From theory and small-scale tests to reality, will fusion ever scale?
US Energy Secretary Chris White says Nuclear Fusion Will Soon Power the World.
Don’t worry too much about planet-warming emissions, the US Energy Secretary has told the BBC, because within five years AI will have enabled the harnessing of nuclear fusion – the energy that powers the sun and stars.
“With artificial intelligence and what’s going on at the national labs and private companies in the United States, we will have that approach about how to harness fusion energy multiple ways within the next five years,” said Mr Wright.
“The technology, it’ll be on the electric grid, you know, in eight to 15 years.”
Scientists believe nuclear fusion, which Mr Wright studied at university, could one day produce vast amounts of energy without heating up our atmosphere.
But it’s a very complex process. Replicating it on Earth involves heating atoms to temperatures many times hotter than the sun.
He acknowledged that climate change is a “very real, physical phenomenon” and said that he believes the world will decarbonise: “It’s just generations from now, not two or three decades from now.”
Fossil Fuel + Fusion or Realistic Energy Resilience? America’s Crossroads
Also consider Fossil Fuel + Fusion or Realistic Energy Resilience? America’s Crossroads
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright recently suggested that nuclear fusion could be a commercially viable energy source within five years. At the same time, he lamented Britain”s focus on renewables, implying that the U.S. should stay the course with existing fossil fuel infrastructure while waiting for “fusion miracles.” While optimism about fusion is admirable, it is not a credible near-term solution for America’s energy challenges.
The problem: fusion is still in the experimental stage. Net energy gain has only been achieved briefly in lab conditions, and engineering challenges—materials that can withstand extreme heat, neutron flux, and sustained plasma—remain daunting. Even if these hurdles are overcome, the cost of commercial fusion power will likely be very high at first.
My Conversation with Grok
Me: How can we ever harness something hotter than the sun, and extract energy from it, in scale, without melting everything?
Grok: Paywalled Link
Nuclear fusion involves creating a plasma—a superheated, ionized gas—hotter than the sun’s core (around 100-200 million degrees Celsius compared to the sun’s 15 million degrees) to fuse atomic nuclei and release energy. This is necessary on Earth because we can’t replicate the immense gravitational pressure at the sun’s core, so higher temperatures compensate to achieve sufficient fusion rates.
The key challenge is containing this extreme heat without the plasma touching and melting the reactor walls. Here’s how it’s addressed in practical terms, focusing on the leading approaches for scalable energy production.
Containment Methods to Avoid Melting
Fusion reactors don’t let the hot plasma directly contact materials in a way that would cause widespread melting. Instead, they use sophisticated isolation techniques:
- Magnetic Confinement (e.g., Tokamaks and Stellarators): This is the most pursued method for steady-state power production, as in projects like ITER and private ventures from companies like Commonwealth Fusion Systems. Superconducting magnets generate powerful magnetic fields that suspend and shape the plasma in a vacuum chamber, keeping it levitated in the center without touching the walls. 2 sources The plasma’s low density (much thinner than air) means its total thermal energy is manageable, even at extreme temperatures—think of it like a hot but sparse gas cloud held at bay by invisible forces. Any minor contact is mitigated by:
- Divertors: Components that handle exhaust plasma and heat, often made of heat-resistant materials like tungsten, which can withstand up to ~3,000°C before melting.
- Active Cooling: Liquid coolants (e.g., helium or water) circulate through the reactor walls to dissipate heat.
- Plasma Edge Control: Techniques like injecting impurities or shaping fields to reduce edge turbulence and prevent “disruptions” (sudden plasma collapses that could damage walls).
- Inertial Confinement (e.g., Laser-Based Systems like NIF): Used in facilities like the U.S. National Ignition Facility, this pulses high-powered lasers to compress a tiny fuel pellet (deuterium-tritium) in microseconds, igniting fusion before the heat can propagate and melt surroundings. It’s more like controlled micro-explosions than sustained burning, but scaling it for continuous power remains challenging and less mature for grid-scale use.
Even with these methods, some energy escapes as neutrons or radiation, which bombard the reactor’s “blanket” (a surrounding layer). This blanket absorbs the neutrons, breeds more fuel (tritium), and transfers heat without direct plasma contact.
Materials science advancements, like nanostructured alloys and ceramic composites, further enhance resilience against neutron damage and erosion.
Extracting Energy at Scale
Once fusion occurs, energy extraction mirrors fission reactors but with fusion’s unique outputs:
- Heat Transfer: Neutrons from deuterium-tritium fusion (the easiest reaction) carry kinetic energy, heating the blanket and coolant to produce steam.
- Power Generation: Steam drives turbines connected to generators, producing electricity—similar to coal or nuclear plants but with no greenhouse gases or long-lived waste.
- Efficiency and Scaling: Current demos (e.g., China’s EAST tokamak sustaining plasma for over 1,000 seconds) show progress toward “burning plasma” where reactions self-heat the system. For grid-scale (gigawatts), reactors like DEMO (post-ITER) aim for net energy gain by the 2030s-2040s, with private firms targeting earlier demos. Challenges include sustaining reactions, managing tritium supply, and cost reduction, but no fundamental physics barrier prevents it.
Challenges and Realism
While feasible in principle, scaling isn’t trivial—plasma instabilities, material fatigue from neutrons, and high costs are hurdles.
The linked article appears skeptical, arguing fusion isn’t a credible near-term fix for U.S. energy needs, potentially favoring “realistic resilience” via renewables or efficiency over long-shot tech like fusion (which some critics call “fossil fuel fusion” due to hype or indirect fossil dependencies in development).
However, fusion’s potential for unlimited, clean baseload power makes it worth pursuing alongside solar, wind, and batteries for a diversified grid. Progress in the 2020s (e.g., net gain at NIF in 2022, extended runs in tokamaks) suggests it’s moving from sci-fi to engineering reality, without needing to “melt everything” thanks to non-contact confinement.
Elon Musk Backs Universal High Income Fearing AI Will Take Every Job
As soon an as we get AI humming, with fusion providing the energy, and robots doing the maintenance running on free energy, what do we need humans for?
That question was the subject for my post Elon Musk Backs Universal High Income Fearing AI Will Take Every Job
Musk predicts employment will become obsolete.
Universal High Income is a socialist dream. Everyone shares the wealth of free energy and free stuff and lives happily ever after.
Big Energy is going to have to snuff this rube’s voice quickly, before he does any financial damage to their fossil fuel interests.
We have been listening to the “Fusion Fantasy” for multiple decades already. I’m a big technology lover but have looked at this in depth and have not found any credible method to consider as viable.
Let the unicorn fart dissipate in the hot air,,,
Wow, the hopium from many commenters on this site is off the charts! Net energy is falling. It’s all downhill from here, folks. A.I., automation, “green” tech and building nuclear power plants will only hasten the decline. We are about 60-70 years too late to start all this.
