Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

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Skipjack
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Skipjack »

Full interview of Matt Ferrell with David Kirtley:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJxdRqxe7Qk&t=1035s

mvanwink5
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by mvanwink5 »

SJ
Good interview, gives the perspective that some need. In short, Helion is avoiding the physics frontier, that power electronics (high current, high voltage, high speed switching) is now capable of matching their needs. Scaling required is a matter of engineering work & time to acquire components & assemble them, that mass manufacturing is a key design target as well as the ability to transport the finished system over the highway (SJ has mentioned highway transportable multiple times in the past), that customer target is predominantly industrial & large commercial use. And, siting is targeted for local to the user as opposed to the user having to move to the power plant.

The contrary point is that the plant design is around what has already been achieved, proven in physics, that advances in electronics has enabled Helion to build a device using established plasma physics. I noticed Helion did not mention their advanced vacuum pump they designed, and that is a critical device. I was a bit surprised that Helion indicated that they would be making their own power semiconductors (maybe I misheard that).
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

mvanwink5
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by mvanwink5 »

I might add that ZAP, unlike Helion, has to go beyond established plasma physics for their commercial device to work.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Skipjack »

New short video on Twitter:
What started as a large fused silica brick is slowly becoming one of Polaris’ acceleration sections. Machining for Helion’s net-electricity generator continues!
HelionSilica.JPG
HelionSilica.JPG (48.17 KiB) Viewed 2218 times
https://twitter.com/Helion_Energy/statu ... rZXIBJcR1A

mvanwink5
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by mvanwink5 »

Nice picture, Helion is focusing on their manufacturing process, smart.

There are going to be more than 1 successful fusion project, but time to manufacture will be THE key. If it takes 4 years minimum to build a fusion generator from one company and 2 years from another, which one is going to get the order? And that is just the start of the decision process. How about delivery of components? Then there is the experience with the system, if one company has 10 in service, another company has 1 which are you likely to buy?

It will come down to ZAP & Helion, & that is assuming ZAP scales without running into stability trouble.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Skipjack »

In addition to Polaris, Ursa will also house Helion’s quartz tube production center. With foundation work complete, this 12-foot pit will accommodate manufacturing for the largest quartz tubes in the world, used for Helion’s fusion electricity generators.
Helion_Ursa_QuartzTube.jpg
Helion_Ursa_QuartzTube.jpg (140.6 KiB) Viewed 1794 times

Skipjack
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Skipjack »

Great Princeton University presentation by David Kirtley. Should answer most of the questions asked by people (except for the direct energy conversion). It hopefully addresses the rotational instability concerns that Giorgio had.
I believe it might be similar to the talk he gave at APS this year:

https://mediacentral.princeton.edu/medi ... 1_9p8c7d85

Key takeaways for me from the presentation:
1. Q(sci) > 1 for D-He3 possible at 12 keV ion temperature. Q(sci) > 5 at 50 keV ion temperatures.
That would mean that they are already at Q(sci) > 1 for DT with Trenta, which is at 9 keV ion temperature. That is assuming that the nTauE is also high enough, but I am pretty sure it is.
Unless something has changed (or I misunderstood something), Helion is aiming for a Q < 3. So their target temperatures should be below 50 keV even.

2. Loss mechanisms in a pulsed plasma should not be assumed to be a total loss. David particularly mentions Bremsstrahlung and Thermal radiation losses that could be captured to increase the energy balance of the system.

3. They have a very significant theoretical understanding of their plasma behavior and the way it scales to practical fusion power plants. These scaling laws are supported by experimental data. We sort of knew that already, but it is good to see that theoretical understanding expressed in detail.

Unfortunately the Q&A at the end is not included in the video.
Last edited by Skipjack on Sun Dec 11, 2022 4:58 am, edited 2 times in total.

Giorgio
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Giorgio »

Skipjack wrote:
Sat Dec 10, 2022 11:06 pm
Great Princeton University presentation by David Kirtley. Should answer most of the questions asked by people (except for the direct energy conversion). It hopefully addresses the rotational instability concerns that Giorgio had.
I believe it might be similar to the talk he gave at APS this year:

https://mediacentral.princeton.edu/medi ... 1_9p8c7d85
Very nice and technical video, plenty of info even if he could have gotten more deep into the juicy details parts (I am a greedy guy).
A real pity the lack of the QA at the end as you pointed out.


I will focus only on the rotational instabilities as that was my main concern in respect to every other FRC design out there.

At 18:30 - 18:40 he mentioned that they reached a point where they have rotational instabilities under control on a ms scale, so that the rotational instability is not a concern to them to complete the fusion pulse on their timescale.

At 24:30 - 27:30 he discloses that one of the key parameters to obtain this (and other positive features) is that the formation of the Merged FRC must happen with a supersonic speed of the two starting FRC.

