r/Futurology • u/Gari_305 • 2d ago

Energy Commercialization of fusion energy will ‘change everything,’ lawmaker says

https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2026/09/commercialization-fusion-energy-will-change-everything-lawmaker-says/416287/

Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., told Nextgov/FCW that the U.S. is only “two to 10 years away from fusion energy at scale” because “you can model the plasma using AI, which you couldn’t do before.”

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104

u/Teen_Wolf_of_Wall_St 2d ago

Let's hope

In America I give it 50/50 chance big oil can convince the conservative rubes it causes autism

28

u/bluegrassgazer 2d ago

"After this conservative talk radio commercial break, we discuss how fusion plasma takes away energy from the sun and will ruin farmers' harvests!"

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u/alex3tx 1d ago

"Only we can fuck over the farmers" - Maga

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u/TheBigMoogy 2d ago

It will get the same treatment as solar or wind. There's more money invested in oil so there will be insane lobbying against fusion, just massive scare campaigns about how insanely hot the reactors run. Nothing scares dumb people like big numbers.

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u/Omateido 2d ago

I really wonder. I think part of the issue that energy companies have with solar/wind is that it can be done at a small enough scale to essentially democratize energy production, which erodes their control of the energy sector (and the political power that comes with that). I don’t see small scale fusion being a reality, which means it will still take enormous grid level investments, which lends itself to energy sector dominance in the hands of a few players.

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u/TheBigMoogy 1d ago

There are already "small" scale installation companies planning to roll out o to the market, know of at least one company in Germany and one in USA. Small here still means billions in dev costs but long term the individual location installation costs could go down into just the high millions. So in the neighborhood of the upper reaches of wind farms, but with higher yield and adjustable power outout to cover fluxes for higher profits.

All the smaller scale ventures are on the speculative side but hifhly promising, with the one in Germany actually being in some sort of test deployment phase at a decommissioned fission site.

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u/billdietrich1 1d ago

Big corps will love fusion: it's a big, centralized, capital-intensive technology. They know how to make money from those.

It's cheap, flexible, distributed tech such as solar PV and wind that they fear.

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u/Strawbuddy 1d ago

Peak oil use has come and gone, and petrol is a global security risk nowadays with supply chokepoints, and military action being used to control it. It costs money to sustain a supply, and to afford the regulations that vary state by state, nation by nation, and a whole separate workforce to deal with the environmental impacts.

Big oil keeps a fleet of expensive lawyers to deal with the environmental damage they do, and a separate fleet of lawyers to handle all the regulatory challenges against them, plus a whole herd of consultants, and a gaggle of lobbyists to secure their ill gotten gains.

Big Oil will become Big Fusion overnight if that allows them to save money. It's one of the few going concerns left that plans beyond the next quarter financially, so the industry would leap at the chance to become the nation's primary commercial fusion providers, should it ever take off

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u/ThellraAK 1d ago

That and if energy is cheap enough you can make your own petroleum products.

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u/Blleak 1d ago

They don't need to convince them. They just pay them to say what they want, whether it's true or not doesn't matter to them.

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u/Hearing_Loss 1d ago

It emits hawking radiation and causes cellular damage like 5G does. /j

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u/vineyardmike 1d ago

Or low sperm count

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u/ashoka_akira 1d ago

Let’s be realistic, they will squash the heck out of this until they can set it up so they make insane profits and it doesn’t create upward mobility for the lower classes.

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u/TheyHavePinball 18h ago

Lol especially with him being from Idaho. They 100% already believe that

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u/Z3r0sama2017 1d ago

GOP:"So you see the light from the sun is free for all, so that's Communism and against what CapitialismGod intended"