More Helion Energy news....

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

RERT wrote:
Thu Sep 09, 2021 10:07 am
The ‘just plain copper’ remark above was interesting. What might be possible with HTSC? What fraction of the 5% unrecovered power might be saved?
The energy needed to run the cryo plant would eat it all up.

RERT
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by RERT »

Skipjack wrote:
Thu Sep 09, 2021 10:52 pm
The energy needed to run the cryo plant would eat it all up.
That's very plausible but not completely obvious. Even 1% better on a 100Mw plant could justify a lot of refrigeration, couldn't it? Guess it depends how close to a heat source the coils have to be, etc.

But really I was getting at the possibility of much different fusion conditions with higher fields. Could pB11 become feasible? Or do they already have a plan for pB11?

Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

RERT wrote:
Fri Sep 10, 2021 10:17 am
Skipjack wrote:
Thu Sep 09, 2021 10:52 pm
The energy needed to run the cryo plant would eat it all up.
That's very plausible but not completely obvious. Even 1% better on a 100Mw plant could justify a lot of refrigeration, couldn't it? Guess it depends how close to a heat source the coils have to be, etc.

But really I was getting at the possibility of much different fusion conditions with higher fields. Could pB11 become feasible? Or do they already have a plan for pB11?
They did trade studies for that on their 50 MW generator design and the cryo plant would hurt the energy balance compared to their simple non cryogenic magnets. Plus startup times are really long that way (or you have to keep the thing running all the time even when the generator is not producing power). Their whole idea is to load follow really well, with multiple smaller generators in a cluster that can startup quickly to even replace gas turbines.
Cryoplants also add a lot of complexity and cost. They want to have their power plants to be as compact as possible, cheap to mass produce and easy to deliver and install. AFAIK, the plant site would be roughly the size of the average lot for a single family home, everything included.
No cooling towers/pools, etc.

As for power, they are looking to increase power output by increasing the pulse rate. The more pulses they can do a second, the more power they can produce. From what I understand, this also increases the round trip efficiency quite a bit.
So that is really high up on their list. They are aiming for 1Hz with Polaris ( though only for short periods of time) and at least 1 Hz continuously for the actual power plant (the actual pulse rate for that is still a secret).

As for PB11. I do not think that they are considering it at this point. Their design is just barely going to have a Q(eng) of 3 (rounded up) with D-D + D-He3.
I don't really see a huge advantage for PB11 over their fuel mix, anyway. PB11 opens a whole can of worms, starting with Bremstrahlung- losses and X-rays, hotter plasma, etc. Plus there are still some neutrons from side reactions (though very few from what I understand).
Meanwhile, only 5% of the energy Helion's generators produce is released as neutrons and those are only 2.45 MeV. That means the damage from that is not THAT bad. And it is just below the material activation range for a lot of materials, IIRC. Their linear design also makes dealing with that a lot easier. The burn chamber is physically relatively far away from the injectors and because it is just a cylindrical piece, it can be replaced much easier than say the inner wall of a Tokamak.
Plus, the neutrons are useful since they can produce additional energy in a Lithium blanket and produce more Tritium for future fuel (or to sell).
Deuterium is very abundant and relatively easy to get. I mean CANDU reactors have entire pools full of that stuff. So that should not be an issue either.

The whole concept is really well thought out and I can't poke any holes into it.

Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

Polaris construction is well underway:
PolarisBuilding.jpeg
PolarisBuilding.jpeg (90.92 KiB) Viewed 4058 times

RERT
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by RERT »

Thanks Skipjack, that was very informative.

The pB11 advantage would be fuel availability and price. I don’t know how quickly you can ramp up a fleet of D3He reactors, but with p11B there are no real issues with fuel.

Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

RERT wrote:
Sat Sep 11, 2021 3:52 pm
Thanks Skipjack, that was very informative.

The pB11 advantage would be fuel availability and price. I don’t know how quickly you can ramp up a fleet of D3He reactors, but with p11B there are no real issues with fuel.
Well, their generators are making their own He3 and it will be relatively quick. All they need is Deuterium to make it. They can make one Helion and more than two (could be as much as 2.9) Tritons for every two D-D reactions. I would trade the Tritium for Helium3 on the market. Might even make a slight profit off of that. He3 is 27,000/gram and Tritium is about 30,000/gram (though prices fluctuate for both).
Anyway, usually people who need Tritium have He3 from the Tritium decay (if they keep it).
Might take a bit to establish a flourishing trade though.

RERT
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by RERT »

Let’s do this in detail.

The Helion reactor runs on D+3He. Is that 50:50 or some other ratio?

D+3He produces 4He.
D + D produces 3He and 3H in similar quantities.

The cross-section of DD is much lower than D3He, and us intrinsically less common as both species are the same.

It seems quite improbable that the fusion reaction can produce more 3He than it consumes.

Can you explain how that happens? If not, rxplain how the Helion reactors are fuelled?

Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

OK, so for one:
The D-D reaction has two branches. One produces a Triton and a proton and one produces a Helion and a neutron.
That neutron can then be used in a Lithium blanket to breed more Tritium, up to 1.9 Tritons per neutron.
That is because of the reaction 7Li + n produces a Triton, a He4 and yet another neutron.
So in the end we have one Helion and up to 2.9 Tritons for every two D-D reactions.

