ExpressLane (11-06-2021)
Members banned from this thread: Cypress, ThatOwlWoman, Jade Dragon, Poor Richard Saunders, Trumpet, BartenderElite and Hoosier Daddy |
.
As the article there are now at least 35 companies pursuing nuclear fusion. The pace is picking up markedly.
https://www.ft.com/content/dcb75a56-...b-56483979bf34Helion secures $500m investment in latest sign of investor confidence in the technology
A nuclear fusion start-up backed by Silicon Valley investor Sam Altman and Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital has secured $500m to demonstrate commercially viable power by 2024 in the largest capital raise yet by a private fusion company.
The investment in US-based Helion is the latest sign of growing private sector confidence in the potential of nuclear fusion to provide clean, cheap power that would fundamentally transform the world’s ability to cut carbon emissions.
“On the whole, fusion has been missing from the global conversation about what we’re going to do about the climate crisis, but that is rapidly changing,” Altman, who will join Helion’s board as executive chair, told the Financial Times.
The newly formed Fusion Industry Association said last week that at least 35 different companies were now pursuing nuclear fusion around the world and predicted that fusion energy would be connected to the grid in the 2030s.
The prospect of fusing atoms to generate almost unlimited power from minimal fuel has tantalised scientists for decades. Soviet scientists pioneered the development of the first fusion machine, known as the “tokamak”, in the 1950s but no group has been able to achieve fusion while producing more electricity than the system consumes.
Unlike the traditional tokamak approach, which uses energy from the fusion reaction to drive steam turbines, Helion’s system enables it to generate electricity directly from the fusion reaction as the fuel expands.
David Kirtley, Helion’s chief executive, compared it to the regenerative breaking system in a Tesla electric car, where the kinetic energy from the vehicle is used to recharge the battery system.
“The key there is that we can bypass all the capital cost and all the complexity of all those steam turbine systems . . . and focus on getting fusion as small and fast as possible.”
The $500m investment, led by Altman, fully funds Helion to build by 2024 what would be the first fusion demonstration plant to generate net electricity. If successful, the investors, who also include Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and sustainability-focused Capricorn Investment Group, have committed to a further $1.7bn to fund future manufacturing.
Last edited by cancel2 2022; 11-06-2021 at 10:12 PM.
ExpressLane (11-06-2021)
.
This looks very promising, I'm very optimistic about it.
The founders of Helion believe that fusion isn’t a fundamental physical problem, but an engineering problem that will be solved by building, testing, and iterating fusion systems and subsystems. By focusing on our true goal - clean, safe and limitless electricity - we can approach fusion from a new angle.
Our approach does three major things differently from other fusion approaches:
1) We utilize a pulsed non-ignition fusion system. This helps us overcome the hardest physics challenges, keeps our fusion device smaller than other approaches, and allows us to adjust the power output based on need.
2) Our system is built to directly recover electricity. Just like regenerative braking in an electric car, our system is built to recover all unused and new electromagnetic energy efficiently. Other fusion systems heat water to create steam to turn a turbine which loses a lot of energy in the process.
https://www.helionenergy.com/faq/
Last edited by cancel2 2022; 11-06-2021 at 11:09 PM.
Fission is already a viable solution. Fusion has its drawbacks. One of the biggest is it produces a huge amount of neutron radiation. Neutrons are like OMG dangerous as radiation.
By the way he's wrong on the energy ratio in one sense. A single uranium fission results in about 200 MeV of energy released. A single fission reaction between two hydrogen atoms results in about 6 MeV. The difference is that the amount of mass involved is roughly 100 times greater in the fission than fusion reaction and that's why fusion is so much more powerful.
Because lots of neutrons are released, everything--I mean everything-- near a fusion reactor ends up becoming massively radioactive. That also means that you being near this process will cause you to DIE and glow in the dark. Fission only causes you to die...
Last edited by T. A. Gardner; 11-06-2021 at 11:18 PM.
This is from Quora.
There is a advanced form of nuclear fusion that should produce NO radioactivity.
He3 + He3 -> He4 + 2protons + 12.9 MeV
He3-He3 fusion uses totally non-radioactive fuel and produces totally non-radioactive Helium as nuclear waste (and no neutrons - only easily shieldable protons that can be collected and directly produce electricity at very high efficiency exceeding the Carnot efficiency of any thermal power plant)
The combined requirements of He3-He3 ICF fusion is only about 40X the combined temperature, plasma pressure, and confinement time requirements of DT fusion. This not an impossibly high requirement and will be reached in future ICF fusion power plants.
The was a good article in the recent issue of Ideas And Discoveries about experimental fusion reactors. Unfortunately, Big Oil and their Republican puppets will find a way to oppose it, probably by misrepresenting scientific facts and by fear-mongering about taxes (the usual tactics).
Fusion produces as byproducts during the process both gamma and beta radiation. The later isn't a big deal, but the former is still dangerous while the reactor is running.
So, while the resulting helium atom isn't radioactive, the process of creating it produces radiation.
What's bad news for the planet is solar and wind...
Here in Phoenix the tards on the environmental Left are suggesting that to keep the urban heat island the city creates down to a minimum we plant more trees and paint more roofs white even as they push PV solar rooftop installations that are BLACK! Nothing like a solar array that's black absorbing energy and producing heat that works intermittently because shade from trees keeps passing over it...
cancel2 2022 (12-11-2021)
cancel2 2022 (12-11-2021)
Bookmarks