Reply To: Energy Output – MW & GW

[dennisp]

Rooting for all of them of course!

My favorite is FF because the costs are so low. A reactor for the price of a house, electricity an order of magnitude cheaper than today. I’d expect commercial rollout to happen very quickly once it’s available. Also of course, aneutronic fusion is an advantage over some competitors. Seems like I read something suggesting that cathode erosion wouldn’t be a terrible problem with the right materials. A commercial reactor would probably make them easily replaceable.

Polywell is best for large reactors, can also do aneutronic, and at scale could get really cheap as well.

General Fusion doesn’t do aneutronic but the sheer ballsiness of their steampunk approach appeals to me. They’ve got two pistons firing with the precision they need, and rather than build the full device right now they’re planning experiments with explosives. Making it reliable might be a challenge, but if it’s the first to get working fusion I’d expect a lot of money to go towards solving that.

Helion looks interesting but doesn’t currently have the funding they need. Tri-Alpha is somewhat similar and has lots of money, but is very secretive.

FF and Polywell could both make really good launch rockets. GF, not so much. A cheap path to space would pretty much solve our remaining resource issues.

FF is the only one that gives frequent, detailed news on their progress, which definitely makes them the most fun to follow!