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Re:Helion Energy achieves fusion milestone by sennight on Thursday July 22, 2021 @05:52AM (#27917118)
Directly coupling the two processes like that would certainly have some interesting failure modes with regard to potential and phase. If this results in DC power distribution... elephants everywhere will rejoice as Westinghouse's reign of terror ends.
Re:Helion Energy achieves fusion milestone by DoingIsLearning on Thursday July 22, 2021 @06:47AM (#27917403)
Power transfer from large scale Renewables projects have already precipited HVDC [0].

There isn't an absolutely AC/DC dicotomy as it was in Edison's feud. It all comes down to using the right solution for the right problem.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current#/m...

Re:Helion Energy achieves fusion milestone by sennight on Thursday July 22, 2021 @07:22AM (#27917604)
Well feeding an HVDC line with something that doesn't already naturally generate AC (like a wind turbine) would be a better fit. But it would be a little strange to not fully exploit the other thing that distinguished the DC system from AC: distributed generation vs centralized generation. What was once necessary due to transmission inefficiency is now desirable due to transmission inefficiency :) (among other things). I guess I'll have to wait a little longer for the breadbox sized fusion reactor, though I wouldn't turn up my nose to a residential fission option.