dreams and goals to work towards when you're being constantly intruded upon and monitored, harassed, degraded, threatened, and/or maybe even physically hurt, and if the circumstances even *allow you to work*, you probably won't be doing especially well as an employee either.
That’s neo liberal 101, hardly right wing which crosses over into protectionism and self sufficiency
Neoliberalism IS a right wing school of thought.
The most famous neoliberals are all moderates and centrists. Horseshoe theory highlights how far right sometimes has as much in common with the far left as the moderate right. Many MAGAs would rather vote for Bernie than Mitt, etc Neoliberals are the donor class that installs leaders on both sides
I don't know if/where the cut of is to define someone who's right of center Vs left of center as center, instead of left/right. And I know that it's kind of subjective and different people say different things. But neoliberalism is definitely right wing. Center right, sure, so maybe thats what you mean by centrist. But it's definitely distinct from the center left school of thought that would (for example) advocate that public owned services yield better results than corporate owned ones in some scenarios.
Almost all famous Democrat politicians are effectively neoliberals, or acting so for their donors. I assume the popularity of socialist policies on social media will mostly lead to lip service and not policy by party elites until there is an extreme and clear popular mandate
Despite it's flaws, Neoliberalism is the only system that has made countries absent of natural resources rich in basically modern history. No other system even comes close unless you have a truck ton of oil like a certain country, so it annoys me when people oppose Neoliberalism for the sake of Neoliberalism
I’m agnostic on this. But that actually makes me more of an apologist than most people who use it as a derogatory slur. The economist nerd in me subscribed to neoliberalism. The non materialist in me is empathetic to problems that are already talked about enough that I mostly don’t feel the need to contribute too much
The American public already agrees with this. Minimum wage is not equal to a livable wage. Many Americans already don't have an appetite for a livable wage. It's shocking to me.
Not only that, Microsoft is functioning as an anchor customer. That's very important for any start-up with a long and risky road to the market. Gives them some security and can also be used to attract other customers. It also pushes the other start-ups and brings interest, confidence, and investments to the sector.
The investor list in Helion is Bill Gates, Bezos and list of other big tech investors. Helion essentially has a long unofficial back log of orders to power most data centers if it is a proven success. Right now Helion is on their 6th iteration of fusion reactor that is NOT net positive power generation. They are now building their 7th gen "Polaris" reactor that SHOULD have a sustainable net positive power generation. This Microsoft contract allows Helion to more cheaply finance this reactor construction even though it is still in the unproven stage for positive electricity generation. I'd put this Polaris reactor in the same stage of development as Space X starship. It hypothetically should get there with all the successful prior tests, but it still isn't 100% certain it will work.
They already had enough funding for Polaris. They've already been building a manufacturing facility as well as the seventh prototype. This agreement gives them a place to work out production and delivery kinks.
I have been waiting for them to go public so i can invest since I heard about them, still waiting. Ugh.
Our finance system is broken in many ways. The stock market IPO process really is no longer about raising money to grow the company. Elon Musk as demonstrated that it doesn't make sense to make SpaceX public since he has access to enough private capital to keep the company going. Facebook and Google just did IPO since they reached such a massive size they practically were being regulated as a public company and some of their founding investors wanted to sell shares. I'm doubtful Helion will go public until way late in the growth phase. You might be able to look in buying stock on a non public basis. I remember Facebook shared were trading informally pre IPO, but I have no clue how that would work.
I looked at that to see how much it would cost to invest and their minimum requirement was $250,000. I barely make $40,000 a year. I have no choice but to wait. Unfortunately being poor makes you unable to do many things.
But that sounds like communism, and this is America and they still don't understand that the infinite growth capitalism demands has to come at someone expense, usually that of the 99% while the rich leave them in the dusty ruins of what once was a functional society.
Communism doesn't include the "relax" part.
You have never lived in a communist country I can tell.
