Talk-Polywell.org

sure, but again, that's at current prices... He3 prices have fluctuated by 100x in the recent past, and future production costs could end up being a thousand times lower than today's prices I think the problem is more the total amounts of He3 available in some extractable form or another. if they w...

I am very skeptical of this. He particularly lost me when he started going off into a new unified theory of gravity...

I am still very skeptical of their approach, but if they can make it, I would be very happy. I definitely give them the benefit of the doubt.

They have over a billion committed in funds if they meet their net electricity mile stone. So, I would say, yeah, net electric is important and they are working hard on achieving it while at the same time working on Orion.

guessing 20T would probably achieve something around 30KeV for D-He3, but again a lot depends on that proton production rate and the fine details of the PIC simulations They actually do NOT want too much proton heating. Generally, they do not want to get anywhere near ignition territory. I do not f...

There are almost zero D-T side reactions. The T is too hot and leaves the plasma quickly for the SOL and then the divertor. By the way, I'd appreciate some clarification of the part about "lower temps and higher temperatures". That was me being scatterbrained it should read: lower temps and higher d...

They are going for 20 to 30 keV because they need 2/3 of the reactions to be D-D which favors lower temps and higher density. They can scale pretty much linearly between the two. So they can balance it to get the optimal power to breeding ratio. IIRC, the graphs were made for 20 Tesla magnetic field...

That graph only is half the truth... 1. That's where they peak. Not necessary for Helion (or anyone else) to go that high. 2. Density matters too, especially in Helion's case. 3. Helion does not need and even does not want "ignition" (aka self heating, "burning" plasma) in their machines. Helion is ...

Helion's latest newsletter is out. Most of it is stuff we already knew, but this might be news to people here:

Polaris has already surpassed Trenta’s plasma temperatures and FRC size, achieving thermonuclear fusion every day.

For reference: Trenta was at 9 keV.

Why does it have to be 400 sf? To reach their price point of <$60/MWh, unless you've heard differently. The ultimate goal is 1 cent/kWh. Why would the sf of the full plant of all things affect the cost that much? The machine itself is much smaller and that is the important part because it allows fo...

Why does it have to be 400 sf?

Well, experimental machines are always more complicated than the serial produced ones (just for all of the diagnostics alone). Look at the evolution of the SpaceX Raptor engine! They will get a lot simpler and cheaper to build over time.

Well, Grok can only go by the information that is publicly available. And even that is not always complete.

Also, for Helion a lot of the money went into building the machines that build the machines. They have entire manufacturing lines already (and are expanding).

I seriously doubt that Helion's power plants, once mass produced, will cost that much. Otherwise, they would never reach a reasonable ROI at 1 cent/kWh.