Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

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Skipjack
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Skipjack »

We’re on to the last stage before full operations of the Polaris Formation Section Phase 2 Test! The components are all together and now it’s time for capacitor install.
FormationSection2.jpg
FormationSection2.jpg (92.54 KiB) Viewed 1909 times
https://twitter.com/dekirtley/status/16 ... 23648?s=20

Skipjack
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Skipjack »

Cool video of construction of the formation- test- section.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5JVa-h_xGCI

charliem
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by charliem »

Hi there.

Have not commented for some time, got a bit bored waiting for breakthroughs in fusion. All the latest news regarding the various startups have renewed my hopes. Also, the Real Engineering video about Helion from three months ago, and the subsequent controversy started by Improbable Matter, are partially responsible too.

Most of IM's objections have already been been addressed by Skipjack in a [at least for me] satisfactory way, but there's still one I'm not sure we can totally dismiss. I'm talking about neutrons.

Helion says they plan to produce their own helium-3. This have some implications worth exploring.

If everything goes as planed with Polaris, next will a be generation plant prototype sized to produce 50 MWe net, or about 3x10^20 MeV/s.

Given that every D-3He fusion generates 3.5+14.1=18.4 MeV (plus smaller amounts in other side reactions), that means they are going to "burn" roughly 7x10^19 3He nuclei per second (minus side reactions, plus losses).

And here comes the problem: to burn that much 3He they will have to produce it first. By average, every two D-D reactions create one 3He nucleus and one neutron. So, to burn 7x10^19 3He/s in one place, they will have to generate, and somehow manage, 7x10^19 n/s somewhere else.

That's a lot of neutrons, even if they only carry 2.45 MeV each, specially given how small the Helion machines seem to be internally.

I've been looking for info about effects of comparable neutron fluxes on structural materials without much success. The few references I found come from fission engineering, but most report neutron fluxes orders of magnitude lower. Any interesting references ?
"The problem is not what we don't know, but what we do know [that] isn't so" (Mark Twain)

charliem
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by charliem »

One more thing.

Any idea how high could Helion go in ion temperature. The last news from TAE and their experiment with p-11B look interesting, they suggest that, maybe, that fuel is not totally hopeless, it might even be possible to reach ignition.

Problem is, at least 200 MeV. That's twenty times what Helion achieved with Trenta, and still 7-10 times what we expect they'll reach with Polaris.

On the other hand, almost zero neutrons. Wouldn't that be nice ;-)
"The problem is not what we don't know, but what we do know [that] isn't so" (Mark Twain)

Skipjack
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Skipjack »

charliem wrote:
Sun Mar 19, 2023 4:42 am
Hi there.

Have not commented for some time, got a bit bored waiting for breakthroughs in fusion. All the latest news regarding the various startups have renewed my hopes. Also, the Real Engineering video about Helion from three months ago, and the subsequent controversy started by Improbable Matter, are partially responsible too.

Most of IM's objections have already been been addressed by Skipjack in a [at least for me] satisfactory way, but there's still one I'm not sure we can totally dismiss. I'm talking about neutrons.

Helion says they plan to produce their own helium-3. This have some implications worth exploring.

If everything goes as planed with Polaris, next will a be generation plant prototype sized to produce 50 MWe net, or about 3x10^20 MeV/s.

Given that every D-3He fusion generates 3.5+14.1=18.4 MeV (plus smaller amounts in other side reactions), that means they are going to "burn" roughly 7x10^19 3He nuclei per second (minus side reactions, plus losses).

And here comes the problem: to burn that much 3He they will have to produce it first. By average, every two D-D reactions create one 3He nucleus and one neutron. So, to burn 7x10^19 3He/s in one place, they will have to generate, and somehow manage, 7x10^19 n/s somewhere else.

That's a lot of neutrons, even if they only carry 2.45 MeV each, specially given how small the Helion machines seem to be internally.

I've been looking for info about effects of comparable neutron fluxes on structural materials without much success. The few references I found come from fission engineering, but most report neutron fluxes orders of magnitude lower. Any interesting references ?
But only half of the two D-D reactions will produce a neutron (and every reaction that produces a neutron produces a He3). So you have 2.45 MeV neutrons in 1/3 of the reactions. And the D-D reactions (both branches) are not a total loss. They still produce charged particles that can be converted into electricity. Though they will be less effective than the D-He3 reactions.

Also note that guys at Helion have a lot of experience with D-D reactions. They are building their plants from materials that are either not affected at all, or from relatively cheap materials that result in very short lived isotopes under neutron bombardment.
Their vacuum chamber is made from fused silica (the most common element in Earths crust). Their magnets are made from aluminum (not as cheap because of the energy needed to make it, but with energy from Helion machines it would be very cheap).

