Talk-Polywell.org

Careful there! Those counts are for ZEUS, not Polaris!

New blog post about how material science work at Helion: Looks like they are moving from quartz for the first wall on to silicon carbide. I have known that they have been working on new materials for the first wall for a while. So, it is good that this is now public. https://www.helionenergy.com/art...

Right now, I actually love him! The proud people of Persia will be freed of 47 years of brutal oppression. My only complaint is that he did not do it sooner! To be blunt: Europe should have done this years ago, when the first Shahed drones rained down on Ukraine. And if not Europe, then Biden. Now T...

Yes, 1 cent/kWh is still their stated goal, at least for the mid term when mass manufacturing and operational experience as well as additional He3 from Tritium- decay come into play. The initial machines will likely be more expensive to build and operate, though and that is perfectly normal and to b...

My take on this: Dr Brandenburg does have some respectable credentials in the plasma physics field with a long career in the field, but his record of academic publications is mixed. Most of his higher impact work seems to be focused on the "Cydonian Hypothesis" or similar unconventional topics. His ...

Great answers sdg! For the Assuming things go as planned how many D-D burners would be needed to feed the D-He burners? I'm assuming the D-D burners would require more maintenance. Answer is somewhere between none and one. The initial machines will be producing the He3 they are burning. Unless somet...

Just a little detail: The "B Field recovery". Should it be understod as back EMF or back pressure from an expanding high beta plasmoid? If I understood your question correctly: I would probably frame it as back EMF. The expanding high-β plasmoid changes the magnetic flux linking the external coils ...

Good interview with Anthony Pancotti, one of the co- founders of Helion. Not much new in there for those of us who have been watching closely, but worth listening into!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-waSahWSNc&t=2s

Personally, I think that fusion will be much bigger than AI. If you think about the fundamental physics of everything humanity does, then energy is ultimate limiting factor. Even if we automated everything and all raw materials were free, the remaining cost of anything will be determined by the cost...

This is going to be a major geopolitical disruption as well. And that is where I am worried. If China-- even as a fast follower-- managed to take the global market here, it would give them geopolitical leverage. That is something the US cannot afford to let happen.

Anyone doubting that Helion is doing well in keeping their secrets. China is catching up and then it will be about the industrial base. This is why a lot of people in the US fusion industry are pushing so hard for building exactly that! I actually think (as much as it will annoy me and all of us) th...

Video just released:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpzYjJqZivI

darn! Beat me to it

I have not heard anything about components of the machine having broken. They do have test labs though to test components and stresses before they do that in the actual machine.

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...