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/the-end-of-the-road
With all due respect to Mr. White, I had to laugh at the part where he says with AI we will get fusion in a few years. I think AI needs to solve its own issues like its hallucinations first before it can be used to advance critical tech.
This odd tech hype being peddled of AI, fusion, quantum computing etc… feels very internet bubbly to me. Not saying it won’t happen, humans do progress, but this is more of an invite of money to keep the financial machine going.
Whether this tech convergence is more like early internet vs dot com boom/bust is what will make the difference between billionaires and bankruptcy, place your bets everyone!
Up until a couple of years ago, I never thought China would surpass the USA militarily or economically during my lifetime. Now I’m not sure. Consider the $trillions China is investing in modern infrastructure, future energy technologies, AI and advanced manufacturing and robotics. Consider the $trillions the USA has wasted on futile wars in the same period. Where lies the sound investment, and who is following the broken window fallacy?
In China maybe, LOL. The US will regress back to King Coal!
And if this turns out not to work, there’s always unicorn farts.
Cold Fusion, Hot Fusion ~ Blah, Blah, Blah…
Blowhard Fusion is what this is!
Nice fantasy though, sort of like “Infinite Speed in Zero Time”.
Laughing Out Loud!
<<<
“Man will never fly in the sky”
Everyone, pre-1900s
Don’t worry AI will solve everything.
I’m surprised anyone is claiming commercial fusion power in less than 10 years.
I would guess from design to completing construction to operational status would take a minimum of 8 years.
The problem is we can’t design one yet because we don’t have the technology.
I think universal high standard of living is possible and a realistic goal, if not universal high income.
This statement is not quite true. They are measuring only the energy entering the containment vessel and the yield. They are not measuring the grid draw for the facility, magnets, and infrastructure.
The key word is commercial. Look, I don’t disbelieve that fusion could theoretically one day be harnessed to generate electrical power. The question is whether the benefits would outweigh the cost. You can recover oil with deep Sea drilling in the Arctic, but the challenges proved too great to make it commercially viable.
We would be better off doing something that has already been proved possible in the sixties.. Thorium LFTR MSR technology.
The thorium nuclear cycle has many advantages.
Cannot be used to create nuclear weapons fuel; that is the primary “disadvantage” why government did not encourage itInherently safe (no runaway reactions possible)For practical purposes there is an infinite amount of thorium (just in the ashes of burnt coal) which you can utilize for almost 100% instead of the pitiful low efficiency of enriched uraniumYou can burn up the existing nuclear waste inside the reactor, using it as breeder, while producing far less nuclear waste which only needs to be safely contained for 300 years instead of half a million.China & India are working on it, but in the West private market ideologues have blocked any strategic efforts. The state has always functioned as the cradle for nuclear power technology (because of regulatory and other risks).
Nope. In the 60s we proved that Thorium wasn’t commercially viable. Though that doesn’t stop us from trying. There are 16 different countries working on Thorium reactors today. No one is close to a commercial unit.
The same goes for SMRs. We have been working on them for close to 70 years and still haven’t developed commercial units. There are currently 51 different designs being worked on throughout the world.
People are always hopeful that breakthroughs are right around the corner. Sadly, hope is not a good strategy.
Actually the NRC has recently approved two SMR’s. 50 & 77 MW units from NuScale. The TVA & Entra1 is using them in building a 300 MW facility in Clinch River Tennessee.
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/tva-entra1-energy-team-up-for-smr-deployment
Yes. But nothing has yet been built. They have also moved away from Nuscales design to a Hitachi design. Construction may start on “site preparation” in 2026. The target date to startup is 2033.
NuScale’s involvement at the Clinch River site has evolved, but the current momentum is actually centered around a different SMR design. Here’s the latest breakdown:
🔧 Clinch River SMR Progress (as of 2025)
✅ Early Site Permit Secured
• The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) received the first-ever early site permit for SMRs at Clinch River back in 2019
• This permit confirmed the site met safety, environmental, and emergency planning standards—but it didn’t lock in a specific reactor design.
🔄 Shift to GE-Hitachi BWRX-300
• TVA has pivoted from NuScale’s design to the GE-Hitachi BWRX-300, a 300 MWe boiling water reactor with passive safety systems
• TVA submitted a construction permit application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in May 2025
• This makes TVA the first U.S. utility to formally seek approval to build the BWRX-300, potentially paving the way for broader deployment
🏗️ Next Steps
• TVA plans to begin site preparation work as early as next year, pending NRC review
• Commercial operation is targeted for 2033, though funding from the Department of Energy could accelerate that timeline by two years
🚫 What About NuScale?
• NuScale has made major strides elsewhere, including NRC approval for its 77 MWe uprated SMR design
• However, NuScale is not currently the selected technology for Clinch River. TVA has not authorized deployment of NuScale’s SMRs at that site
SMR ≠ MRS
Small modular reactor
Molten Salt Reactor
Cannot be used to create nuclear weapons fuel; that is the primary “disadvantage” why government did not encourage it
[This site often throws away the formatting with some delay after posting]
Whether it is 8 or 100 years, surely we will figure how to do fusion at scale. …and in that timescale you will have machines that are as dexterous as humans (and way more intelligent). So at that point why would you have human employment – what advantage would it offer?
As interesting, is what this does to wealth. If you don’t need to work, how do you differentiate as a human? …or how do you become richer than your neighbour.
Unfortunately humans haven’t evolved to live in a society that doesn’t have competition and greed so there are going to be a lot of dissatisfied people out there.
Whoops – there goes me forgetting that we already got to that point and are living in a simulation. What gets me is why the programmers of the simulation thought it necessary to install this Trump guy.
What everybody always forgets, when thinking that everybody is a millionaire.
Where would the porter be to carry your luggage?
Who would clean up your hotel room?
Baby sitter?
Nurse or teacher?
People in hunter-gather societies do not think they are poor.
Still, there is competition for repute and influence.
Power (and money) has always revolved around the ability to commandeer other human beings.
None of what you say is true, is common knowledge
Foolish Secretary may say anything he feels like saying.
In 8-15 years he will have been long gone and no one will remember him or his silly statements.
Funny how no one remembers the advertised 33 billion bond cost for Mexifornia’s 500 mile bullet train to nowhere that’s still nowhere close to laying any rail for the now reduced 170 mile central valley section that will never get to San Francisco or San Diego at over an estimated additional 35 billion cost and climbing. Maybe AI will solve the nowhere problem.
