Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

[Skipjack]

From all I hear, they are still aiming to have Polaris completed before the end of year. Note that they often release information/pictures/videos out of order. Could be months after they were filmed.
That said, 2025 is more likely for the first net electricity tests (I predicted that a while ago).

[crowberry]

Helion Energy has published a new blog post Securing U.S. fusion leadership - the race for deployment at scale by Jackie Siebens, Director of Public Affairs at https://www.helionenergy.com/articles/s ... -at-scale/. Hopefully the important message gets across and people realize that many actions are needed to make fusion a success and that this race is important to win.

[Munchausen]

Helion Energy has published a new blog post Securing U.S. fusion leadership - the race for deployment at scale by Jackie Siebens, Director of Public Affairs at https://www.helionenergy.com/articles/s ... -at-scale/. Hopefully the important message gets across and people realize that many actions are needed to make fusion a success and that this race is important to win.

The most important message is that of any quantum of positive net energy from this new device. Then controlling the intellectual property and manufacturing capacity of this tecnhology will not be like competing against cheap Tesla knock-off cars.

It will be like controlling access to the Saudi oil. Siebens is naive. It will unfold in a vastly more nasty and militarized way. If and when the Helion company does what they say they will do, it will immediately become the subject of attention from major american security agencies.

The facility will be surrounded with three lines of barbed wire, watch towers and armed dog patrols. All personnel involved will be scrutinized and have their whereabouts mapped down to their underwear and the intellectual property sucked up and fully documented by external examinators and put under close control.

To be used as tool in the national interests of the USA.

[Skipjack]

That would make a lot of noise. Broad access to clean and abundant energy is more important for national security than any military application.
AND if they are in some way restricted and slowed down, the Chinese will take over the market like they did with fission and batteries, etc.

[mvanwink5]

Practical fusion opens up the whole solar system. Limiting it based on Earth geography does not make sense.

[Munchausen]

That would make a lot of noise. Broad access to clean and abundant energy is more important for national security than any military application. AND if they are in some way restricted and slowed down, the Chinese will take over the market like they did with fission and batteries, etc.

The question is whether the chinese can replicate the technology and in what time frame.

Europe, Japan, Korea and the remaining civilized world will respect intellectual properties guarding the technology. Hence no independent access until the patents run out.

There will be a window of opportunity to exploit this energy advantage for political purposes. Chances are slim that this will not happen.

[natebrau]

If we're speculating, there sure seem like multiple possible paths to pursue to practical fusion energy. The first one to succeed will get the lion's share no doubt, but there are so many sufficiently different approaches that I would not bet on a monopoly for long. And even if there's only one way, patents are only good for 17 years.

Once it's proven practical at all, beyond the "Kitty Hawk" moment I expect to see funding spike for a handful of major competitors, and some of them will succeed as "fast followers" in the space, and we'll shortly (<5 years after "Kitty Hawk moment") have a competitive fusion eco-system with multiple vendors, multiple technologies, and multiple niches being filled. And these vendors will be global in scope and scale, and will serve a global market.

[Carl White]

"Taking a walk around our fusion byproducts processing lab"

https://x.com/i/status/1839334480903102859

[bennmann]

https://www.energy.senate.gov/hearings/ ... hearing-to

question:
00:51:00
"are you still on track to show it can produce electricity by the end of this year?"

answer:
00:51:51
my summary: on track for testing before end of year, demonstrate electricity likely next year.

----------------
not done listening to this one yet, that question caught my ear for this forum and had to pause to write before other items swept me away.

[Skipjack]

Yeah, they are a bit behind schedule. Not surprising given the challenges with the supply chain and all that.

[charliem]

https://www.energy.senate.gov/hearings/ ... hearing-to

Thank you for the link Bennmann.

Not much new in there, but I found some of the answers interesting, although I think the witnesses could have offered some better arguments a couple times.

For example, when Sen. Hoeven seemed fixated on nuclear fission reactors "not needing refueling", in contrast with fusion.

A good answer that was not given is that fusion fuel is more energy dense than fission fuel. A fusion powered nuclear carrier, for example, could theoretically sail longer (given the same fuel weight), than its fission powered counterpart. Or that that spaceship to Neptune, would need to carry less fuel if driven by fusion.

