Fusion Reaction Breakeven achieved!

[PointOfViewGun]

Here is CEO of Helion Energy, Dr. David Kirtley, explaining his company's approach:



The guy's an established scientist with a degree in Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, master's degree in Nuclear Engineering, and a PhD in Aerospace Engineering, who worked in Air Force Research Laboratory for over 7 years. Interestingly, his approach stems from his work in propulsion technology during his years in AFRL as Helion Energy basically propels two plasma beams at each other to create a 100 million degrees in the core.

It's hard to put them at the same category as Theranos and Enron especially considered how much they have accomplished with so little funding that they have received.

[Common Soldier]

Here is CEO of Helion Energy, Dr. David Kirtley, explaining his company's approach:



The guy's an established scientist with a degree in Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, master's degree in Nuclear Engineering, and a PhD in Aerospace Engineering, who worked in Air Force Research Laboratory for over 7 years. Interestingly, his approach stems from his work in propulsion technology during his years in AFRL as Helion Energy basically propels two plasma beams at each other to create a 100 million degrees in the core.

It's hard to put them at the same category as Theranos and Enron especially considered how much they have accomplished with so little funding that they have received.

Very well put. Helion is simply not in the same category as Theranos, or Enron, his approach seems fundamentally sound. And I liked how he explained why the approach Helion is using wouldn't have worked in the past, and how technological advances have made Helion's feasible now. What is nice about Helion's approach is that you don't need a huge multi-billion facility to make it work.

What I especially find interesting is the way Helion plans to extract energy out of the nuclear fusion. By not having to convert generated heat to electricity, and thus be limited to efficiencies of 50% or less, the Helion method could be far more efficient. Plus, the would not need bodies of water for cooling down steam or gas turbine exhaust that convention fossil and nuclear power require. ITER style fusion reactor still requires heating water or some other coolant to provide heat to produce electricity, limiting theoretical efficiency, and still require sources of cooling (bodies of water) for after power generation. Sources of cooling water could be a problem in arid area, a problem a Helicon reactor would seem to eliminate or greatly reduce.

Dr. David Kirtley has thought out all aspects of the fusion approach, from how to create fusion, to how to get power out, and who even they plan to market their initial commercial generators to. About the only weakness I see in Helicon's plan on getting enough Helium-3 for their fusion. I am not sure their production and capture will be sufficient enough to produce all the tritium (i.e., helium-3) they will need.

But helium-3, though, could be made from lithium in fission reactors. This can be done by replace some of the normal boron control rods with burnable absorbing rods containing lithium in ceramic. Periodically, you remove these absorber rods and remove the tritium produced, which will decay away to helium-3. Two commercial reactors in the US are already producing tritium this way, and it could be scaled up by using more nuclear reactors to meet any conceivable demand.

[swabian]

The whole pivot of the news is that net energy has been produced by nuclear fusion. It's fascinating how solwly this seeps into the public mind. The thing has been endorsed by both, the Us government and the German gov. People begin to realize again, that technological advancement is, as always, the way out of an existential crises and not socialism.

It's been done. there was more enery taken out of the system than has been put in to generate the fusion reaction. That is why it is special. Nuclear fusion has been researched since decades, why do you think this news is so special now? Geez

[Common Soldier]

It's been done. there was more enery taken out of the system than has been put in to generate the fusion reaction. That is why it is special. Nuclear fusion has been researched since decades, why do you think this news is so special now? Geez

It is an important milestone, but it is only a step in the process to make fusion a viable means of producing power. More energy was produced than was the lasers or magnetic fields to generate the fusion, but when you take into account the energy needed to produce the laser beams or magnetic field, the total energy in still far exceeds the energy out. We have a long way to go before actually using fusion power as power source producing net energy gain.

We need to produce 10 times more energy from the fusion before we would have a net energy gain, taking into all the energy that went in to all that comes out. That has to occur before fusion could actually generate power for us, and we are not there yet. . Sometimes, these news articles give a misleading impression fusion is further along than it is. Still, reaching this milestone does show fusion is making major progress, but there is still a lot more needs to be done before we can count on fusion as a power source.

[PointOfViewGun]

Helion and Nucor announce collaboration to deploy 500 MWe fusion power plant

Helion, a fusion power company, and Nucor Corporation, the largest steel producer and recycler in North America, today announced an agreement to develop a 500 MWe fusion power plant at a Nucor steel manufacturing facility in the United States. This collaboration is aimed at accelerating the future of clean energy in the industrial manufacturing sector.

This is an interesting development for investment in fusion energy. Such giant manufacturing companies can play a vital role in energy projects as they consume huge amounts of it.

[alhoon]

Interesting