Now to get more D-D reacions than D- He3 reactions there are several things that they can do. For one, they can just simply run the reactor deuterium rich. Then the likelihood of a D-D reaction is higher than that of a D-He reaction.
IIRC, the likelihood of a D-D reaction is actually greater than a D-He3 reaction at lower temperatures than at higher temperatures. I think there are also some pressure/temperature ratios that increase the D-D reactivity over D-He3 reactivity, but I am not entirely sure about that anymore.
Anyway, from what I understand, they will have several operation modes for the generator. One that promotes He3/T production and one that produces more power through D-He3 reactions. They will likely run the former more in the beginning to build a He3/T inventory and then switch to the latter.
Here is a good starting point for that they are doing
https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/ ... ESCRIPTION

RERT
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by RERT »

Thanks!

Giorgio
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Giorgio »

Skipjack wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 1:27 am
Anyway, from what I understand, they will have several operation modes for the generator. One that promotes He3/T production and one that produces more power through D-He3 reactions. They will likely run the former more in the beginning to build a He3/T inventory and then switch to the latter.
Here is a good starting point for that they are doing
https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/ ... ESCRIPTION
My understanding was that they they would only run a D-D chain, extract the T side product an let it naturally decay into 3He that will be reinjected into the fusion process once in a while.
After all the T production has to be strongly limited to make the reactor economical viable, especially because Tritium has a half life of 12 years in it's decay process to 3He. If large quantities of T will be produced, storage costs could become an important (negative) economic factor in the overall balance of running such a fusion plant.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

Giorgio wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 9:56 am
Skipjack wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 1:27 am
Anyway, from what I understand, they will have several operation modes for the generator. One that promotes He3/T production and one that produces more power through D-He3 reactions. They will likely run the former more in the beginning to build a He3/T inventory and then switch to the latter.
Here is a good starting point for that they are doing
https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/ ... ESCRIPTION
My understanding was that they they would only run a D-D chain, extract the T side product an let it naturally decay into 3He that will be reinjected into the fusion process once in a while.
After all the T production has to be strongly limited to make the reactor economical viable, especially because Tritium has a half life of 12 years in it's decay process to 3He. If large quantities of T will be produced, storage costs could become an important (negative) economic factor in the overall balance of running such a fusion plant.
Check out their patent that I linked. They can have a Li blanket to produce more T. They talk about it in the patent. They don't have to store the T for decades. They can just trade it for He3.
https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/com ... roduction/

kurt9
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by kurt9 »

One thing successful commercialization of Helion will do is to put away all of those schemes for mining the Moon for He3. Why go to the expense and hassle of mining the Moon when you can just breed your own He3?

I wonder if Robert Zubrin is aware of Helion Energy.

Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

kurt9 wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 3:09 pm
One thing successful commercialization of Helion will do is to put away all of those schemes for mining the Moon for He3. Why go to the expense and hassle of mining the Moon when you can just breed your own He3?

I wonder if Robert Zubrin is aware of Helion Energy.
Yeah, mining the Moon for He3 is not a particularly good idea in the first place. I hear the gas giants might be a better target for that.
I mean, IF the cost of transporting goods to and from the moon ever gets low enough, then maybe it could still be competitive with Helion's He3 production. But then, Helion would benefit from that as well. More He3 to burn, fewer D-D reactions, which produce less energy.
Robert is very much pro fusion ( he is advocating for it) and also aware of Helion (he mentioned them in a recent fusion article that he wrote).
Not sure how much he knows about their He3 plans, though.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/08/ ... evolution/

Giorgio
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Giorgio »

Skipjack wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 2:05 pm
Check out their patent that I linked. They can have a Li blanket to produce more T. They talk about it in the patent. They don't have to store the T for decades. They can just trade it for He3.
https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/com ... roduction/
The way to get 3He from Tritium is through natural decay with a rate of around 5.5% year of starting Tritium mass.
If they plan to "mine" 3He out of Tritium storage they will need quite a big and complex storage/processing facility. But if they can make DD fusion economical, than going through Tritium processing to extract 3He for electrical power generation does not make much sense.
That's what I mean.

On the contrary, a small and dedicated facility to recover 3He for space probes engines could be economical, at least until a more compact fusion reactor will be developed.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

Giorgio wrote:
Mon Sep 13, 2021 7:53 am
The way to get 3He from Tritium is through natural decay with a rate of around 5.5% year of starting Tritium mass.
If they plan to "mine" 3He out of Tritium storage they will need quite a big and complex storage/processing facility. But if they can make DD fusion economical, than going through Tritium processing to extract 3He for electrical power generation does not make much sense.
That's what I mean.
Yes, it decays to He3, but as you say that is a relatively slow process. We do have solutions for the long term storage of Tritium, but I am not sure how economic it is. That is why I think that it is better to just sell the Tritium and buy more He3 with the money. They are both about the same price (with He3 being slightly cheaper usually). So I don't see anything speaking against that until maybe the market for Tritium is saturated. Though right now, we are running into a huge Tritium shortage which will likely get worse with the many D-T fusion experiments that are coming online.

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