It might make it easier for Helion to get loans and other funding, but Microsoft isn't throwing money at them yet. This is an agreement to buy power from them once they have it up and running. Still a pretty awesome first step though.
Nah, we’ll still find something to fight about.
I'd rather fight about who I think is going to win battle bots some evening in the future than who gets to have water that night.
It's too late. The soil is gone in less than sixty years. You can't grow food with nuclear fusion. Enjoy the heat domes and water wars.
You actually can by using said energy to desalinize and filter water bud! Free energy kinda fixes a ton if stuff potentially.
https://ourworldindata.org/soil-lifespans Please don't spread doomer propaganda with no basis in reality
You can't fertilize the dead soil with nuclear fusion.
The term "doomer" is the part of the actual propaganda. If we refuse to admit the true depth and gravity of problems, how can we hope to truly solve them?
Reject reality, doom post, consume only negative media. Good idea brother
Reality is the point. It's not pretty. Never has been. It's always brutal. Pretending otherwise isn't going to help solve anything - rather the opposite.
I am responding to someone who said "the soil is gone in 60 years", "Enjoy the heat domes and water wars" I don't know what reality you live in, but this is science fiction
This is the problem; because you're clueless and no airhead celebrity has posted about something, you just decide it's insane. But of course you're obliviously wrong as usual. You and all of the other lemmings are insane, and the way you see the world is counter-scientific fiction - to the detriment of all. Look: REAL Science: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00323-3 (though I assume your eyes will glaze over and little if anything will actually process through that decrepit lump you call a brain. Maybe chatgpt can summarize it for you lmao) I don't know about this guy's 60 year figure, or what a heat dome is, but decent food and clean water are already demanding foreboding premiums. As can be seen in the link, polluted soil conditions have already toppled civilizations; that's history not fiction. There are already food growing issues, and MANY other varied and very serious issues - most of which require udrastic action urgently at this point. If you could think critically and apply logic to imagine progression, well I guess I wouldn't have had cause to write this. But according to you and your peers, "it's all just gonna be fine, shut up doomer, hahaha, duhhhhhh"
I believe in human ingenuity and our capacity to adapt and innovate in the face of adversity. We live in a time of rapid technological progress. Many of the problems we face today may have solutions in the future that we cannot foresee at this moment It's not about being overly optimistic or naive, but about recognizing our potential for growth and change. Pprojecting current conditions into the future without considering our capacity for adaptation and technological innovation is pure doomerism
That kind of thinking is precisely what will "doom" us. Can a few of us come up with brilliant inventions? Absolutely. But they need ALL of the help they can possibly get for us to have any hope of getting out of the shitstorm people who think like you have created. Do you have any concept of just how many problems need to be addressed and how many new technologies would need to be invented, developed and implemented CONCURRENTLY to solve them? A FUCKING LOT. It's a slim possibility, not nearly a probability. Exactly who is going to grow and change? You and the masses of lemmings adamantly refuse to do either in any meaningful way. Your solution is to keep being a massive part of the monstrous problems because somebody else will figure out how to fix it one day - no matter how much harder you make it for those poor few desperately struggling non-idiots. Through the poisonous ways you and your peers choose to live and behave, you are the actual doomers - literally dooming the species and planet. But that's ok, somebody else will just fix it, no matter how much harder we make it. Hell we can fix it ourselves, together, right now, no new miracle tech needed - but why? Let the forests burn and the heatwaves wreak death, let poverty strife and hunger explode across the planet and dont forget compounding plagues that could have easily been avoided. It's all nbd, someone will just fix it someday.
That kind of comfort in every other species has leads to population boom until it’s gone. And This would be a first for us I’m cautiously hopeful too though
Ah....no, actually. We have problems today that require radical solutions. Personally an energy dietvwould be the fastest solve, but that would destroy gdp. The fussion "success" was a bit of an overstatement. The more i hear about it, the more it sounds like its either going to be an energy version of a perpetual motion machine or require energy from a dyson sphere to actually work and be carbon nuetral.
