Edit: I'm not trying to be (too) pedantic. But the brief investment announcement went to the trouble of saying "they built a generator that produces electricity" and (effectively) "but no net electricity".
Isn't thathat generator a nothing-generator then? Why even mention it?
• Better techology (that still needs to be R&Ded) makes it more efficient and net positive in the future.
• Prototype v1 is a required step towards v2(-v3...vn?) that actually accomplishes the goal. An example of this is SpaceX's Starhopper -> Starship.
• Some economy of scale makes it work at some point. Example, put a single box in a big ship from Shanghai to LA, cost of shipping = millions of $; vs. put a million boxes in the same ship, cost of shipping = a few $.
Neither: their proposed design doesn't generate electricity from heat, so what they're talking about here is proving out the alternative mechanism of electricity generation that they propose to use. That's a valuable to demonstrate because it's novel, and necessary to eventually being net-positive, so showing that's possible shows that their eventual plan could work.
Yes, I figured that out long after my original post.
It's just that Sam's post didn't mention any (semi-)novel method for generating electricity from fusion, so the actual words - "they and their team have built a generator that produces electricity" - appear as either hype or non-information outside that context.
Edit: I'm not trying to be (too) pedantic. But the brief investment announcement went to the trouble of saying "they built a generator that produces electricity" and (effectively) "but no net electricity".
Isn't thathat generator a nothing-generator then? Why even mention it?