Environment & Energy

"Fusion, the power source of the sun, is coming to Earth as a disruptive new energy technology." Mkay . . .

"We fervently believe . . . " Yes and I can fervently believe that Quaker State 10W40 is the blood of Christ, that Hitler is living in Brazil, or that Taco Bell sells "food". The fervor of my beliefs has nothing to do with their validity.

"We expect our first ARC fusion power plant will start putting watts on the grid in Chesterfield County, Virginia, in the early 2030s." If it pans out, I'll be happy to applaud accordingly. However, for now it's a self-driving Tesla (flying or otherwise), the Metaverse or New Coke, until proven otherwise.

"A global race for fusion is shaping up: there are now 53 fusion energy companies around the world that have raised over $10 billion in capital." So, $10 billion divided by 53 = +/- $189 million per company. Vogtle 3 and 4 together cost more than $30 billion for two light water fission reactors. Will these 53 companies pool their resources to strain towards a total of (roughly) two orders of magnitude X 0.5 less in funding than that needed to complete two fission units?

Look, I'd be happy to see this succeed, but there's a lot of techno-hopium currently under deployment across multiple technologies and scientific disciplines (geoengineering, AI, autonomous vehicles), and my first reaction to bold announcements like this is skepticism. Sorry if that makes me a "naysayer", but skepticism is more necessary than ever these days, IMO.