Hope you are right Skipjack, but I'm still unsure. I'm trying not to trick myself into thinking that I know what I don't know.
Thing is, Helion has not been exactly open about their lasts results, and they have hardly given any details of their future designs either. It's their right but that means we are short on hard info, and without that there's no way to make accurate guesses.
Saying that all problems regarding Helion's tech have already been solved, all questions answered is, in my opinion, wishful thinking, at least for us outside the company.
That's why I resort to History (science and tech history is one of my hobbies). It has not predicting power per se, but experience says most times future is not that different from past.
Helion claims they will reach wall-plug break-even in 2024, and have an operational reactor in 2028. Do you know of any
substantially new technology in the past that went from proof of principle to first operational prototype in only four years? I can't think of one right away.
Planes took more than that. Controlled nuclear fission took more than that. Steam engines took more than that. Rockets. Computers. Radio. Electricity. Jet engines. ... Even many technologies evolved of previous ones took more than that. TV, for example, or the industrial production of steel, diesel engines, the Internet, mobile phones, secondary batteries, etc.
Of course, that doesn't prove it is impossible, just that it would be unusual.
One more thing.
Yes, 2.45 MeV neutrons, but a LOT of them (from the numbers I've seen, one or two orders of magnitude higher than in most fission reactors).
Even if activation of materials is not such a tough problem (and that needs more testing), the neutron flux inside the machines used to generate Helium-3 is going to make life tough for the first walls. How tough? Who knows, I certainly don't, and I suspect that not even Helion knows (yet). The state of Trenta's inspection window after decommission does not look promising, and that was after only 10,000 shots. A year have 31.5 MILLION seconds.
If I had to take a guess, I'd say that Helion is probably going to reach their electricity production break-even goal in 2024 of 2025, but from that point to first working production prototype, it is going to take more than 4 years, but what do I now.
![Mr. Green :mrgreen:](./images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif)