Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

[Skipjack]

Visit to Helion's Antares facility. Some new images:
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/11/04/vis ... smoke.html

[Skipjack]

Pulling the quartz tube out of our plasma formation test was no easy feat, but our production and engineering teams got it done. Now installing more electromagnetic coils to start forming thousands of FRC plasmas.

https://twitter.com/Helion_Energy/statu ... 8513049600

FormationTest.JPG (83.65 KiB) Viewed 3213 times

[Giorgio]

Sorry for late reply, I had to take urgently a plane back to Europe to solve some local made mess and I didn't have any time to connect.

Their blanket diameter is 3 meter, so also the breeding and separation of the newly bred Tritium is not a concern as we have plenty of literature on both these points since the 90's.

3 meters is the total diameter of their machine (excluding that new outer shielding construction). So the liquid blanket is maybe 1.25 meters in thickness. Once possible concern could be evaporation of that liquid blanket material and subsequent contamination of the plasma. But then I guess it is not that bad, since they can evacuate the chamber after every shot (so does Helion).

Yes of course, is a torus, so a diameter of 3 meter will equal to a thickness of 1.2 m to 1.3 m where they have the where there
I remember clearly that Zap disclosed several times that the torus diameter was calculated using a Monte Carlo N-particle code derived from previous experiments and that the thickness was set to produce a tritium breeding ratio of 1.1
I am not sure I ever read anything about Helion blanket thickness needs, I tried to remember if they disclosed it in the past but nothing come to my mind.

Different will be the situation for Helion that will use a solid blanket where the Tritium migration processes is dependent from quite a large number of variables. There is lot of literature with mixed results as small changes in operating parameters can swing conversion efficiency quite a lot.
That is my concern for them.

Helion does not use a Lithium blanket at all... At least they don't plan to do so in the first power plant designs. They will just rely on the He3 and T from D-D reactions. No Lithium blanket for extra Tritium breeding.

Well, this is a news to me because they do have a Li blanket to capture the low energy "n", it is part of the patent on the fuel cycle. If they plan not to use it in the start than it is not a problem, but it will effect overall efficiencies.
Maybe they consider it not essential now, but still those "n" need to be captured somewhere.

I am happy that I am not he only one that sees it as an issue, and I hope we are all wrong about it, but I still lack the data to change idea on this point.

The disbelief of people outside of the company is not really an issue for Helion's design. Personally, I do not understand all that skepticism, neither does David Kirtley. It is a very simple principle. The only problem was the electronics for controls but that was solved for Helion by others. E.g., some components were originally developed for regenerative braking in electric cars. I think some were also developed for wind turbines, but I might be remembering this wrong.

It's not real disbelief, is more a concern. I agree that there is lot of pieces of the puzzle out there that has been solved by other, but still the puzzle has never been put together in one piece, and we all know that in this sector the devil is indeed in the details..

If I am not misinterpreting what you are saying, then sort of agree with that. Helion has gained a lot of experience with the issue of "the first shot is different from the tenth and that one is different from the 10 thousands shot" (paraphrasing David Kirtley here). The machines have a sort of a "warm up phase" after initial commission and there will likely also be one during a sequence of shots.

Absolutely, I think it was right to make one of their main goals to understand how their machine will actually need to be "conditioned" before and after delivery to the customer. But I think that to get a real knowledge they will need to wait to get real data when they start to actually use the machine as a power generator. This of course is true for both.

In Helion all the major components are inside the machine and are participant/subjected to the changes of the system as it evolves.

Not sure you can say it like that. Helion's components are all outside the first wall or located pretty far away from the interaction chamber. That is actually one of the beauties about Helions design. That said, ZAP's design has less components and is overall simpler.

If you speak about "first wall" than I agree with you, but Helion machine is still a closed chamber, so the reaction results will effect the inside of the chamber even if components are not in the immediate surrounding of the "first wall".
In this point, if they actually plan not to use a Li blanket, than they can for sure remove lot of variables and headaches in the start up phase, but those low energy "n" must go somewhere, so I am afraid that they might just skip an immediate problem to face a long term problem later on. But I do not have enough data to sustain this claim, it is just my personal feeling so take it with the due value.

[Skipjack]

Helion does not use a Lithium blanket at all... At least they don't plan to do so in the first power plant designs. They will just rely on the He3 and T from D-D reactions. No Lithium blanket for extra Tritium breeding.

Well, this is a news to me because they do have a Li blanket to capture the low energy "n", it is part of the patent on the fuel cycle. If they plan not to use it in the start than it is not a problem, but it will effect overall efficiencies.
Maybe they consider it not essential now, but still those "n" need to be captured somewhere.

The patent covers a broad range of design options and variations. They have this covered in the patent, but they do not have to do it.
I am 100% sure that they do not intend to use a Li- blanket in the foreseeable future. I got that confirmed by David Kirtley.They think that they can get by without it and still be economic. My personal assumption is that they want to avoid having too much Tritium on site as that makes licensing harder. A Li- blanket would more than double the amount of that. Now that does not mean that they won't change their mind later.

It's not real disbelief, is more a concern. I agree that there is lot of pieces of the puzzle out there that has been solved by other, but still the puzzle has never been put together in one piece, and we all know that in this sector the devil is indeed in the details..

