Standing joke on fusion energy, “It’s been 30 years away for the last 50 years.”
Tabletop “cold” fusion seems like a myth, so we have to wait for someone to make a star in a bottle. One company seems to have convinced Microsoft to sign on, and claim they can power a data center, in this decade. (Helion. See above)
Today we announced that Microsoft has agreed to purchase electricity from Helion’s first fusion power plant, scheduled for deployment in 2028. As the first announcement of its kind, this collaboration represents a significant milestone for Helion and the fusion industry as a whole.
We are extremely proud to have Microsoft as our first customer! With this partnership, not only are we advancing the timeline to have commercial fusion energy on the grid, but we are also supporting Microsoft’s goal to be carbon negative by 2030. With a long history of unveiling groundbreaking technology while considering their impacts on the climate, Microsoft is the ideal customer for electricity from our first fusion power plant.
Helion Energy, a startup backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SoftBank’s venture capital arm, has started construction on a site for a planned nuclear fusion power plant that will supply power to Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab data centers by 2028, the company said on Wednesday.
The site in Malaga, Washington, is in the center of the state along the Columbia River, where Helion hopes to take advantage of grid infrastructure in place for the nearby Rock Island Dam hydroelectric plant.
Microsoft has for years said that nuclear energy should be part of a mix of carbon-free energy sources and has also signed power purchase agreements for conventional fission-based nuclear power. Fusion is a longer-term bet, said Melanie Nakagawa, Microsoft’s chief sustainability officer.
“Over the last three, four years, you’ve been seeing from across the fusion space different types of milestones being met by other companies and peers, Helion included,” Nakagawa told Reuters. “There’s a lot of optimism that this could be the moment that fusion actually comes forward within this decade, or near in this decade.”
I’m not against fusion as the post below might imply, but I do find it’s frustrating that we are putting roadblocks in front of the energy sources we already have right now, and favoring those still yet to be proven.
I have a scientific background and have learned to never say never, but this I will have to see before I believe. I’m neither a betting man nor wealthy, but I would be willing to wager $1000 to anyone that it ain’t so.
Yep!
For those wishing to learn more at a generalist site:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_nuclear_fusion (no mention of Helion after 2017)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helion_Energy (search for the word voodoo)