Search found 218 matches

by charliem
Sun Mar 24, 2024 12:38 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Company (Quaise Energy) plans to use fusion technology to drill for geothermal
Replies: 18
Views: 3785

Re: Company (Quaise Energy) plans to use fusion technology to drill for geothermal

I haven't heard about drilling causing earthquakes. Fracking, yes, depletion of underground water tables and oil deposits, yes. Drilling per se, not that I know. Can anyone give some examples? Unless there are examples of this, or at least a credible theory regarding a relation, I think running to t...
by charliem
Fri Mar 22, 2024 7:04 pm
Forum: News
Topic: EM Drive
Replies: 785
Views: 602014

Re: EM Drive

Almost 5 months already and Barry-1 keeps losing altitude at a constant rate: https://celestrak.org/NORAD/elements/gr ... ATNR=58338

It doesn't look good. :(
by charliem
Fri Mar 22, 2024 6:59 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Company (Quaise Energy) plans to use fusion technology to drill for geothermal
Replies: 18
Views: 3785

Re: Company (Quaise Energy) plans to use fusion technology to drill for geothermal

Just to note for distant future reference, if they do cool the mantle and stop plate tectonics, carbon-based life is going to die out… Much more dangerous than Global Warming, though might take a while. Yep, it might. If humanity extracted the totality of the energy we are now using (about 20 TW by...
by charliem
Mon Feb 12, 2024 12:35 am
Forum: News
Topic: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024
Replies: 660
Views: 104398

Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

A D-He3 reaction should be 18.3 MeV in charged particles 2He4 (3.6 MeV) + p ( 14.7 MeV ) Yep, you are right. I mixed D-3He and D-T energies. Thanks for the correction. IF they have enough He3 from T- decay, then D-D reactions would be 1/2 of the total. If they do not, then they would be 2/3 of the ...
by charliem
Sun Feb 11, 2024 11:41 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024
Replies: 660
Views: 104398

Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

So… if I’m hearing right, 1% consumption (give or take 10x). If that’s correct, it seems serious question as to why the chamber has to be evacuated, since the exhaust is basically the same as the fuel. Seems like inserting the 0.1- 10% back has to be much quicker than emptying it entirely. Can anyb...
by charliem
Sun Feb 11, 2024 7:56 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024
Replies: 660
Views: 104398

Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Have Helion said how much D & He3 constitutes the reaction plasma? I know they have a patent which discussed relative concentrations, especially hypothesizing that it might be possible to create as much He3 from DD reactions as lost in DHe3 reactions. Based on that we can probably work out the tota...
by charliem
Wed Jan 24, 2024 7:55 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024
Replies: 660
Views: 104398

Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

From what I remember, Helion think they can significantly avoid the high initial capital costs that hamper so many big projects, by going small. The plan seems to consist in (at least initially) size their reactors so they can be mass produced in an assembly line, and transported by road or rail. Th...
by charliem
Sat Jan 20, 2024 2:54 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024
Replies: 660
Views: 104398

Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Mixing power and energy is obscuring things in regard to capacitor bank size. I don't see a problem. Neither pulse frequency, nor peek power production determine capacitor size. Energy needed to get to reach fusion conditions, Q, and energy recovery efficiency do. With an example: Lets say one of th...
by charliem
Thu Jan 11, 2024 7:46 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024
Replies: 660
Views: 104398

Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Plasma duration at point of compression in the device center is one time, which I suspect SJ is saying is ~1ms, then there is the magnetic field sequential firing to accelerate the plasma from each end to collide & to be further compressed, and that is extremely short comparitively (less than a mic...
by charliem
Wed Jan 10, 2024 1:27 am
Forum: News
Topic: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024
Replies: 660
Views: 104398

Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

thanks mvan and charlie, I am a bit more interested in the compressed (fusing) plasma lifetime (since that's when power is produced) Helion and its predecessors have published an empirical formula for FRC tau(n) (particle confinement time) for their machines. For example here (jump to minute 16:00)...
by charliem
Sat Jan 06, 2024 5:22 am
Forum: News
Topic: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024
Replies: 660
Views: 104398

Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Regarding pulse length, if I recall it correctly, in some older Helion's machine FRC formation, acceleration, collision, and compression took a few tens of microseconds. Intuitively, this phase should take more or less the same time in all their machines, or at least stay in the same order of magnit...
by charliem
Wed Nov 22, 2023 11:15 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024
Replies: 660
Views: 104398

Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

... Even the building can be delivered in pieces by road. But the core will likely need the most maintenance. Just replace the entire thing, transport it back to the factory, refurbish, then use that to replace another machine, etc. Otherwise, you have to take crews out to the site, disassemble the...
by charliem
Wed Nov 22, 2023 6:37 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024
Replies: 660
Views: 104398

Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Transport by road may imply other difficulties than size. How tough will Helion's reactors be ? With an aspect ratio of over 6:1, moving one by road might be hard on the vacuum seals. Transporting by sections, to be assembled on site, seems intuitively gentler on the hardware. Also, is that really i...
by charliem
Sat Nov 11, 2023 5:47 am
Forum: News
Topic: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024
Replies: 660
Views: 104398

Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

I have never heard about it being 30 Tesla. Last number I got was 20 Tesla used for the graphs in their recent paper. For the 50 MWe machines it'll have to be higher than Polaris 15 T, but we don't really know the number. On past papers and presentations they've mentioned different figures. For exa...
by charliem
Fri Nov 10, 2023 6:15 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024
Replies: 660
Views: 104398

Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Helion capacitor manufacturing: https://x.com/Helion_Energy/status/1722366083653320932?s=20 We continue to scale up capacitor manufacturing in Antares. Our team is now producing 20 new capacitors a week, which will make up 10% of Polaris’ capacitor bank. So Polaris will need 200 capacitors, or 10 w...