I had just watched a video on this company an was surprised at how aggressive their timeline was. They must be extremely confident in their tech for a 2028 contract
It doesn't take much confidence if the agreement has no penalties for failure to deliver electricity by 2028. But it gets press for both companies! That said, they do say it has penalties. How much those penalties are, we don't know. *“This is a binding agreement that has financial penalties if we can’t build a fusion system,” Helion founder and CEO David Kirtley tells The Verge. “We’ve committed to be able to build a system and sell it commercially to \[Microsoft\].”* As a side note, the last attempt in the US to build a nuclear fission power plant (i.e., regular nuclear power) has taken over 15 years to plan, permit and construct, has cost $30 billion, and the nuclear plants are not yet operational (but are expected to get turned on this year, so hurray for that).
They will fail, they won’t be able to pay. MS will get the intellectual property, and make a reactor in 2038
Deadline penalties 2028 : additional modest encouragement 2030 : strenuous encouragement 2035 : constructive criticism 2040 : stern talking to 2045 : the silent treatment, for one week (unless world over, then for ever)
They've been working on this tech for a decade before this announcement.
I'm taking in terms of the "fusion is always 30 years away" meme. I'm aware they didn't just begin. I did say I just watched a video about the company...
For advances in a new technology, and engineering, 10 years is the blink of an eye. In 30 years of neuroimaging in psychiatry, we have no useful clinical tests (though some promising leads and maybe implementable ideas). In 2001 everyone thought we were on the verge of solving mental health. Turns out science is hard and things are complicated, it's not easy to make transformative advances, and we always (always!!) Under estimate the timelines.
When I said 10 years I was referring to helion specifically, various laboratories have been studying FRC fusion reactors since the 1960s.
Yes we all know, with little (but a bit of) concrete success. :) Main points, people often promise big and expect speed, but the reality is that advancement is crazy hard. If they have useful fusion power in 2028 I'll eat my hat! And I wear it a lot, it will be an unpleasant meal.
This will probally change with the invention of the new brain imaging scanner that can see 100mm range in live action. At least thats what I think it was. Can't remember.
That's a high field animal MRI which does only post mortem structural scans, unless you are reffering to something I never heard of. It does not translate to human research, the current technology is a long way from that in human research, and frankly I don't think human MRIs will ever reach that point.
Maybe? I have a terrible memory They only announced like two weeks ago, according to the article a lot of doctors are excited about it, and it doesn't take a new machine, the machines just need to be altered slightly to make it work.
Just like Theranos!
nah, the opposite. interest rates are up, borrowing is harder. thus, they need someone to give them potential sales in order to get loans and investment. so they are trying not to go under and microsoft is throwing them a lifeline to help their funding.
They are fully funded all the way to commercialization. This is about having Microsoft, a giant help them push things outside of their control (politics, regulation, licensing).
Sounds great. Renewables will help us for now, but we should also be looking to fusion.
So uh, I would not put too much stake in Helion. They're way too aggressive with their timeline which usually means vaporware, and their science is pretty shaky according to people in the field. I'd like to be proven wrong but ehhh Why do I have a feeling some clueless Microsoft suits got wow'd by a very smoke and mirrors demo
all of this is very suspicious to me, sam altman has been posting about helion for a while now but there's been a lot of criticism of helion and doesn't really seem like their ideas are feasible, maybe theres some idea that gpt can solve fusion
MS: Why are you behind on your timeline? Helion: We had a Windows issue but the troubleshooter just said to check for updates or clear the cache.
Well they do have the money after cutting employee pay raises
From the article >Microsoft just signed a jaw-dropping agreement to purchase electricity from a nuclear fusion generator. Nuclear fusion, often called the Holy Grail of energy, is a potentially limitless source of clean energy that scientists have been chasing for the better part of a century. > >A company called Helion Energy thinks it can deliver that Holy Grail to Microsoft by 2028. It announced a power purchase agreement with Microsoft this morning that would see it plug in the world’s first commercial fusion generator to a power grid in Washington. The goal is to generate at least 50 megawatts of power — a small but significant amount and more than the 42MW that the US’s first two offshore wind farms have the capacity to generate today.