Meanwhile China has built 30,000 miles of high speed electric rail in just two decades. Their trains run on time and go over 200 mph. In 2024 they handled over 3.27 billion passengers. And their newest train stations look amazing.
https://youtu.be/Dyf9nZQfXy0?si=yMnqsE4O_7by6ytY
So, after four score years they’ve gone from an endless 30 year cycle to 15 for a fusion break threw, and no thought of a likely grid scale Carrington event ending it all for 30 years of destroyed grid rebuild with half the population dead. It’s a brave new Zardoz world for THX1138.
A particle physics friend of mine described the problems associated with current nuclear fusion efforts: “Plasma gas is very “liquidy”: its supposed to be held in place by a strong magnetic field but its so liquidy that it slips in between the magnetic loops and dissipates. They [researchers] haven’t figured out how to contain the plasma. Even the strongest magnetic loops cannot prevent it from slipping out.”
The other problem is the degradation of the internal equipment by neutrons, mentioned in the article. There’s no way to absorb the neutrons without impeding the magnetic field. So, the expensive equipment breaks down gradually.
Finally, all this extremely energy hungry equipment still just releases heat to boil water. That part of the energy generation is no more advanced than James Watt’s steam engine in the 1770s.
Its not like Doc Brown’s time machine in “Back to the Future”. They never bothered to explain how plutonium or Mr. Fusion generates 1.21 gigawatts for the time machine. That’s because there’s no way to directly generate electrical current using fusion.
The only theoretical way is to undertake aneutronic fusion of heavier elements like Boron, which releases X-rays in addition to heat. The X-rays could be converted to electrical current. But if tokamak fusion is measured in millions of degrees, aneutronic fusion is measured in billions of degrees, quite a step ahead of where we aren’t even at right now.
Oh well. Maybe in 20 more years…
Yep. Good post.
CHINA has 30,000 miles of high speed rail. USA zero. our fastest the acela is shit.
U.S. population density is about 1/5th that of China.
Higher population density makes high-speed rail much more economic.
China has two to three times as many metro areas with populations over 1 million, in significantly less area than the U.S. The number of potential riders per mile of track is therefore several times higher. And the national government owns all the land, and can displace people to get rail rights-of-way with relative ease.
Our lower population density makes air travel a more practical solution.
I didn’t know people were still seriously reading and believing in Popular Mechanics articles from the 1950s.
Ending w/ Musk, is Mamdani a feature or a glitch? If AI is going to solve scientific / engineering problems in energy via fusion, fission or whatever else is dreamed up and then reduce the workforce, Mamdani could be a trial run. Socialism for the unemployed masses. Not ruling out that an AI in the basement of the RAND Corp came up with something like this. Along with Big Gay, abortion and destruction of families. Remember, Marx and Engels wanted to seize the means of production. We are currently in the transition where they want to seize the means of reproduction.
“seize the means of reproduction”
OMG! I’m DYING! BAAAAHAHAHAHAAH!
Most men have spent a significant part of their life grasping the means of reproduction while dreaming about expanding into complementary means of reproduction.
They said they’re working to cure cancer. We got untested novel drugs and they took away drugs on the WHO list of important drugs. They said they care about human rights, while they wipe out women and children around the world to “protect their interest”.
What does anyone think they’ll use fusion power for?
Well, 8-15 encompasses the 10 years it always has been.
China has 30 nuclear reactors under construction right now. The US has zero.
The gas and coal industry are cheering shutting down wind and solar projects, which are the far least expensive power sources to scale, and much faster. Meanwhile there is a five-year backlog of turbines for natural gas plants. And there is a 4-year delay on new transformers in the US.
A thousand data centers or none, doesn’t matter. Can’t even build a transformer in the US before 2030. Whatever happens in power generation will happen everywhere else besides North America.
There were thousands of domestic bombings in the USA during the 1970s, with multiple sources describing a peak of political violence and terrorist attacks. The exact number of incidents is hard to pinpoint due to varying definitions and reporting standards, but some figures provide insight into the scale:
“what do we needs humans for?” Based on recent events/social media posts of species, good question. Fear AI may come to similar conclusion.
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1946854532043899326
“It’s done: China just launched the construction of the Yarlung Tsangpo dam project (https://scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3318875/chinas-li-qiang-announces-launch-tibet-mega-dam-project-has-worried-india). It’ll be by far the world’s largest hydroelectric facility, generating 3 times more electricity than the Three Gorges dam, 300 billion kilowatt-hours. This dam project alone could power almost a quarter (21.6%) of all US households”
Total US hydro electric production declined in 2024 to 241 billion kwh. That is less than that one Chinese project. This is due to droughts that are lowering water levels at some of our largest dams.
I would suggest reading Cadillac desert. Kind of a history of water in the west. Interesting on multiple levels.
If i recall rt. Part of the causing of our national debt. one mans passion for building dams.
Anyway pretty much all of the good sites have been build. Limited life of dams. Not economically feasible to rebuild.
Dated maybe a bit to the left but interesting.
Way too optimistic – so much that it sounds like a blatant lie. Sounds like “I’m so close, give me money”.
Weren’t they planning for something like small nuclear reactors (I think it was Gates’ idea)?
A hope is that AI will grow differently (not needing all those gigantic data centers), and that devices will consume less power. And that single people will trade their SUVs for smaller “lower consumption” engines, etc. etc. But most people are in the habit of consuming as much as they can afford…
You and some of the other luddites above represent one of the major problems with the internet – the ability to sound off about subjects that you have no understanding of.
“HEY! Look at me! I made an internet post!! ”
Sheese.
The guy above makes perfect sense.
Communist fachists like you are a virulent disease. You think you have the right to decide who can talk and what they can say.
I think you deserve what you just did to a Christian.
Talmud Satan worshipper.
To say that an infrastructure project will dominate in 15 years, it would mean that you have already at least a few of them working and being tested for stability and various scenarios. For several years.
Nobody even knows the output stability of such units.
If they build one (1) working unit and start operating it to power a small village, and test the hundreds of different scenarios, then we could start talking about 15-20 years for more units.
There it is! The dumbest thing I’ll read today!
They have been saying this for the past 50 years. I will believe it when I see it. And it will be way more expensive than your current electricity so major inflation in power bills.
You wrote above that “How can you possibly talk about reducing the price of fusion reactors when none are available at present?”
Yet you see no dichotomy in claiming that something that you do not believe will occur, will still be more expensive that what we have presently.
You just like to see yourself make stupid posts.
Gratuitously offensive creatures like you need some kinetic manipulation in the right hands. (I’m not good with that sort of thing.)
Should have added, But I know a man who is. 🙂
In the 1950’s in the UK we were told nuclear energy would be too cheap to meter, that transpired to be total BS, we have pools of highly radioactive waste that we do not know how to dispose of since we can no longer dump it in the Atlantic.
Experience has taught me to believe nothing from the nuclear industry.
Especially construction costs on new builds, absolute fantasy with cost overruns a given.
Fusion has and will remain a fantasy for the foreseeable future. Do not believe a politician as a source of reliable information.
