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Power Government

US Announces $46 Million In Funds To Eight Nuclear Fusion Companies (reuters.com) 111

The US Department of Energy has announced that eight American companies working on nuclear fusion energy will receive $46 million in government funding to pursue pilot plants aimed at generating power from fusion reactions. Reuters reports: The Energy Department's Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program hopes to help develop pilot-scale demonstration of fusion within a decade. "The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to partnering with innovative researchers and companies across the country to take fusion energy past the lab and toward the grid," Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a release. The awardees are: Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Focused Energy Inc, Princeton Stellarators Inc, Realta Fusion Inc, Tokamak Energy Inc, Type One Energy Group, Xcimer Energy Inc, and Zap Energy Inc

The funding, which comes from the Energy Act of 2020, is for the first 18 months. Projects may last up to five years, with future funding contingent on congressional appropriations and progress from the companies in meeting milestones.

Looking to launch fusion plants that use lasers or magnets, private companies and government labs spent $500 million on their supply chains last year, according to a Fusion Industry Association (FIA) survey. They plan to spend about $7 billion by the time their first plants come online, and potentially trillions of dollars mainly on high-grade steel, concrete and superconducting wire in a mature industry, estimated to be sometime between 2035 and 2050, the survey said.

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US Announces $46 Million In Funds To Eight Nuclear Fusion Companies

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  • "trillions of dollars mainly on high-grade steel, concrete and superconducting wire"

    I think this is a good investment on the part of the US government, but that statement caught my eye. How many fusion installations will trillions of dollars buy?

  • by oumuamua ( 6173784 ) on Wednesday May 31, 2023 @09:18PM (#63566203)
    split that up and less than 6 million per company, that's peanuts. Meanwhile China's dropping huge sums on EAST and others https://www.fusionindustryasso... [fusionindu...iation.org]
    • Is there a line I stand in to receive these peanuts?
      • by Rei ( 128717 )

        Yes. Start a fusion company and convince a review board of nuclear physicists that you might have a viable path to commercial fusion.

        • > convince a review board of nuclear physicists

          If you're private, you don't even need that part.

          The Naval Research Lab wrote a lengthy report trashing TAE back in 1997 that explained in some detail why it couldn't possibly work. You can find it online.

          Didn't stop TAE from getting some enormous amount of investment though. "yeah sure the navy said that, the govmint doesn't want you to know about this one secret!" Tech bros; Here, have half a billion.

        • I think a TED talk should be enough. I will tell them that I can't discuss the details of the technology due to intellectual property rights, but we are just a few months away from completing our initial implementation.
    • by CEC-P ( 10248912 )
      I think you mean funneling funds secretly to coal plants that they said they weren't opening then lying, faking everything, and stealing everyone else's work.
  • With electric cars becoming more common, corporate surveillance and big data's new hot thing AI requiring massive data centers, it's becoming urgent to find cheap power sources that don't rely on dinosaur juice and don't ruin the climate.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MacMann ( 7518492 )

      With electric cars becoming more common, corporate surveillance and big data's new hot thing AI requiring massive data centers, it's becoming urgent to find cheap power sources that don't rely on dinosaur juice and don't ruin the climate.

      If that is what concerns you then you should be disappointed by this announcement. They do not expect to see a working power plant until at least 2035, and perhaps not until 2050.

      I'll see people scream about how we need solutions RIGHT NOW so there's no time for a nuclear fission power plant that would take 7 years to build. But an announcement about a nuclear fusion plant that might be built in 25 years and these same people get all excited on something finally being done.

      There won't be any nuclear fusio

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday June 01, 2023 @04:53AM (#63566667) Homepage Journal

        Europe is building new nuclear plants, it's just that they are all disasters. Massively over budget and delayed.

        • indeed solar+wind+batteries is cheaper than any other form of energy
          • indeed solar+wind+batteries is cheaper than any other form of energy

            A grid powered only by wind and solar would be many times more expensive than today's grid to operate.

            Wind especially above 100m has real promise. Solar not so much. Present day ESS is only capable of short term buffering.

      • To combat global warming we need Fission now and we can put a few bets on possible Fusion later.

        We can ( and are ) doing both.
      • by evanh ( 627108 )

        Mostly the "right now"ers are saying we need to reduce consumption. Not build anything at all.

        And many others also said we needed to act back when they were saying all this is really bad in the 1990's, or even earlier. Now many are just saying "I told you so".

    • We had fission already yesterday. The same yesterday when we should have been addressing the carbon issue.

      Miracle future tech is great, but if it comes after the collapse of civilization, or even after we've hit key tipping points like the permafrost methane bomb (probably less than 20 years out), it does fuck-all for anyone. Waiting on fusion isn't any better than waiting on carbon capture. There's a train coming down the tracks, toot-toot. It's time to get out of the way.

      I'm sure it's easy for Joe in the

      • by Rei ( 128717 )

        Nobody is saying "fusion instead of solar and wind" or "do nothing until fusion is ready". This is a massive straw man that gets trotted out into every discussion about fusion, and it gets tiring.

        • You can't have a reliable grid with majority weather-dependent generation. Parts of the US are just about maxed out on how much wind/solar they can install without adding more dispatchable generation capacity. That only comes from fossil fuels or fission. There's not another option. Without nuclear, you WILL see either (1) more fossil fuel plants, or (2) more blackouts.

