Merged How Close is power from Nuclear Fusion

[Darat]

Add another 10-20 years to the clock:

Fusion Breakthrough Hits Hurdles as Five Experiments Fail



Yep, always excuses, not results. Once again, if only there were a huge source of fusion that sends enormous quantities of energy towards Earth. If only.

Mmm, yeah, that's a setback. But if it wasn't a surprise, it shouldn't really affect the timeline as it would have been accounted for, right?

I can't see how that is a setback or changes the clock on anything. They are doing exactly what you'd expect researchers to do, test the parameters in other words what is required to have a successful ignition event.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

there is a very thorough description of the Helion reactor by Real Engineering.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bDXXWQxK38


It uses Helium-3, which it can generate from deuterium.

It also uses direct energy conversion instead of heat transfer for energy generation.

the 6th prototype is in testing, with funding secured for number 7 and 8.


I think this is at least as serious an attempt as what the competition has to offer.

 

[theprestige]

there is a very thorough description of the Helion reactor by Real Engineering.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bDXXWQxK38


It uses Helium-3, which it can generate from deuterium.

It also uses direct energy conversion instead of heat transfer for energy generation.

the 6th prototype is in testing, with funding secured for number 7 and 8.


I think this is at least as serious an attempt as what the competition has to offer.

Seems like a serious attempt to me. But I'm not sure the idea of them generating electricity for Microsoft within the year is all that serious.

 

[theprestige]

My guess is that the language used to describe Helion Energy (as a "nuclear fusion startup") has no bearing whatsoever on Helion's ability to provide electric power to Microsoft in 2028. Anybody with the capital can broker electricity on the grid.

Now I'm embarrassed I didn't think of that possibility myself!

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Seems like a serious attempt to me. But I'm not sure the idea of them generating electricity for Microsoft within the year is all that serious.

yes, 2024 would be too ambitious.

that's why the deal starts in 2028.

 

[Myriad]

Hmm. A fifty-megawatt commercial fusion plant to go online in 5-6 years?

*your browser blurs into vertical wavy lines as the "flashback" special effect kicks in*

October 2018: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/...ssible-breakeven-fusion-device-this-year.html

Funding secured (in 2018) for a 50 megawatt pilot plant in 2021 and commercial installations by 2024.

*more wavy lines as we return to the present*

Though the physics and the funding scale are different, the business model seems familiar. The game here is passing off technology that other physicists are uninterested in because of its apparent limitations as technology that other physicists just never thought of. Why do we even need it, when cheap safe limitless power from SunCell hydrino technology is right around the corner?

 

[Puppycow]

My guess is that the language used to describe Helion Energy (as a "nuclear fusion startup") has no bearing whatsoever on Helion's ability to provide electric power to Microsoft in 2028. Anybody with the capital can broker electricity on the grid.

My thought was that nothing seems to explicitly say that said power must be produced via fusion, merely that power must be provided somehow. In which case, can't it just be purchased from a third party and then provided to Microsoft?

I'll bet anyone avatars for a week that nobody will be legitimately producing commercially viable nuclear fusion-generated power by 2028 (solar power excluded).

 

[Puppycow]

They talked about the Helion reactor in the latest episode of SGU.

 

[arthwollipot]

They talked about the Helion reactor in the latest episode of SGU.

A good discussion. Measured and appropriate.

My opinion is this: Helion has undertaken a very ambitious contract. Fulfilling its obligation will be very, very difficult. At best. But so was going to the moon in under a decade. Given sufficient motivation, humans can do amazing things that nobody ever expected them to.

I think Helion will not meet its deadline. It's too ambitious, and the incentive is not good enough. But if they do, it will be amazing. It'll still be quite a few years before the technology is mature enough to be deployed on a large scale, but it will be great.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Helion doesn't need the Microsoft deal - that's mostly publicity.
It got over a billion in funding secured, if it manages to meet certain goals.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

They talked about the Helion reactor in the latest episode of SGU.

Every time I listen to SGU, I come back disappointed.
It's rare when they don't just take one article they like and take that as the most comprehensive knowledge on the subject.

 

[arthwollipot]

Every time I listen to SGU, I come back disappointed.
It's rare when they don't just take one article they like and take that as the most comprehensive knowledge on the subject.

True, but they are neither professional scientists nor journalists. They cover a lot of ground in their news segment and don't always go particularly deep.

I like them because they're entertaining and informative, not because they do deep dives.

 

[Darat]

Helion doesn't need the Microsoft deal - that's mostly publicity.
It got over a billion in funding secured, if it manages to meet certain goals.

That sounds a lot and is a hell of a lot in many circumstances, but unless everything goes right the first time, so no iterative process, no false starts, no rebuilds that will be swallowed up quickly.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Helion doesn't need the Microsoft deal - that's mostly publicity.
It got over a billion in funding secured, if it manages to meet certain goals.

The goal being to spend all the money, right?

 

[Roger Ramjets]

The problems with Helion Energy:-

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Latest "breakthrough"!

Compact Fusion Reactor Barely 3 Feet Across Has Hit a Huge Milestone

Ions inside a compact fusion reactor barely a meter (less than 3 feet) across have been heated to the magic figure of 100 million degrees Celsius (some 180 million degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time in a monumental step towards making nuclear fusion energy a practical reality.

"These results demonstrate for the first time that ion temperatures relevant for commercial magnetic confinement fusion can be obtained in a compact high-field ST and bode well for fusion power plants based on the high-field ST," write the researchers.

Time . . . will . . . . tell.

 

[Delvo]

"barely a meter (less than 3 feet)"

A meter is over 3'3".

 

[arthwollipot]

Excellent. One more breakthrough ticked off the list. Only hundreds more to go.

 

[shemp]

We're only 19 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds away!

 

[theprestige]

Honestly I find these periods of precursor or enabling technologies to be the most interesting when looking at history, and the most frustrating when looking at the present and the future.

The period in the research and development of heavier than air flight, when the Wright brothers' expertise with bicycle mechanisms mattered. When Glenn Curtiss' work on motorcycle engines was supremely relevant. When the whole world perched on the edge of its seat, waiting for that breakthrough in materials science, that would allow for an engine strong enough to contain the power to lift itself off the ground, and also light enough to be so lifted.

We have a firm grasp of the fundamental principles of nuclear fusion. We're confident in the theoretical underpinnings of the work. I'm confident we'll get there sooner or later. It may be 20 years, or 200 years, or even 2000 years. But we will get there. And why shouldn't our civilization be the one to do it? Why shouldn't it happen in our lifetime? Just because it hasn't happened yet?

Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in 1867. She died in 1957. In her lifetime, she went from "herp derp heavier than air flight is always 20 years away" to "herp derp supersonic flight is always 20 years away" to supersonic jet fighters being launched off of aircraft carriers. The first vacuum tube was more than 20 years away from her birth. Transistor radios were a thing by the time she died. Imagine how many thousands of breakthroughs happened in her lifetime. Imagine how many opportunities she would have had to poop on some precursor technology that did not on its own represent any great leap forward.

We'll get there.