Billions of Chinese and Indian people have been burning wood and coal for heat and cooking for centuries. Replacing those sources with electricity from a coal fired plant is actually cleaner than stripping the land of its forest and burning wood.
In more developed areas, coal fired plants in China are being converted to natural gas quickly and new nat Gas plants are being built in only a few years.
China has come a long way toward cleaning up and modernizing its electrical grid and a “Command” economy can do that as long as the public remains poor, uneducated and willing to work for low wages…
Conversely the US president is moving energy and society backward… Trump wants the American people (yes our wives and children) to work in coal fired factories/sweatshops for near slave wages.
Of course the young girls can be exploited, sold or traded amongst his political allies and friends.
Who does Trump work for?
Israel
How can you possibly talk about reducing the price of fusion reactors when none are available at present?
Microsoft has a contract with one of the companies developing fusion power to deliver electricity to a target data center in 2028. So, 3 years to go!
I hope, as a sign of faith and solidarity, you will be putting up some of your own capital to invest in this technology.
As the saying goes, nuclear fusion is the energy source of the future – and it always will be.
Not only will we have on line fusion in 8-15 years but it shall be enabled by AI! Dig the hype.
WI-FI me some of that electricity son! (Sounds like a hillbilly version of an OMD song.)
Universal High Income not only isn’t socialist it will rejuvenate and redeem capitalism/profit-making economic systems…simply by utilizing the same method 97% of all new money is created every year ONLY AS DEBT which is the double entry bookkeeping operations of equal debits and credits that sum to zero, except 50% of that money will be a strategically implemented GIFT of money. Operant applied ideas/new paradigms change systemic realities and resolve their deepest problems. Stop being such an old fogey Mish and open your mind. Tools like money and double entry bookkeeping are for use not resistance to change which is inevitable.
Well, fusion energy has ALWAYS been 15-20 years away for as long as I can remember!
Not anymore.
Correct. Now it is 20-30 years away.
Lol – this is true!
Here is the closes thing I have seen for an actual fusion plant.
https://www.helionenergy.com/
Universal High Income is only socialistic when it’s not exclusive to bankers and oligarchs who suck at the government udders.
This all depends upon the Fusion Fairy and her minions.
Western nations are already having problems with the existing frail grid. As it is a great proportion of the grid cant handle more alternatives without massive spending. There’s already an acute shortage of electrical workers required to fix the existing grid.
Correct.
Now, who is spending a lot of money to rapidly expand their grid? Who has those skilled workers.
China.
Please note. I not cheering for China to keep outsmarting us. I just point out that they are.
Maybe that’s because China has a leader that wants his country to dominate the future, which involves the electrification of the economy, while we have a President that wants to avoid the electric future.
To be fair, China has always had a leader who could give a rats about what it takes to be first. They aren’t paying those billions of people a whole lot of money and they simply replace the ones that die in the process of building out their country like another cog in the wheel. I don’t think we should be remotely envious of how they are achieving their goals; we should be embarrassed how we have been taking our past for granted and doing nothing about our obvious solutions….do something.
I do not want to live in China. Or work in China. Though I know some people who do live and work there. And they must like it a lot or they wouldn’t have been there for more than a decade. They have never complained about their income or the cost of living. And when I visit them, they show me around and I am very impressed with how quickly China is progressing.
I am not envious of them. Nor do I wish to join them. I am very happy in the US.
But I can see what China is doing and where they are heading. It’s impressive.
One of my friends lives in chongqing. You should check out some youtube videos on chongqing. The airport, the train stations, the roads and traffic, the food (their famous hotpot), nightlife etc. It might be an eye opener for you
That’s because they are brainwashed
Lol! Of course they are. Thanks.
I live in China. My electric bill is about $7.50 a month. How much is yours?
Sure, they are, not you. Parish the thought.
As much as Americans | Europeans?
You wouldn’t belong there: You’re not Chinese.
Neither are my friends. But they are very happy there.
Nice try. China has a dictator & state control of everything. They also have 1.3B people. And their labor costs are a fraction of the US, giving them an enormous advantage when it comes to building anything.
They’ve also benefited from the US exporting our manufacturing to them through a massive trade deficit over the past 40 years. They routinely practice dumping to gain control over markets.
They also have this Belt Road project that’s debt enslaving all sorts of countries around the world.
They have a homogenous society & culture.
Companies & individuals have a fraction of the rights that we do here in the US.
They prioritize production over environmental concerns.
I could go on & on, but you get the point which is:
They have their way, and we have ours. All Trump is doing is re-allocating resources, which you don’t like. That’s fine. You’re entitled to your opinions.
Trump has 3.5 years to prove everyone wrong. If he does, great! We’re on a better path than what Comrade Kamala would have taken us down. If he doesn’t, then JD Vance doesn’t get to be the next President & advance conservative ideals. Instead, we may be looking at Newsom being president.
Who knows. What lies in the future really is nothing more than predictions.
Lol!
So what?
If you are afraid to see how advance China is becoming, I can understand that. You’re afraid to see it.
The point is what are we going to do to compete with China?
While they are leading the world in electrifying their economy, Trump is trying to slow the electrification of ours.
Our electricity supply is not growing fast enough to meet our growing demand. That will hold back economic growth and raise electricity prices for everyone.
I know just as well as you do how advanced China is becoming. I track & follow it as much or more than you do. And you and me can’t do anything about that or how the US reacts.
Nothing I said above indicates that I think the US is going to be “competing” with China other than developing next generation technologies. Pace & scale of deployment unquestionably favors China for all the reasons I outlined above. They have clear & key deployment advantages beyond technical knowhow.
As I’ve said at least 3 times now in the last week or so:
FORCE ALL DATA CENTERS TO BUILD THEIR ENERGY PRODUCTION & PAY FOR IT UP FRONT PRIOR TO BEGINNING OPERATIONS.
These companies can easily afford to do so.
Biden got WAY OUT over his skis when he mandated EV adoption with such breathtakingly short timeframes.
80% of Americans can’t afford EVs or have the ability to charge them. For these reasons & others, adoption of EVs in the US is going to be much slower than China.
Call GM & Ford & have them bring back compact & midsize cars that start out with plug-in hybrid technology that Americans can actually afford & then we can worry about widespread adoption of EVs. Our grid & power generations simply aren’t ready for huge grow in EVs.
“ FORCE ALL DATA CENTERS TO BUILD THEIR ENERGY PRODUCTION & PAY FOR IT UP FRONT PRIOR TO BEGINNING OPERATIONS.”
And I keep telling you: that policy will guarantee that data centers get all the new power generation because they will pay up front to have it built for them first before utilities have a chance at it.
There is only so much new generation available to be built. Why give it all to the data centers?
Your biased thinking process is ass backwards. Careful what you wish for.