Who says that the "puzzle has never been put together in one piece"?

In this point, if they actually plan not to use a Li blanket, than they can for sure remove lot of variables and headaches in the start up phase, but those low energy "n" must go somewhere, so I am afraid that they might just skip an immediate problem to face a long term problem later on. But I do not have enough data to sustain this claim, it is just my personal feeling so take it with the due value.

They are using materials that are relatively benign in a neutron environment. E.g. the choice of aluminum alloys vs copper for the magnets was partially affected by that (there are other reasons as well).
I assume that most neutrons will end up in the borated concrete shielding that surrounds the machine.

[Skipjack]

250 MW peak drive power at 1 Hz!
Vela, a sub module of the Polaris pulsed power system, has successfully reached full power. Now on to the next test - combining 12 of these systems on a single load.

Helion Driver02.JPG (76.82 KiB) Viewed 3001 times

https://twitter.com/Helion_Energy/statu ... 9Vr0bEiuYg

[Giorgio]

The patent covers a broad range of design options and variations. They have this covered in the patent, but they do not have to do it.
I am 100% sure that they do not intend to use a Li- blanket in the foreseeable future. I got that confirmed by David Kirtley.They think that they can get by without it and still be economic. My personal assumption is that they want to avoid having too much Tritium on site as that makes licensing harder. A Li- blanket would more than double the amount of that. Now that does not mean that they won't change their mind later.

Noted for the lack of the Li blanket.
Indeed the lack of tritium breeding will reduce of half the amount of stored Tritium, but it will also reduce the amount of 3He available for the next reaction cycle as well as the amount of Alpha for power generation.
It will be interesting to see the final design and the reaction balance and power balance that will emerge from these choices.

It's not real disbelief, is more a concern. I agree that there is lot of pieces of the puzzle out there that has been solved by other, but still the puzzle has never been put together in one piece, and we all know that in this sector the devil is indeed in the details..

Who says that the "puzzle has never been put together in one piece"?

I never saw any published papers or data on such an intended assembly. If someone did it, it would have been a pretty big news.

[Skipjack]

Noted for the lack of the Li blanket.
Indeed the lack of tritium breeding will reduce of half the amount of stored Tritium, but it will also reduce the amount of 3He available for the next reaction cycle as well as the amount of Alpha for power generation.

They get charged particles from the D-D and D-He3 reactions (protons, Tritons, He3, He4 are all charged). So all of those branches result in charged particles.

I never saw any published papers or data on such an intended assembly.

They have done it, just not with net electricity out. But they have done it about a 1million times, probably more, first in 2015. I don't want to get into details, but I know and even have seen the numbers for one of their experiments there and it was over 94% efficient at the time. They have since improved on that to over 95% (95% is rounded down!). Now again, this is for input energy recovery only. Fusion output conversion can not be as efficient because a part of the fusion energy is in neutrons and X-rays and those are not contributing to the expansion of the plasmoid after compression.
Now, there is the potential to recover some of the X-ray- energy as well, but this is currently not in the books (but a "maybe in the future").

[mvanwink5]

I would not consider X-Rays and Neutrons as plasma energy, fusion energy, yes, but those energy components sail right out of the plasma.

[Skipjack]

I would not consider X-Rays and Neutrons as plasma energy, fusion energy, yes, but those energy components sail right out of the plasma.

Which is what I said.

[mvanwink5]

Somewhere in the discussion, sure, but it is worth breaking out for clarity.

[Skipjack]

Somewhere in the discussion, sure, but it is worth breaking out for clarity.

I said it in the post right above yours
But yeah, it is worth pointing out, which is why the direct conversion of the fusion energy won't be as efficient as the input energy recovery.

[mvanwink5]

Key is how to handle the waste heat. X-Rays, neutrons can each be dealt with separately & that is a big help.

[Giorgio]

They get charged particles from the D-D and D-He3 reactions (protons, Tritons, He3, He4 are all charged). So all of those branches result in charged particles.

They have done it, just not with net electricity out. But they have done it about a 1million times, probably more, first in 2015. I don't want to get into details, but I know and even have seen the numbers for one of their experiments there and it was over 94% efficient at the time.

Getting a soup of charged particles does not directly imply that you can harvest those charges. I trust that you saw some experimental results and I do not want to play the skeptic guy nor I want to imply that they do not have a solution in their hands, but until the moment that they show something the problem is still open.
We all know this is the way science works because too many times a great experimental result failed to a deeper analysis.

[Skipjack]

Getting a soup of charged particles does not directly imply that you can harvest those charges.

It is NOT a soup. It is still a fully structured FRC.

[Giorgio]

Getting a soup of charged particles does not directly imply that you can harvest those charges.

It is NOT a soup. It is still a fully structured FRC.

It will be a fully structured FRC only IF they will be able to overcome the rotational instabilities that are limiting the confinement time.
And this is one of those big "IF" that has been plaguing them (and TAE) from 2010 and that both are still struggling with up to the start of 2022 according their own reports.

Look, I love the works these teams are doing, is great science that is immensely valuable in expanding our understanding of plasma fusion, but the essential problems are there and I still didn't see anything that can convince me that they might have overcome them.
But I am hopeful that they will as our knowledge improves.