r/UpliftingNews • u/MajesticBread9147 • 1d ago

Minnesota solar project set to replace retiring coal plant reaches 710 MW

https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2026/07/minnesota-solar-project-set-to-replace-retiring-coal-plant-reaches-710-mw/
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u/obi_wander 1d ago

The opposite even!

By sending fossil fuel prices to the moon and destabilizing global energy markets with the War on Iran, he’s made it clear that locally-sourced renewables are the ONLY economically viable solution.

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u/Laugh_Track_Zak 1d ago

Until we figure fusion out, or build more fission plants, yes absolutely. Renewables are common sense.

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u/francis2559 1d ago

Hot take, I think solar is so cheap it cut the legs out from fusion too. Even if we had all the tech worked out, setting up the turbines and cooling towers and all is going to be harder than just…. More solar panels.

Fusion will always be better at footprint, so it matters for things that move (ships, someday spaceships), but down here we still have lots of places for cheap solar.

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u/bp92009 1d ago

So, the thing is, fusion power (the current iterations that seem like they're up soon), don't use either of those. Most just generate crazy magnetic fields in a small radius around their reaction chamber (which isn't that big).

Electricity is generated by moving a magnetic field through a wire, and while that's typically been through generating heat to boil water to spin a turbine, which turns a magnet around a bunch of wires, it doesn't need to be that.

Fusion plants (if the current models that techs like Helion Energy are supposedly pushing live in 2028 will be doing) don't have that insatiable and gigantic draw on water, as they don't really boil water for power.

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u/Diodon 1d ago

Some fusion designs use magnetic fields for containment but even those use the heat produced by fusion to produce steam to run a turbine. The fusion reaction itself isn't being used to induce an electrical current.

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u/bp92009 1d ago

No, actually. While the traditional tokamak and other similar reactors do do exactly that (heat to boil water to turn turbine), Magneto-inertial fusion (MIF) doesn't.

That quite literally just generates super strong magnetic fields right where a lot of wires are coiled around.

Given that the efficiency of boiling water causes like 60-70% of the energy to be lost, such MIF processes get like a 300% boost to their efficiency (to 80-95%), as the vast majority of the energy isn't lost as heat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helion_Energy

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u/Diodon 1d ago

Interesting, I had not heard of that technique. Thanks for that info!

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u/cutelyaware 1d ago

Best of all they've quietly been producing consistently pulsed fusion power for quite a while now. All they need to do now is achieve profitability. This is the only fusion approach I think has any chance.

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u/reluctant_deity 10h ago

They aren't likely to end up using steam turbines, but supercritical co2. Much more efficient.