          We will probably see both, with the way people are weasling around trying to find a magic solution that's the least offensive to everyone. "

          • You can't have a reliable grid with majority weather-dependent generation.

            Adding EVs with V2G makes it practical.

            Parts of the US are just about maxed out on how much wind/solar they can install without adding more dispatchable generation capacity.

            You mean batteries? Wind+solar+batteries is cheaper than coal in the best case already, let alone nuclear.

            • V2G on any kind of scale is going to take decades. You have to wait for the masses to upgrade their home's electrical infrastructure and buy an electric vehicle, one or the other doesn't work. It would also appear to work worst during peak consumption hours (daytime/early evening), when people are out and about in their cars, or just returned home and expect the car to be charging. Or during a hurricane evacuation when everyone's garage is empty. Not quite miracle tech, but unproven, and too late in any cas

              • You have to wait for the masses to upgrade their home's electrical infrastructure and buy an electric vehicle, one or the other doesn't work.

                You need a little hardware at (possibly behind) the meter, but it's fairly minimal, lick-and-stick kind of stuff. EVs are coming as fast as we can build batteries...

                It would also appear to work worst during peak consumption hours (daytime/early evening)

                During peak daytime demand (which is when it's sunny, and you have both industrial loads and air con) you can get solar. The evening peak occurs after people have gotten home. If people are charging every night, which they will be if they participate in V2G, and their battery capacity follows current trends, and they have a typical commute, they

          • > You can't have a reliable grid with majority weather-dependent generation.

            This is also a huge red herring. No one is proposing this.

            We already have massive amounts of on-demand power from natgas. We don't have to turn them off, we simply have to turn them off *more often*. As more renewables get into the grid they'll be used less and less. Sucks for their economics, but that's been factored in already.

  • by PPH ( 736903 ) on Wednesday May 31, 2023 @10:05PM (#63566275)

    That's not much, considering what the private companies themselves have spent. I wonder what the US government expects for such a pittance? Other than "You took the federal money. Now here's a truckload of regulations you'll have to comply with."

    If I were these companies, I'd return the checks.

    • What does one have to do with the other? The companies will have to comply with all applicable regulations, regardless.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by DrMrLordX ( 559371 )

        https://www.reuters.com/techno... [reuters.com]

        That's just the tip of the iceberg. Expect a whole raft of regulations that have nothing to do with the actual business.

    • I bet this is a chunk of whatever money the DoE/Executive branch can spend on their own out of a limited pool and a larger investment would require being written into the next budget or its own bill.

  • for corporate welfare programs.
  • Not really.

    Divided between 8 companies it's $5.75 million per each. Thirty seconds of national TV airtime averages about $350,000. Therefore it's like buying roughly eight minutes of airtime for a national TV ad campaign, which is such a minuscule amount it would be a joke. No one would bother.

    So all the Slashdot Pundit are screaming their heads off about "government waste" or "I want my home molten salt thorium reactor" or "we all gonna run out of air conditioning without coal and die from a lack of cold

    • Not really.

      Divided between 8 companies it's $5.75 million per each. Thirty seconds of national TV airtime averages about $350,000. Therefore it's like buying roughly eight minutes of airtime for a national TV ad campaign, which is such a minuscule amount it would be a joke. No one would bother.

      Your statement raises more about why anyone would be still spending $350,000 on thirty seconds of "TV" airtime. Talk about aging investments.

      So all the Slashdot Pundit are screaming their heads off about "government waste" or "I want my home molten salt thorium reactor" or "we all gonna run out of air conditioning without coal and die from a lack of cold diet Coke". The sheer stupidity of these whiny reactions shows the typical Slashdot participant has a brain the size of a pea.

      Uh, before you get too high up on that horse of yours, understand that if P.T. Barnum were alive today, he'd be a trillionaire selling fusion to suckers. In fact, this particular challenge is so old he probably was selling fusion to suckers.

      (Imagine if we discovered the answer to all our fusion challenges tomorrow. Explain to me how and why Greed N. Corruption curre

      • understand that if P.T. Barnum were alive today, he'd be a trillionaire selling fusion to suckers. In fact, this particular challenge is so old he probably was selling fusion to suckers.

        There's still more money right now in selling fission to suckers, so I'd argue he'd be doing that instead...

      • The amount of money spent annually on TV ads is around $81 billion, so there are a whole lot of people with a whole lot of money who clearly think you are wrong about TV advertising. Just saying.

        As for bringing up P.T. Barnum, that's so old it would have never occurred to me. Frankly I just picked TV ads out of my ass. It could have been anything, but that stat was easy to find.

        If you think I'm oh a high horse, read my logon name and my sig. I'm here to amuse myself by annoying people like you, but I rare

    • Resources are limited. A few million here and a few million there, each just "a drop in the bucket", and before you know it, we're spending trillions more than we take in.

      Our national financial disintegration is the disgrace. I want to invest in fusion too, but even more, I'd like the government to stop devastating the economy with irresponsible deficit spending. We can't have everything all at once.

  • All that resulting helium will have to go somewhere.
  • Great that they are looking to fund some of these and get things moving. Bad because nothing went to Helion which is probably the best positioned Fusion company going. Hopefully, we will speed up companies like Terrapower and get them going. Soon.

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