At 28:00 - 34:30: he gets pressured more with questions about rotational instabilities control without beams (like TAE does).
He acknowledge that they didn't publish any work on this yet and that there is no agreement in the community to what model fit best the arise and evolution of these rotational instabilities. He than explains that they have observed the formation of the instabilities and their evolution in real experiments and that by operating in a "quick pulse mode" they observed that the FRC will have already exhausted at least 50% of its particle content when the rotational instabilities arises and disrupt the FRC.
So they will "profit" from the instantaneous gain of that 50%, ignoring the rest in favor of a faster pulsed operation in respect to other teams "slower pulse/longer fusion times" approach to extract more gain (33:30-34:30).
This is indeed a neat and smart idea if their model hold true in scaling!.

I will be waiting to see the real experimental data but with different expectations now.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

Skipjack
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Skipjack »

Giorgio wrote:
Tue Dec 13, 2022 8:29 pm

At 24:30 - 27:30 he discloses that one of the key parameters to obtain this (and other positive features) is that the formation of the Merged FRC must happen with a supersonic speed of the two starting FRC.
I think at >1 million miles per hour they got that covered ;)
Giorgio wrote:
Tue Dec 13, 2022 8:29 pm
So they will "profit" from the instantaneous gain of that 50%, ignoring the rest in favor of a faster pulsed operation in respect to other teams "slower pulse/longer fusion times" approach to extract more gain (33:30-34:30).
Yeah, confinement times are lower than the onset of the rotational instability. So they just make the pulses shorter. No point in keeping it going when you have already lost 50% of your particles. Better end the pulse early and recover that energy with the expansion of the plasmoid before you lose it.
50% fewer particles is 50% less induced current. ~1 ms is long enough for them anyway. They make up for the short pulse length with (much) higher density and the (amazingly) high T:Te ratio.

mvanwink5
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by mvanwink5 »

A point that David Kirtley makes, as we can see based on the short plasma window of stability, is that power electronics that have to operate at such high frequency (short pulse width), current, and voltage are relatively recent as a commercial product. Hence, Helion's observation that their approach is only recently practical.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Giorgio
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Giorgio »

Skipjack wrote:
Wed Dec 14, 2022 12:47 am
Giorgio wrote:
Tue Dec 13, 2022 8:29 pm

At 24:30 - 27:30 he discloses that one of the key parameters to obtain this (and other positive features) is that the formation of the Merged FRC must happen with a supersonic speed of the two starting FRC.
I think at >1 million miles per hour they got that covered ;)
Yes, i wanted to point it out as he stressed that this was the key technological leap that allowed them to actually remove many of the limitations that are slowing the other FRC experiments.
I wonder if TAE will also move in the same direction in the future. The benefits in doing so seems quite large.
Skipjack wrote:
Wed Dec 14, 2022 12:47 am
Yeah, confinement times are lower than the onset of the rotational instability. So they just make the pulses shorter. No point in keeping it going when you have already lost 50% of your particles. Better end the pulse early and recover that energy with the expansion of the plasmoid before you lose it.
50% fewer particles is 50% less induced current. ~1 ms is long enough for them anyway.
Most of the fusion probably occurs in the tiny time window of the merging phase until the the fusion energy pressure balances the compression energy pressure and the plasma is allowed to release that energy.
The more i think about it, the more I find it neat and elegant. Hopefully they will be able to keep a stable pulse frequency.

Skipjack wrote:
Wed Dec 14, 2022 12:47 am
They make up for the short pulse length with (much) higher density and the (amazingly) high T:Te ratio.
Yes for pressure.
I do have a slight doubt for the T:Te ratio, but i will keep it for myself until they will release some experimental data. But even if I was right about it, it should not be a difficult issue to overcome, at least partially. So yeah, I do not see any major issues if they can demonstrate on the next machine the same plasma behavior they observed before.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

Giorgio
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Giorgio »

mvanwink5 wrote:
Wed Dec 14, 2022 2:09 am
A point that David Kirtley makes, as we can see based on the short plasma window of stability, is that power electronics that have to operate at such high frequency (short pulse width), current, and voltage are relatively recent as a commercial product. Hence, Helion's observation that their approach is only recently practical.
True, on that timescale for the fusion event all the feedback and correction loop would not have been doable few years ago.
Another indication that times are getting mature for the start of the fusion age.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

jrvz
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by jrvz »

What feedback is needed? I don't remember any mention of active stabilization. Is the FRC formation/acceleration/compression process not predictable enough?
- Jim Van Zandt

Giorgio
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Giorgio »

jrvz wrote:
Thu Dec 15, 2022 5:18 pm
What feedback is needed? I don't remember any mention of active stabilization. Is the FRC formation/acceleration/compression process not predictable enough?
- In the formation there must be a feedback loop to ensure that the shape of the 2 FRC is the most similar possible to ensure an uniform impact.
- In the acceleration there must be a feedback loop along all the length to ensure that the 2 FRC reach at same time (and at similar end speeds!) the middle of the machine.
- In the compression there must be a feedback loop to control the field so that the compressed shape is kept in the desired form (and this is probably the most difficult one).

Because they need to ensure that there is the highest % of fusion events in the merging/compression phase before the rotational instabilities kick in, it requires that the process must happen in a nearly "theoretical" perfect way, so they need to be able to almost instantly control and modify the FRCs characteristics during the whole time.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.


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