Finally, their machines have a very interesting design, that would beat Tokamaks even with D-T fusion. The energy recovery is one part (would work just as well with D-T fusion for input energy and the Alpha particles). Another part is that the central burn chamber is physically separated from the more expensive parts (injection, formation, divertor, pumps, etc) and because of that, they receive fewer neutrons.
So the parts most affected can be relatively easily switched out in a linear design. Meanwhile Tokamaks have to figure out how to replace magnets in a toroidal design and an environment where all reactions result in a 14 MeV neutrons. The MIT sort of has a solution for that. And mind you, they estimate a lifetime of 4 years for their components. Helion only has 2.45 MeV neutrons to deal with and only in 1/3 reactions. So it would be around 12 years. Even if it was every 4 years, Helion would have the advantage of a linear design that is much easier to service.

And on top of that, the Tritium will eventually beta- decay into more He3. Though I think that Helion would be smart to sell the Tritium, at least until the market is saturated. Way more money in that (at current prices) than in the electricity produced from the He3 as fuel for a power plant.

charliem
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by charliem »

I'm afraid that the fact that only one third of the reactions produce a neutron (or even less, depending on fuel and reaction chamber conditions) is not going to be the deciding factor when it comes to convince the public about safety.

The D-3He reaction is aneutronic, the D-D is not, as we all know.

Taken as a whole, with thermal ions in a 50-50% mix, D-3He produce ~11% of its energy in neutrons at 10 keV, ~3% at 25 keV, and slightly over 1% at 50 keV. So, aneutronic only above 50 keV, or going 3He rich (which would decrease reactivity somewhat), or achieving some special non thermal ion energy distribution.

If we add 3He production to the mix, the neutronicity of D-3He climbs to 9.5%, no matter reaction temp or mix ratio. This will be the situation for decades, since there will not be enough T, nor enough time for it to decay to 3He.

We may think that neutrons are just one more engineering problem to solve, but a high neutron flux have at least two sets of consequences difficult to ignore.

One is capital cost. High neutron flux implies Helion's reactors will have to be designed and constructed to withstand it, so more expensive. It also implies more maintenance, and more frequent. Again, more money.

That one may be overcome just by increasing [just by a bit, I hope] the price of the kWh, what really worries me is the second, the possibility of a PR battle like the one fission energy already lost.

Until now most luddites (and even some tech guys, like IM, or Sabine Hossenfelder) have been content with calling fusion energy a scam, at least in the short term if not forever. My fear is that the moment anyone has a fusion energy production prototype, we are going to see a much harder scrutiny, and murderous attacks.

One of the things proponents of fusion are advancing to the public (including Helion and Dr. Kirtley) is a radical difference from fission when it comes to safety. A point often mentioned is "no [long lived] radioactive waste". When the general public knows that one of these generators produce more neutrons per kWh than a classic fission reactor, how do we think they are going to react to the idea of putting one inside city limits, or even a few miles away ?

If I where in Helion's shoes, I would not even try to push for small dual purpose reactors, I'd separate 3He production from electricity generation from the very beginning. After a few decades of living with the technology without any 3MI/Chernobyl/Fukushima-like incident, maybe people will begin to accept it is really safe.

How many headaches avoided if p-11B were found to be practical. We can always hope.
Last edited by charliem on Thu Mar 23, 2023 5:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
"The problem is not what we don't know, but what we do know [that] isn't so" (Mark Twain)

Munchausen
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Munchausen »

Still, it is true that there will be no long lived waste.

Furthermore, there is no

-Chain reaction

-Residual heat load

-Radioactive inventory that can cause evacuations

Altogether, a very radical difference from fission.

It can plausible be argued that any other form of energy production poses a bigger threat to public health and safety and environment.

A similar energy production realized with wind power would need about 10 GE Haliade X turbines. Just the road maintenance needed to keep that installation running will generate vastly more risk than anything in a fusion reactor.

Yet, I agree there is a battle of communication to be won. But that topic is neither physics nor technology.

Skipjack
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Skipjack »

Yes, having neutrons in only 1/3 of the reaction DOES matter. CFS predicts that their most vulnerable components will have a lifetime of 4 years.
If you have neutrons in only 1/3 of the reactions, then that would be 12 years, which is not a bad timeframe between major maintenance intervals.
And there is more. Because the D-D neutrons are only 2.45 MeV (vs 14 MeV in D-T), they are below the activation energy of many materials.
It is about the same as the energy in fission neutrons, maybe even less, depending on how you look at it.
So that too increases the lifetime of components and makes the machine more economic.