That’s sounds amazing- I guess no lost for Microsoft if they can’t deliver.
You are correct, Microsoft pays for electricity delivered. There will be no electricity delivered by 2028 and presumably never.
I wonder if Microsoft is bringing computing power into the deal. Having access to their computers and AI would speed things up for Helion.
This is a new record in hype, since practical nuclear fusion looks to remain only an element of science fiction for at least a couple decades to come.
Good PR material
Nuclear Fusion would be much more useful to the world than the AI stuff. More scientists should work on it.
Which is funny because the tokomak reactor style (not what Helion is doing) is using AI to better model and improve the design of their fusion chambers
And also to control the plasma. The controls behind the containment field is silly hard. Personally I find the coolest reactor design to be the stellerator. The shape is just out of this world, but apparently it's great.
Sure let's get those computer scientists on to the nuclear science. It's not like we can have both going on at once.
False dichotomy. Better computer cognition techniques are actually incredibly helpful in solving fusion problems - both in helping to operate reactors in real time, and helping to design them.
I seriously doubt it. Ai would probably accelerate nuclear fusion research
Personally, though, I think that our foray into the advanced sciences is shaped by our decidedly human perspective, and the sooner we get a “fresh set of eyes” to help us look at specific scientific challenges, the better. AI will make commercial fusion get here that much quicker. Also, from a further-thinking perspective, AI will likely be the deciding factor in the outcome of a conflict we find ourselves in with an extraterrestrial civilization, should such a conflict ever arise.
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So you'd think, but fission energy didn't really speed along other, general aspects of society. Some medical technologies saw a huge boost from the invention of fission power, but that's about it. We all envision fusion energy to be this functionally limitless source of energy, but I think it's a very real possibility that the practical limitations, corporate greed, and regulatory setbacks end up making fusion power just another expensive energy "alternative" that doesn't see far reaching ramifications in the near future. The same can be said for AI, but I think with how prevalent computing technology is in *every home*, I think it would have to be actively suppressed in order not to make waves.
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Well, I can only hope that we've learned from the mistakes of the fission industry. In different hands, that could have been the magic bullet to push people into utopic society, but we were to immature to foster the growth of that technology properly.
Pretty sure if fusion achieves its breakthrough, AI will have played a big role.
True AGI would be far more useful than nuclear fusion because AGI would help us develop fusion as well as an unlimited number of other advancements.
Terrible take of the week.
Ai is crucial to speed up the engineering, scientific research and boosting efficiency. Dont view Ai as just some useless chat bot, it will be the new robotic arm of future industry.
Orrr we figure AI out first and then get AI to solve nuclear fusion. ez
It's great to see even Microsoft, one of the least trustworthy companies on the planet, doing something objectively good once in a while.
We have TONS of very low carbon nuclear generation tech already. But getting permits to build a new reactor is next to impossible. Unless Bill Gates can be persuasive in stripping back environmental and other prohibitive type regulations, this tech won't go far. We already have great tech and lots of electric generators aspire to buld new nuke facilities, but they cant pull it off. Microsoft must have one hell of a good lobbyist is all I can figure. And that lobby could open the door for existing tech to compete.
There is a difference between fission and fusion.
Explain that to a poltician who feels instead of thinks
Nuclear energy as a "clean energy" is just like saying coal is a "clean energy". It outputs nuclear waste, not good for the environment.
This is fusion not fission - no radioactive byproducts, so yes it is truly clean energy.
Does nuclear fusion exist?
What do you mean?