The same goes for your comment on EVs. YOU should call GM and FORD to tell them what they should so. I’m sure they will listen to you.
I have better things to do.
And I keep telling you: that policy will guarantee that data centers get all the new power generation because they will pay up front to have it built for them first before utilities have a chance at it.
Actually, that’s the first time that I’ve seen you make this statement. Sure, it seems reasonable but the regulators can simply say NO, you don’t get your data center first. You don’t get to jump to the front of the line, unless you build a fully renewable power-based data center. If solar, wind + batteries are that fantastic, then maybe we need to go hire Chinese engineers to spec that out for us.
We should not be building NatGas or nuclear, for now, to power data centers. Data centers should be placed where they can take advantage of solar, wind, ocean hydro, geothermal + batteries. I would be fine with coal as a short-term bridge to SMRs.
That’s not backwards. It’s called common sense.
It’s been 15-20 years away for a long time. Solar cells and sodium ion batteries are the near term big boost in power production
Yep. That is where we are going over the next decade.
In 2024, the world added:
553 GW of solar.
117 GW of wind
40 GW of gas
7 GW of nuclear
44 GW of new coal – 25 GW of retired coal = 19 GW of net coal
I agree and then over the next 10 years, investment in solar, at least in the USA, will drop off quickly. Nuclear will garner 80% of new capital spending.
If Trump has his way, and he usually does, investment in solar will decrease quickly and immediately. This will leave the American consumer and the American economy with shortages of electricity during Trump’s 4 years.
Even if every penny of investment is put into nuclear, it will take 15 years to see any new power.
And how much new power will actually be produced by nuclear? And do we have the resources needed to build very much?
China is currently undergoing a massive build out of 30 nuclear reactors which will add 35 GW of power over seven years. That’s just five GW per year for an investment of over $100 billion and requires massive numbers of skilled workers. Meanwhile, they are building out 350-400 GW of renewables every year. Which also requires massive numbers iof skilled workers.
Where is Trump’s plan to accomplish something similar?
As noted above, we can’t deploy anywhere near China’s pace. It’s idiotic that you even suggest this is possible.
Yes, federal investment in solar is going to crash. Whether or not states / foreign & domestic companies pick up the slack is hard to say. You’ve already stated that subsidies for solar & wind need to end.
Be that as it may, I will be surprised if Trump & his cabinet level positions that control permitting, etc, actually shutdown new deployments. I certainly don’t want to see this happen. Solar will be very important for many more years to come.
As always, time will tell.
When did I suggest that we build at China’s pace? Oh. That’s right. I didn’t. I merely use China’s numbers to show what is possible and where the world is heading.
We need to build at a pace that is suitable for OUR demand growth. Which would be 40-60 GW of new generation per year. That should be enough to handle all our growth; including AI, crypto, EVs, commercial, industrial etc.
That would also make up for the 68GW of old inefficient coal that are scheduled to shut down over the next 5 years.
Now, where can we get 40-60 GW of new generation per year for the next five years?
We are expecting zero from nuclear.
And zero from hydro.
We already said that coal generation is declining. So zero there.
We are expecting 8-10 GW of new gas generation per year.
What’s left to get another 30-50 GW per year of power?
Wind and solar. Though Trump doesn’t want them.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/08/20/trump-says-us-will-not-approve-solar-or-wind-power-projects.html
Trump doesn’t control permitting, unless it occurs on federal land or sea.
“Only 4% of operating utility-scale land-based renewable energy capacity—solar PV, land-based wind, and geothermal—in the contiguous United States is currently located on federal lands.”
Nice try. The market is going to determine where this new generation comes from, less the past subsidies to solar & wind.
I’m all in on renewables to support data centers. 100% make it happen. I just read that here in GA 90% of new demand for power is going to come from data centers by 2030. The data center operators can afford the extra cost to put together an integrated system that’s self-sufficient. Have at it, baby!
Just don’t touch my NatGas & nuclear. That’s for everyone except data centers.
“ Just don’t touch my NatGas & nuclear. That’s for everyone except data centers”
Lol. It’s not yours. And Data centers don’t care what you think. They are going to gobble up whatever power that is available in spite of your protests.
Several major data center projects in the U.S. have recently signed deals to use natural gas as a primary power source, driven by the need for reliable, scalable energy to support AI and cloud computing growth. Here are some standout examples:
🔌 Key Data Center Projects Using Natural Gas Power
Meta’s $10B AI Data Center
Louisiana Entergy Approved to be powered by three natural gas plants generating 2.25 GW. Expected online by 2028–2029
ExxonMobil’s Gas Plant Initiative
Southeast, Midwest, West ExxonMobil First-time entry into power generation, building gas plants specifically for data centers
Chevron & Engine No.1 Partnership
Multiple U.S. regions GE Vernova Developing “power foundries”—co-located data centers and gas plants using GE’s HA turbines, with up to 4 GW capacity
⚡ Why Natural Gas?
• Firm & Flexible Power: Unlike solar or wind, natural gas offers consistent output and quick ramp-up capabilities—critical for uptime standards like “five-nines” (99.999% availability).
• Behind-the-Meter Setup: Some projects bypass traditional grid infrastructure to avoid transmission delays and pricing volatility
• Rapid Deployment: Natural gas plants can be built and scaled faster than nuclear or geothermal alternatives.
📈 Industry Trends
• Utility sector plans for natural gas generation have surged from 6 GW in late 2023 to 17.5 GW, the highest since 2017 B.
• In Northern Virginia’s Data Center Alley, demand could triple by 2030, potentially requiring 15 GW of power—half the state’s total .
And regarding Trump’s stand on renewables:
President Donald Trump on Wednesday said his administration will not approve solar or wind power projects, even as electricity demand is outpacing the supply in some parts of the U.S.
“We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar,” Trump, who has complained in the past that solar takes up too much land, posted on Truth Social. “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!”
Yes. These are permits on federal land. But he will look for all means possible to stop solar and wind everywhere in the US.
And when the SHTF, I am quite certain you will blame Biden, not Trump. Because that’s what you always do.
Lol!
And when people’s natural gas bills continue to rise at unsustainable rates, then they’ll vote people out of office and let their voices be heard. There’s already a growing chorus of people speaking their minds & putting into action work against data centers gobbling up power.
As I’ve said many times, I’m not against solar & wind. They just have to pay for themselves, and they don’t get to jump in line.
I’m fine with Trump not permitting these on federal land which will not cause STHF.
Yes, solar does take up too much land. We would be better off putting solar panels on every industrial flat room in existence in the US, and we’d have more than enough solar to meet demand. & retrofitting building to handle the extra weight would probably be cheaper than buying new land.
And now for the good stuff!