Helion predicts that their machines can be fully decommissioned within 2 weeks after the last pulse has been fired. All components will be below background within less than a year.
The most activated components are Si31 from the inner vessel wall, which has a half life of just 2.6 hours and to a lesser extent Aluminum28, which has a half life of just 2.25 minutes.
The dose directly at the surface of the machine after one hour of operation is 40 millisievert per hour from Al28 decay, but radiation declines so quickly that it would take a day to reach that dose.

Reference:
https://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/webSear ... L22081A057

So, the radioactivity concern is completely misplaced.

The one concern I have for Helion is Tritium. They will have tons of eventually. Right now that is a nice problem to have... But...
While it can be safely stored in metal hydrides, it is not going to be cheap or easy to get approval for a storage site that has tonnes of it. IMHO, the best course of action is for them to sell it. Right now, there is a lot of demand for Tritium and it is very expensive. So they could make more profit from that than from energy production. In fact, they could likely give the electricity for free and still make much more profit if they can just sell the Tritium at current prices.
Eventually market will start to saturate, though. Then they will have to lower prices. Eventually, a good course of action could be to partner with D-T fusion plant operators and sell it to them for cheap (< 200 USD/gram). Would lower tritium breeding requirements and make D-T plant operation more economic.
Or they could make their own D-T fusion design (which Helion's machines could do very well too).
If they make dedicated breeder machines, they should make them Tritium catalyzed D-D machines. Just burn the Tritium right where it is produced.
They would not be as economic for energy production, but they would still produce more energy than a dedicated breeder. Use the D-He3 machines for the real profit. It could also be a combination of all of these approaches. Should still work out, but time will tell. And I don't think Helion will ever stop innovating. Who knows? Eventually, they might be able to use pB11 as well. It is not that big of a jump from D-D-He3 and technology is ever improving.

I do agree that so called "environmentalists" will rally against anything that does not justify them raising Malthus from the grave. They want to destroy modern society and cull the human population. So they will never be satisfied. Heck, they recently protested at a Tesla store in Berlin, while at the same time demanding a switch to BEVs... Can't make this shit up!

As for IM and Sabine. Sabine knows less about fusion than she thinks. She should really stop making videos about it.
IM, well he tried really hard to debunk Helion and failed at every single one of his arguments because he did not understand FRCs and misunderstood quite a few other things. So, he is irrelevant too.

RERT
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by RERT »

So the radiation at the machine surface is about 1% of background after 34 weeks, if I’m right tgat background is 300 mRem/yr, and can do arithmetic.

Except it will be less, because the vessel walls will be effective shields against environmental alpha and beta radiation…???

Carl White
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Carl White »

charliem wrote: My fear is that the moment anyone has a fusion energy production prototype, we are going to see a much harder scrutiny, and murderous attacks.
Skipjack wrote:
Thu Mar 23, 2023 3:00 am
I do agree that so called "environmentalists" will rally against anything that does not justify them raising Malthus from the grave.
This worries me as well. They won't take kindly to having their raison d'etre largely removed from them even in a positive way.

Skipjack
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Skipjack »

Carl White wrote:
Thu Mar 23, 2023 7:28 pm
charliem wrote: My fear is that the moment anyone has a fusion energy production prototype, we are going to see a much harder scrutiny, and murderous attacks.
Skipjack wrote:
Thu Mar 23, 2023 3:00 am
I do agree that so called "environmentalists" will rally against anything that does not justify them raising Malthus from the grave.
This worries me as well. They won't take kindly to having their raison d'etre largely removed from them even in a positive way.
We will see how it goes. Even in Germany, the Green party voters are now the only ones who are majority against nuclear energy. Fusion will have even more acceptance. So, this will only leave environmentalist radicals, who are also losing acceptance in the population.

mvanwink5
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by mvanwink5 »

Just for comparison, 4 years is a normal major overhaul period for fossil. Overhaul minimum is 8 weeks. Helion machines are small machines so they would be easier to cycle off even during peak seasons. I wonder if the machines would be just put in containers & sent back for refurbishment for major overhauls & upgrades under a lease program?
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Skipjack »

mvanwink5 wrote:
Fri Mar 24, 2023 1:09 am
Just for comparison, 4 years is a normal major overhaul period for fossil. Overhaul minimum is 8 weeks. Helion machines are small machines so they would be easier to cycle off even during peak seasons. I wonder if the machines would be just put in containers & sent back for refurbishment for major overhauls & upgrades under a lease program?
To be clear, I am not saying that maintenance will happen only every 12 years. I was merely extrapolating from the neutron damage received by components in a CFS Tokamak. I don't think even Helion knows quite yet how long components will hold during 24/7 operation for years. There might be thermal stresses and other factors coming to play that shorten maintenance intervals.