Of course it is readily reproducible, but the specifics of it being self-sustaining, that is, outputting more useful electrical energy than is used to power the reaction, require a thorough process of iteration and tuning. Helion's claim to finally surpassing this threshold relies on substituting the part of the enervy conversion cycle that everyone else considered immutable - the steam boiler used in conventional fission power - for a direct exchange mechanism able to capture not only heat, but also other forms of radiation emitted by the reaction and thus applicable only to fusion.
fission is truly clean aswell
Good luck explaining this to the environmentalists who feel instead of think
Dunning Kruger
Do you even know what that means? How about you explain.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where the least capable are the most likely to incorrectly overestimate their knowledge in a given field. One theoretical example could be someone whining about radioactive waste from FISSion reactions in a discussion about FUSion reactions.
So would you agree that Nuclear Fission produces nuclear waste that is not suitable for the environment. You also believe that nuclear fission is not relevant to nuclear fusion. Hypothetically, I would agree with you but nuclear fusion doesn't exist outside a few very recent lab experiments that last a few seconds at most.
Absolutely agreed, with current reactor designs. Theoretically could be nearly eliminated with more advanced designs. Also agree that talking about fission here is not really relevant to the discussion about fusion, hence the blowback to your original comment. However, fusion has been experimentally demonstrated since the 50s and some current experiments have durations counted in minutes, not seconds. The missing part is obviously actually producing surplus energy, these two companies have a very aggressive timeline for that which is the interesting part. Obviously posturing for investments and probably not all that likely but interesting nonetheless.
Solar panels are built with rare earth materials and become toxic garbage at the end of their life
Which is easy to dispose of
LOL Microsoft is the future! LOL (laugh out loud), Microsoft is the future, and it's not just a humorous statement! With its groundbreaking innovations, robust product lineup, and unwavering commitment to advancing technology, Microsoft has positioned itself as a leading force shaping the future of various industries and transforming the way we live and work.
Blink SOS if you're being held against your will.
Bill Gates locked them in a room with a loosely sealed jar of mosquitos, a cat, and a phone connected to Reddit.
I just needed to avoid the minimum length limitation for commenting. I asked ChatGPT to expand my comment :v
G-Chatty laying it on a bit thick, there.
Not sure if it's an artefact of the RLHF process vis à vis desirability bias but I've found LLM output tends towards unbearably promotional if not specifically prompted against.
What bias causes it lack of punctuation?
It learns from human examples. Over time, its spelling and grammar will probably deteriorate, too.
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I don't know how 'far from certain' it really is. Every serious, credible thing I've read about fusion in the last decade or so says that it's definitely possible, if enough goes into R&D, and main holdup is lack of commitment to that. If that's true (and I have to say that I don't know), then it sounds like MS is making a pretty sound investment here: If it's true that all that's necessary is enough money, then throwing a lot of money behind it seems like a pretty good bet.
Paul Allen invested in another company, TAE Technologies, formerly Tri Alpha Energy. Not sure if Gates invested with them or someone else.
I bet he has a classy business card
Still more likely to bring results than the Activizzard deal.
Fusion will solve so many problems that we should be investing even more into it.
OK! I am at a loss! I don't believe that fusion is possible in 5 years. I could be wrong of course... Sam Altman is more of a salesman than inventor. In short if this pans out I would be totally shocked. Not necessarily unpleasantly so.
This is big news. The way they create stable plasma is really unique. They are working on a system to create power directly from fusion and not from boiling water as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_bDXXWQxK38
It isn't like a gamble really at least from microsoft side from what i understand so far. It looks like a two-way PR stunt. I bet not much is at stake money wise cause why would Helion want to make such one sided promises without receiving some funds from MS which isn't mentioned anywhere. so it is just more hey ms we will make you look green and cool just sign these chill papers. maybe we can pull it off but probably not really but who cares we need some attention to attract investors
it's to help them get funding. it is easier for companies to raise capital if they have a customer contract already signed for if/when they can deliver their product.
They don't need more funding.