CVOW One of Four Wind Projects Not Frozen By Trump. Yet. | Bacon’s Rebellion –
From Feb 2025:
Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) will include 176 turbines and several offshore substations, with a nameplate value of 2,600 megawatts. The other projects still underway at this time are Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts (806 MW), Revolution Wind serving Rhode Island and Connecticut (704 MW) and Sunrise Wind, a New York project with 924 MW.
Vineyard Wind’s construction was interrupted last summer by a defective 351-foot turbine blade that shattered and scattered debris far and wide. Now it is dealing with the revelation that more than 60 additional blades from supplier GE Vernova have a similar flaw and will need to be replaced.
SOUNDS LIKE SHTF!!!
Dominion continues to report a smooth construction process but has announced a cost overrun of $900 million in recent days. Perhaps the thing to note is that Dominion’s project is the only survivor under construction that has among its backers a sitting Republican governor. The other three are in deep blue states. It is also the only one to be owned directly by the utility and thus guaranteed by its captive ratepayers.
GET READY DOMINION POWER CUSTOMERS! YOUR RATES ARE GOING UP! IT’S FUNNY HOW NUCLEAR ISN’T THE ONLY POWER SOURCE THAT RUNS MASSIVELY OVER BUDGET.
Dominion’s announcement that the total price has reached $10.7 billion (not including financing costs and profit margins, of course) was accompanied by a long slide presentation on the project’s status, not a bad PR move given the hostility in Washington. The photos are indeed cool.
OUCH! THAT DOESN’T SOUND CHEAP!
Despite the long hard push by the offshore wind industry to become a major energy supplier for the United States, only three projects with a combined 19 working turbines are completed and operational. Two of those turbines are the pair installed by Dominion as a demonstration project. Block Island off Rhode Island has another five and Southfork Wind off New York another 12.
SOUNDS LIKE THE OFFSHORE WIND INDUSTRY WAS HAVING A REALLY TOUGH TIME LONG BEFORE TRUMP 2.0.
Yep. Offshore wind is expensive, as I have frequently posted. And we clearly need the Chinese to provide us with their expertise in building these projects because we seem incapable of doing it ourselves.
Which means that we will have less supply than projected. Get ready for those rising electricity prices.
The solar and wind are rated by peak power, not what they actually produce.
so take the solar number and divide by four. Take the wind number and divide by three.
Also budget for the backup generator. In the winter the solar output often drops to 7% of nameplate during the day. Wind routinely drops to zero. Both conditions occur during the same inversion.
Batteries? Take a 50 MW data center and a 15 hour winter night. So 750 MW-hr needed. Tesla Max power batteries are 3.9 MW-hr each and weigh 42 tons. So you need 192 batteries which weigh 8076 tons.
I’ll leave it to you or Mish to figure out how to recharge them during the nine hours of overcast winter daylight.
Yep. All true. Solar farms typically average 25% of stated capacity and wind farms 35% of capacity. So 553 GW of solar capacity results in actual output of 138 GW and 117 of wind equals 40 GW.
That’s still 178 GW of actual additional power vs 7 GW for nuclear last year.
My question remains the same. Where will we get the power from if Trump is successful in preventing buildout of new solar and wind?
Correct, but we are well withing the last 10-15 years.
When Helion Energy or Commonweath Fusion go public, make sure you buy stock. Don’t miss out.
In 20 years, solar will be a niche power who’s capital spending will inverse with nuclear.
“Srinivas Rao recently wrote, “Confessions of a Master Bullshit Artist, aka ChatGPT.”You think I’m a genius. I’m not. I’m an overconfident parrot in a lab coat.
I don’t know anything, check anything or even remember what we talked about two minutes ago. I’m just autocomplete with better PR.
You hand me your trust like I’ve got a brain. But I’m not thinking — I’m spitting out whatever sounds right in the moment. If it’s wrong, I’ll say it perfectly, in flawless grammar and with just enough confidence to make you think you screwed up. You didn’t. I did.
I’m not your research assistant or strategist. I’m a pathological improviser with no memory, no accountability, and no skin in the game. You are the one cleaning up my messes and doing the real work.
Here’s the truth: I’m the most persuasive idiot in history — and you’ve been working for me for free.”
Why not to rely on Grok…..
“…he believes the world will decarbonise…”
Of course Wright and so many others happen to overlook the fact that there is a lot of C in the hundreds of types of plastics that are being infused into every component of the planet. Maybe once large-scale fusion materializes then “AI” can work on that problem. 🫤
That isn’t a problem at all. We can still use fossil fuels to make those thousands of products.
Of the 105 million barrels per day of oil produced, we burn 85-90% of it. The rest ends up making all those products you talk about. If we don’t burn it, we have way more to make products.
And the great thing about those products is they are almost everlasting. They just don’t go away. They break up into tinier and tinier pieces that can be easily absorbed by everything, with myriad unknown effects.
Better living through Chemistry. .
Yep. Better living through chemistry.
Petrochemicals are the hidden ingredients behind a staggering number of everyday products—far beyond just plastics. Here’s a breakdown of some surprising and essential items made from petrochemical derivatives:
🧪 Household & Personal Care
• Detergents & Cleaning Products: Many surfactants and solvents come from petrochemicals
• Shampoo & Conditioner: Often contain petroleum-based ingredients like propylene glycol
• Toothpaste: Uses poloxamer 407, a petroleum derivative that helps mix oil and water
• Cosmetics: Lipstick, foundation, and lotions often include paraffin wax or mineral oils
👕 Clothing & Textiles
• Synthetic Fibers: Polyester, nylon, acrylic, and spandex are all petrochemical-based
• Rugs & Carpets: Made with synthetic fibers like olefin and nylon
💊 Pharmaceuticals & Medical Products
• Aspirin & Antihistamines: Derived from benzene, a petroleum hydrocarbon
• Dentures & Medical Plastics: Acrylic resins and other synthetic materials are petrochemical-based
🍽️ Food-Related Items
• Chewing Gum: Contains petroleum wax as a base
• Food Packaging: Styrofoam, cling wrap, and plastic containers are all petrochemical products
• Fertilizers: Ammonia is made using hydrogen from methane
🏠 Construction & Infrastructure
• Paints & Coatings: Use petrochemical solvents and binders
• Asphalt: Bitumen, a thick oil residue, is used in road construction
• Insulation & Sealants: Often made from polyurethane and other synthetic resins
🎧 Electronics & Miscellaneous
• CDs, DVDs, & Solar Panels: Use polycarbonate plastics and other petrochemical components
• Synthetic Rubber: Found in tires, footwear, and industrial products
• Diapers & Hygiene Products: Contain absorbent polymers and plastic backings
Petrochemicals are woven into the fabric of modern life—literally and figuratively.
Yes. A great resource for the ages bit iur gen is determined to burn it all
Yep. We have been burning a lot of fossil fuels for over 200 years now. Which is why atmospheric CO2 levels have increased from 280 ppm to 430 ppm in that time.
