D Tibbets wrote:Skipjack wrote:Meh, D+T burning devices are all going to have big problems being economic. I am confident that Helion will demonstrate scientific break even before JET will.
My perhaps outdated impression is that the FRC efforts pulsed or steady state have been operating at relatively very low temperatures and densities. There is a lot of scaling to go through before temperatures and pressures of current Polywells or even Tokamaks are reached.
Do you know of more up to date claims, data?
Dan Tibbets
The following information is from an article I prepared a while ago, but I am still waiting for David Kirtley to vet it before I will publish it. Unfortunately David has been so busy in his capacity as CEO of Helion that he has not had time yet to do that. So please consider that there is some potential for error due to me misunderstanding David during the interview!
Pulses with plasma life times of up to 5 ms have been demonstrated in Tri Alphas C2 device and similar lifetimes have been shown in IPA, which is more than enough for the pulsed device they have in mind. The exact pulse duration will have to be finely tuned to ensure a maximum amount of Deuterium and Helium fuel fuses, without fusing too much of the Tritium that results from the fusion Deuterium with Deuterium. It is reasonable to assume pulse durations of 3 ms or less, well within previously achieved durations.
The necessary plasma density and magnetic field strengths of up to 20 Tesla has been demonstrated in LPA HF.
Grande [their latest device] has been able to reach plasma temperatures of up to 5 kilo electron Volt (keV). That is the equivalent of 16% of the temperatures needed for a break even reactor with Deuterium and Helium3 fuel.
According to David Kirtley, getting into the kilo electron Volt regime was the hardest part. Now that they have reached 5 keV, they know that they have a feasible design.
Getting all the way to 35 keV will be among the most challenging aspects of their future work, but he is very confident that they can achieve it with a full scale device.