Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

[mvanwink5]

The shock of net electric from fusion in a 50 MWe plant prototype machine will be earth shattering. Imagine the solar, wind, battery pushers once the announcement blows up the narrative, not to mention the fission people. Late 2024 is only a year away & I see nothing to push that out. Utilities have to make money for 30 years on the investments made today, best not to spend a $ trillion on tech that will be obsolete in 3 years (2028 for commercial).

[Carl White]

The shock of net electric from fusion in a 50 MWe plant prototype machine will be earth shattering. Imagine the solar, wind, battery pushers once the announcement blows up the narrative, not to mention the fission people.

This worries me. Some of them are so invested that they might do everything they can to kill fusion.

[mvanwink5]

Musk won't even talk about it, LOL! Still, nothing will stop it now.

[usesbiggerwords]

This worries me. Some of them are so invested that they might do everything they can to kill fusion.

I think it's too public now, with too much evidence in favor of it working. This isn't some "free energy generator the oil companies don't want you to know about" conspiracy theory.

[Munchausen]

Public perception will to some extent be affected by deployment. Do we know anything about what these machines need in workforce? Do they need an on-site operator staff 24/7 or are they supposed to be remotely operated with only occasional service team visits?

In the first case they will probably be localized in clustered parks to make better use of skilled key personnel. In the latter rather in a dispersed mode at key nodes in the grid.

A locally visible planted clearly connected to a cheaper electricity bill will do miracles to public perception.

[mvanwink5]

Helion machines should just need monitoring and should not need cooling ponds, rivers, ocean heat sinks. Location on nuclear fission sites for utility power would be an obvious choice to start with, but location on steel, aluminum foundry sites would also make sense. Eventually, it would make sense to locate their machines inside cities to reduce power transmission difficulties (New York City is an example of difficulty in transmitting power into high demand centers).

[usesbiggerwords]

Based on the interviews I've watched and my own engineering experience, I suspect a 30,000 foot view of a Helion plant is going to look something like this:



Heat management was stated to be an issue in one of the interviews, so some kind of cooling loop is going to be needed. This means being able to reject that heat in some fashion, whether by cooling tower or using it as industrial process heat. This will limit the places you can initially install/build a unit. I realize heat isn't the primary byproduct of the fusion generator, but it's going to have to be dealt with. I think a small operating team should be able to run the place, with regular preventative maintenance for things like cooling pumps and power transfer equipment, with occasional mechanical integrity checks.

[mvanwink5]

Buildings use cooling towers placed on roofs for their HVAC equipment, so it is common equipment. Helion fusion generators are reported to be 95% net electric efficient, so a 50 MWe generator would be rejecting 2.5 MW of heat. That is not a large cooling tower. Also electric distribution transformers are typically 98% efficient and use just fans for cooling.

[Munchausen]

A few MW of rejected heat is a selling point in large parts of world. To some extent depending on the quality of it.

Aside from that: I dont think Helion has given any information at all on projected work force needs. Mandatory 24/7 presence of a skilled workforce team is no small issue.

For small fission plants the required security force is quite a substantial part of the cost profile. Hopefully fusion will fare better in that regard.

[93143]

Based on the interviews I've watched and my own engineering experience, I suspect a 30,000 foot view of a Helion plant is going to look something like this:

I can't see that image. I tried to open it in a new tab, and it asked me to sign in using a Google account.

[Skipjack]

Image is not working for me either. It just says "image".

As for cooling: I think the amount and kind of cooling needed will depend on whether it is a
- pure D-He3 machine/
- mixed mode (breeding and cooling) machine
- or a dedicated breeder machine

I believe that pure D-He3 machines will just have large fans for cooling.
Mixed mode machines will likley have very large cooling fans. Some might be close to a body of water (river or the sea) to dump waste heat.

Dedicated breeders will produce more heat, might even burn (some of) the Tritium for extra heat and money. Could be industrial heat or district heating or extra power for selling and/or to power a large dedicated breeding facility with additional services there. Those machines will probably have more traditional cooling equipment like cooling ponds, cooling towers, be at rivers or the sea. I think that they will likely co-locate a few of them at the same facility for economic reasons.

I do not know the number of personnel, but I am quite sure that the first power plant will have quite a few members of their staff on site. It will also be close to Helion's headquarters. People will constantly monitor wear, look for problems, make adjustments, etc. It will be a learning and a production machine. I suspect that that number will gradually reduce over time as they gain experience. In the end, there will probably still be security personnel to guard the Tritium and there will be a few technicians to monitor the machine and do quick fixes in case something breaks (prolonged downtimes are bad for business). I assume that they will always seek to cluster more machines together since the most expensive equipment can be shared between multiple machines. Co- location with other types of power plants probably makes sense as well. I would suspect that co-locating with fission power plants is a good idea. In the more distant future, with dedicated breeders, pure D-He3 machines will probably just have a couple of people there since there won't be (much) Tritium on site and they will have sorted out the kinks.

[crowberry]

From David Kirtley's talk at SOFE. darn the capacitor banks are huge compared to the fusion core. From what I understand from what David told me, the banks get smaller with higher pulse rates, but I am not sure how all of this fits together with the Microsoft plant.

HelionSOFE01b.jpg



Some spin- off products for the wider fusion community, I guess.
HelionSOFE02b.jpg

Skipjack, do you know what else David Kirtley presented at SOFE 2023 in addition to the two slides you showed?

[Skipjack]

Skipjack, do you know what else David Kirtley presented at SOFE 2023 in addition to the two slides you showed?

I was not there myself, but from what I understand it was not much new to us other than the new pictures.

[usesbiggerwords]

I have fixed my image issues above. As far as cooling goes, fans are fine as long as a) the cooling required is moderate and b) you don't mind walking around in the space where the fans exhaust to. Obviously, we don't know exactly how hot the machine gets, but consider the case of several machines in parallel, with one operating in fuel breeding mode. That's a lot of heat generating machines to cool with just fans. It'd get pretty balmy.

[charliem]

I'd like fusion to become the world preferred new energy source before the end of this decade but, even if we think that break-even is almost here, I'm afraid that's unrealistic.

Personally, I'm almost sure we'll reach break-even in this decade (scientific, no doubt, and also wall-plug if Helion does not derail unexpectedly).

But predicting that once wall-plug break-even is reached, fusion will displace any other form of energy production, sounds like wishful thinking.

There are a million steps between first production prototype, and widespread deployment. It is going to take decades.

As an example, how long did it take for fission?

• The concept of fission energy dates from the end of the 1930s.
• First experimental reactors in the 1940s.
• First usable reactors in the 1950s (mostly military).
• First commercial deployments in the 1960s.
• Reach of the steep part of the S curve of deployment in the 1970.
• Slam on the brakes at the end of the 1980s.

I expect fusion to go faster, by not by that much. I'd be very very surprised if it covers 50% of the world energy needs by 2050. And even after that, I think there are going to be many situations for which fusion will not be the best solution.

My intuition is that, at least during this century, we are going to keep using the whole range of energy production technologies. Time will tell.