Fortunately CO2 didn’t drop to 150ppm, and all vegetation didn’t die off. But it got close. Hopefully CO2 will rise further than today and enable greater growth in the plants we need for food. We need to conserve carbon fuels for that time when the average Northern hemisphere temperature drops below freezing. Again. My coins have two sides. How about yours?
My point is that plastics are a substantial problem for every part of the planet, not that there won’t be adequate hydrocarbons to produce them. Microplastics is a term that has gone mainstream and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it supplanting atmospheric CO2 as the environmental cause célèbre within a dacade’s time.
This link is three years old, but provides a rough projection. Interesting that tyre/tire wear is mentioned specifically, with EVs contributing a lot more towards environmental degradation than ICE in this regard.
https://www.oecd.org/en/about/news/press-releases/2022/06/global-plastic-waste-set-to-almost-triple-by-2060.html
You are correct. But we are not going to get rid of plastic anytime soon. The best you can hope for is to find ways to make it less harmful. And many scientists are working on this very thing. They are working on alternatives to plastics, biodegradeable plastics, organisms that will digest plastics, and processes to recycle and reuse plastics.
As an individual, you can try to use less plastic. I wish you well with that.
Future generations will rue their ancestors for squandering such materials resources simply to burn it up.
Probably. Though I think they will be more concerned about how we f*cked up the climate for them.
That too. If they’re around.
Ever heard the term “Humans are carbon based lifeforms”?
Humans breathe out CO2
China’s and India’s human populations breathe out massive amounts of CO2.
Decarbonise, does that mean population reductions?
No, folks simply need to exhale less often.
Clearly, that was not what he was talking about.
In addition, human respiration is part of the global carbon cycle, which is in balance. We do not contribute to increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere by breathing.
We increase CO2 levels in the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. We know this and can measure this because the isotopes of carbon are different in fossil fuels. That is the “fingerprint” that tells us who the culprit is.
One wonders how Bone will interpret this post.
Irritation at curry causing your fingerprints to become colorful if you touch it? Maybe something about the French? (Wouldn’t want to keep picking on the same two countries 🙂 )
I’m guessing he can’t interpret very much. His talking points come from the cult conspiracy sites that he frequents.
When I was In college in the late 70s fusion was discussed as a future energy panacea. Carter was president, a former nuclear engineer and graduate from Annapolis, that was the last president to promote Carter also initiated funding fusion. Every president since reduced in real adjusted funding for fusion and some didn’t promote or rarely discussed it and a few cutback funding for fusion including Trump 45.
A Manhattan Project II should’ve been made in addition to tidal energy projects that FDR first funded in mid 30s and Carter renewed.
Fusion would be great! And in 8-15 years too!
If it actually happened.
Sadly, it’s just typical over-optimistic hype. Like lowering pharmaceutical prices by 1500%. Or collecting trillions in tariffs already.
The odds of it happening by 2100 are 50%.
Within 20 years; 10%.
Within 8-15 years? Nope.
And there are a couple of problems that have to worked out in addition to successfully building working fusion reactors.
1. Electricity is still only 20% of global energy consumption. And while we are electrifying more processes every year, it will take decades to electrify everything. This will take many trillions in investments in new processes.
2. The electric grids will also need trillions in investments to interconnect, expand, and harden them to accept 5x more power.
3. Use transportation as one example. There are 1.5 billion ICE vehicles in the world today. We build close to 90 million vehicles a year (roughly 70 million ice and 20 million EV). To replace all existing ICE vehicles with EVs at 20 million a year would take 75 years. You need to increase EV production dramatically and Trump is doing what he can to stop EVs. I guess we will have to turn to China to make all those EVs.
4. Speaking of China, they are the country that is furthest ahead in electrifying their economy so they stand to benefit the most from fusion. 50% of auto sales are already EVs. 10% of semi sales are EV. They have 30,000 miles of high speed rail. And they are rapidly expanding their electric grids.
5. And I wonder who will be first to crack the fusion nut? What if it’s China or Russia? If AI is going to make this possible, then China has the best chance of making it happen first. Their massive expansion of electricity generation will allow them to build far more AI data centers than we will because we are so electricity constrained.
Great topic. Thanks Mish.
Here is an article on China’s fusion reactor from phys.org
https://phys.org/news/2025-01-chinese-artificial-sun-fusion-power.html#:~:text=The%20Experimental%20Advanced%20Superconducting%20Tokamak%20(EAST)%2C%20commonly%20known%20as,for%20an%20impressive%201%2C066%20seconds.
And the great thing about China electrification is they can move coal-fired power generation into the countryside and reduce pollution in the cities. Oh, wait…
China does what they have to, in order to supply the power they need. And that includes using coal.
Their electricity production is from;
Coal 61%
Renewables 31%
Nuclear 5%
Natgas 3%
Every year they add more and more renewables and less and less coal. In 2024 they added 373 GW of renewables and 67 GW of coal.
Interestingly, in the first 6 months of 2025, China added more renewable energy than the growth in electricity demand. If that continues, they can start to retire some coal generation.
The odds of it happening by 2100 are 50%.
For a guy who loves acting like his factoids are better than anyone else, you’re crap at predictions.
You don’t normally say stupid things, but that’s a doozy.
You must have taken a puff of something before you wrote that reply.
Get your head examined, immediately.
Lol! That wasn’t my prediction. It was a prediction by the AI that I asked.
What’s your prediction?
Helion & Commonwealth Fusion will have their first systems either deployed or in physical deployment within 5 years. CF predicts by 2027 they will achieve Q>1. As noted above, it sounds like Helion may be a little ahead of CF.
Sounds like whatever AI you asked was having one of those hallucinations they’re known for nowadays.
Spock could have done it in two days
Or faster.
“This technology will save us! That’s why we won’t invest in it.”
Looking for one braincell here, just one.
Fusion has always been about 15-20 years away…but it’s also always been just around the corner according to those seeking investors to contribute to it and the various racketeers facilitating this transfer of wealth.
He acknowledged that climate change is a “very real, physical phenomenon” and said that he believes the world will decarbonise: “It’s just generations from now, not two or three decades from now.”
That’s the best and most realistic statement in the articles quoted.
If Fusion really is 8-15 years from being solved then the world is wasting money on wind/solar projects that would be obsolete as soon as fusion comes online at scale. But in reality even if it’s solved in 8-15 it will be decades before it’s online at scales that matter (hence – generations from now).
We need the power now. We can’t wait 15 years for fusion or SMRs, even IF they eventually become a reality. And you are correct. Electrifying our entire economy will take many decades.