I am not sure yet what the plan is for maintenance. I guess that once they have mass production down, they will just replace the entire machine (core) and then refurbish it in the factory. Since they can be transported by road similarly to Falcon 9 first stages, this would be quite cheap and easy to do.
Much of the expensive equipment like the capacitors and switches would be unaffected anyway.
And/or, the machines will likely be designed so that the central burn chamber (which gets the brunt of the neutrons) can be switched out quickly. Looking at the construction images of Polaris, that already seems to be the case. IIRC, the simplification of maintenance through the linear design was one of the selling points of their idea in the early days when they were still going for D-T.

charliem
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by charliem »

My gut feeling is that, at last, the time has come for fusion, fusion science is almost touching the steep part of the S curve. If I'm right, NIF achieving Q-science>1 has only been the first step in a race that is going to speed up considerably. In the next few years other initiatives are going to match and surpass that goal.

Helion looks to be well positioned to be the first.

That said, Helion's strategy of aiming for direct conversion is a bet with a potential big pay off, but also with risk. If for any reason they find out that D-3He is harder to tame than expected, they might find themselves in a pickle. Other startup's machines are more fuel agnostic (TAE's, CFS', Zap's, etc.), so their path to electricity production may be longer, but also a bit less risky.

I'm a big fan of hedging my bets. From what I've heard from Dr. Kirtley, my impression is they don't plan to try D-T in Polaris. Given that it is an experimental setup, I don't see why they can't give it just a couple shots, just to prove they can. This would give them a fall-back. You know, just in case. Shouldn't be that hard to rig while they are still in the building fase.

Regarding neutron damage to the reaction chamber, and time between overhauls, I don't think we have yet enough data to make any informed prediction. CFS's ARC and Helion's production reactors are so different in size, fuel, geometry, temperature, materials, etc., that I doubt we can surmise much from the one, that it is applicable to the other.
"The problem is not what we don't know, but what we do know [that] isn't so" (Mark Twain)

Skipjack
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Skipjack »

charliem wrote:
Fri Mar 24, 2023 7:51 pm
My gut feeling is that, at last, the time has come for fusion, fusion science is almost touching the steep part of the S curve. If I'm right, NIF achieving Q-science>1 has only been the first step in a race that is going to speed up considerably. In the next few years other initiatives are going to match and surpass that goal.
Totally agree. Things will accelerate significantly from here.
charliem wrote:
Fri Mar 24, 2023 7:51 pm
That said, Helion's strategy of aiming for direct conversion is a bet with a potential big pay off, but also with risk. If for any reason they find out that D-3He is harder to tame than expected, they might find themselves in a pickle. Other startup's machines are more fuel agnostic (TAE's, CFS', Zap's, etc.), so their path to electricity production may be longer, but also a bit less risky.
Helion was originally planning to do D-T first and their machines are actually quite well suited for that.
Helion could do anything from D-T to D-D-T and of course D-D-He3.
And believe it or not, their design is still able to recover the same amount of input energy from a D-T plasma as they can from a D-D/D-He3 plasma. And they can also recover a smaller part of the fusion energy from D-T fusion as well, through the Alpha- particles. So that is still a fallback option.
Of course a D-T machine would be more complicated over all. It would need breeding blankets, neutron capture, would have to deal with a higher radiation environment, etc. But these are all things their competitors have to solve as well (and some have solved them).
The reason why they went straight to D-He3 was that their investors were more interested in that.

Funny thing, btw. There is no reason why Helion's power plants could not be stood "upright" rather than lying on their side. That opens an interesting design option because then they can use a LiPb waterfall like Zap is doing.
charliem wrote:
Fri Mar 24, 2023 7:51 pm
I'm a big fan of hedging my bets. From what I've heard from Dr. Kirtley, my impression is they don't plan to try D-T in Polaris. Given that it is an experimental setup, I don't see why they can't give it just a couple shots, just to prove they can.
I can't remember where, but David Kirtley said somewhere that they were planning to test Polaris with a variety of fuels. Now this could just refer to Deuterium, Helium3 and ordinary hydrogen. But who knows?
charliem wrote:
Fri Mar 24, 2023 7:51 pm
Regarding neutron damage to the reaction chamber, and time between overhauls, I don't think we have yet enough data to make any informed prediction. CFS's ARC and Helion's production reactors are so different in size, fuel, geometry, temperature, materials, etc., that I doubt we can surmise much from the one, that it is applicable to the other.
AFAIK, Helion has done a lot of research into exactly that direction from the very start. They are very engineering- centric.

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