Another point I think they could have clarified further is the amount of radioactive waste.

A metric I like is curies per MWh generated, or also total radioactive content of a reactor. Contrasting fission and fusion reactors, a quick Google search says the average fission reactor contains on the order of 10¹⁰ curies of radioactive materials (by the way, that's enough to kill the whole human race multiple times over, remember the polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko by the FSB, it took only 1 microgram). The equivalent fusion reactor would house much, much less, and in products with considerably shorter half-lives.

Well, let's hope they do better next time.

[Skipjack]

https://www.energy.senate.gov/hearings/ ... hearing-to

Thank you for the link Bennmann.

Not much new in there, but I found some of the answers interesting, although I think the witnesses could have offered some better arguments a couple times.

For example, when Sen. Hoeven seemed fixated on nuclear fission reactors "not needing refueling", in contrast with fusion.

A good answer that was not given is that fusion fuel is more energy dense than fission fuel. A fusion powered nuclear carrier, for example, could theoretically sail longer (given the same fuel weight), than its fission powered counterpart. Or that that spaceship to Neptune, would need to carry less fuel if driven by fusion.

Another point I think they could have clarified further is the amount of radioactive waste.

A metric I like is curies per MWh generated, or also total radioactive content of a reactor. Contrasting fission and fusion reactors, a quick Google search says the average fission reactor contains on the order of 10¹⁰ curies of radioactive materials (by the way, that's enough to kill the whole human race multiple times over, remember the polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko by the FSB, it took only 1 microgram). The equivalent fusion reactor would house much, much less, and in products with considerably shorter half-lives.

Well, let's hope they do better next time.

I think they did a great job overall, but I agree with what you are saying. I believe Siebens actually got to the point about the density of the fuel later (I would have said it right away). E.g. that the fuel of a Helion 50 MWe fusion power plant would be on the order of 20 kg for an entire year. You could carry the entire fuel for the lifetime of a fusion powered carrier and it would not even make a dent.

[TallDave]

my summary: on track for testing before end of year, demonstrate electricity likely next year.

Thanks, would love to see them break 10K eV before the end of the year. Then we'd start to learn just how much fuel ion heating by fusion products is actually possible. 20KeV? 50 KeV? Since this is pulsed they can essentially set off a tiny fusion bomb on each run, so it might even just be a case of getting the initial conditions fine-tuned to produce electricity efficiently at the desired average end temperature after fusion heating. (OK, I'll calm down now.)



China has a lot of industrial capacity and an utter disregard for the environment, but I doubt they have much of a handle on Helion's theory or diagnostics. As with SpaceX, Helion could make a lot of money for at least a good ten years.

[Skipjack]

Thanks, would love to see them break 10K eV before the end of the year. Then we'd start to learn just how much fuel ion heating by fusion products is actually possible. 20KeV? 50 KeV?

They are planning for somewhere between 20 keV to 30 keV for their actual power plants. I suspect that Polaris will be slightly below that, but it is not known how much Polaris will reach. I hear that the slides were for 20 Tesla fields. Polaris will only do 15 Tesla (at least initially). So that would suggest somewhat lower temps and/or somewhat lower density since they can scale between these two almost linearly.

China has a lot of industrial capacity and an utter disregard for the environment, but I doubt they have much of a handle on Helion's theory or diagnostics. As with SpaceX, Helion could make a lot of money for at least a good ten years.

Don't underestimate China! They are putting a ton of funding into fusion research and EAST is breaking records. They are also conducting a ton of industrial espionage. I heard some stories there. E.g. there is pretty open espionage in the supply chain.

[TallDave]

They are planning for somewhere between 20 keV to 30 keV for their actual power plants.

That seems like a reasonable guess pre-Polaris, but we've yet to see how the plasma reacts to significant fusion heating. I'm sure they have models but I wouldn't trust them without more data.

China's very good at reproducing things that already work, and there are lots of great engineers in Shanghai and Shenzhen. But they've thrown trillions at ASML and come up with the same nothing as everyone else. TSMC sits across the strait mocking CCP with their very existence. They'll successfully copy Helion eventually if it works, and at scale, but not soon.