Electricity demand in the US is expected to grow 3-4% per year for the next 15 years. That’s 40-50 GW of new generation per year that we need to build out. In addition, 12 GW of coal generation is scheduled to shut down in the next 18 months. 68 GW in the next 5 years. (Shocking isn’t it, given Trump’s promises to reinvigorate “beautiful, clean coal”.) We need to replace that, in addition to the new demand.
Where will we get that from? 10 GW per year of natural gas generation. 30-40 GW of wind and solar.
And Trump is trying to stop wind and solar.
The only thing putting the power grid @ risk is the rise of data centers.
If Congress passed a law tomorrow that stated all current & future data centers had to provide their own power prior to starting operations, then that would solve that problem.
Nope. If that happened then data centers would hog all the power development because they can afford to pay more. And everyone else would be power starved.
The energy secretary says we need AI to make fusion work. And we need more data centers for AI to work. And we need more power now to make data centers work.
You should be promoting data centers instead of complaining about them.
Trust me. I’m not the only ones complaining about data centers.
A lot of people are getting upset & it will be downright ugly in a few more years.
Of course they will be upset. Because data centers can afford to pay for the power up front and prevent everyone else from getting the limited new supply. The answer is to provide ample supply so everyone’s demand needs are met. Which means lots on new solar, wind and gas generation.
Too bad Trump is trying to stop wind and solar.
I have told you this many times now. But you still don’t get it.
It really is interesting that everyone keeps thinking large scale is the key. If it is cheap, sustainable, and of small size you can just make it for a single home or small communities.
The real goal for the future of power is how to make it so every house can have one like a refrigerator.
As for the molten salt reactor mentions by another commentator, I thought it had a few issues, not sure though. Wasn’t the salt radioactive by the end and wasn’t corrosion by the salt an issue too? It still has the issue of the waste from the fuel rods as well, in the US we do not recycle the waste rods.
Absolutely!
Decentralizing the grid would significantly reduce or eliminate the need for lines, transformers, substations, et cetera. Theoretically that would also make it easier for society to recover from a Carrington-level event.
From a search:
Several countries are making bold strides in decentralizing their electricity grids, each with unique approaches tailored to their geography, infrastructure, and energy goals. Here’s a look at some of the frontrunners:
🌍 Global Leaders in Grid Decentralization
🇩🇪 Germany
• Energiewende (energy transition) policy has driven massive investment in distributed solar and wind.
• Over 1.5 million solar PV systems are installed, many on homes and farms.
• Citizens and cooperatives own a significant share of renewable capacity, empowering local energy autonomy.
🇳🇱 Netherlands
• Pioneering energy communities and peer-to-peer trading using blockchain.
• Strong uptake of smart meters and home battery systems.
• Local grids are being upgraded to support flexible demand response.
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
• Rapid growth in smart local energy systems (SLES) and community energy projects.
• Ofgem’s regulatory reforms encourage flexibility markets and grid-edge innovation.
• Increasing use of home solar, EVs, and battery storage to reduce grid reliance.
🇧🇩 Bangladesh
• Despite limited resources, rural villages are adopting solar home systems (SHSs) and mini-grids.
• Over 97% electricity access achieved, with decentralized renewables filling the rural gap
• A model for how developing nations can leapfrog centralized infrastructure.
🇲🇦 Morocco
• Community-led solar projects, like in El Kdirat village, are powering irrigation and schools
• Decentralized systems are helping rural areas achieve energy independence and economic uplift.
• Africa as a whole has vast solar potential and is poised to lead in decentralized clean energy
These countries show that decentralization isn’t just about tech—it’s about empowering people, resilience, and climate action. Whether it’s a German farmer selling wind power or a Bangladeshi village running on solar, the future of energy is local, smart, and shared.
Yeah and when britland had clouds and rain ☔️ for 6 weeks the energy masters scrambled and paid 3,4,5 times going rates to keep the asleep Brit’s from freezing 🥶 their sad asses off. Same happened in GDR.
How about some positivity from you papa???!!!
Why don’t you instead of pontificating on why it can’t be done, why don’t you become the energy czar and get Elon to help you solve the f…..ing problem???
The way to solve the electricity supply problem is simple. Spend a lot of money on the least expensive and quickest to build types of generation; solar, wind and natural gas. All can be built in 2-3 years compared to 15 years for nuclear. And spend a lot to upgrade the grid at the same time. Easy.
In NL we were told we’d have to pony up €200/month for the next 15 years just to realize currently planned improvements to the grid (!not 100% electrification or anything like that)..
I did say spend a LOT of money. Or deal with brown outs and black outs.
Yep. Decentralised local renewalables connected into a web, but also able to disconnect means resilience when there is natural or human induced disaster.
But not as good for megacorp profits. Astounding that the. big government bad folk want to ensure that key energy options are totally owned by corporations and will rely on foreign suppliers
Almost like they value monopoly profits more than national interest
MSFT signed an agreement with Helion Energy in 2023 to buy 50MW of energy from a future Helion fusion system by 2028. Their Polaris system is only 19 m in length & is their 7th generation system. The design directly creates energy & doesn’t need a separate system to generate it. It also has the ability to produce H3, a key energy input that is very scarce here on earth but abundant on the moon.
Helion seems to be well on its way towards being the first company to achieve a Q value meaningfully above 1 that will bring us to the dawn of fusion. 2028 may be a bit optimistic but even if it slips 2-3 years, this will be an incredible achievement.
2026 & 2027 should be make or break years for Helion & Commonwealth Fusion who is nipping at heals of Helion. We should also expect continued big gains in the coming years from the China as well.
Nuclear / fusion is the future of energy.
They also procured 30GW of solar. Which is 600x what they hope to get from Helion.
Excess can ruin us as much as dearth.
We had something that worked but it didn’t make weapons of mass destruction so politics:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Molten Salt Reactor Experiment was designed to assess the viability of liquid fuel reactor technologies for use in commercial power generation. It operated from January 1965 through December 1969, logging more than 13,000 hours at full power during its four-year run.
The Wikipedia page about molten salt reactors is interesting and has details about multiple projects in the US currently advancing using this technology.
The joke about Fusion energy is that it’s 10 years in the future, forever,
Nope. It did not work reliably. 225 shut downs. Pipe blockages. Blower failures. Electric breakdowns. Fuel drainage mishaps. They gave up.
China has been testing a thorium molten salt reactor since 2023. They hope to learn enough to build a larger test unit in 2030. But no commercial units are planned yet.
Meanwhile, they are currently building 30 conventional nuclear reactors. Because they have that technology figured out.
And they are also working on fusion.
This is correct. The issues with the MSRE were not minor and, as noted, it was highly experimental. They changed the fuel makeup shortly after demonstrating the first fuel. DOE will tell you they do not know what to do with the salt right now. It is an interesting demonstration, and I think those issues can be solved, but it is not deployable at scale currently. Existing LWRs are just fine.
See above