More Helion Energy news....

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

Nice! Some new information in that one too!

Giorgio
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Giorgio »

Skipjack wrote:
Wed Jul 21, 2021 10:17 pm
The recovery process has of course been tested. It is actually over 95% efficient, but they rounded it down to 95%. That is first hand information.
Part of the reason why it works is because of the extremely high beta of the plasma ~1.
You are correct that repetition rate is very important for overall system efficiency. That is why they are working on increasing the repetition rate to 1 Hz for the next prototype and possibly higher than that later.
That said, they store the energy in capacitors between shots, not batteries. Capacitors are very efficient (near 100% today).
Yes, you told me before that I had to trust you on this and I do.
But you know me, I will still be a little skeptic until I will see the data black on white as devil is in the details.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

mvanwink5
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by mvanwink5 »

As I understand it, the capacitor banks that deliver the power to the acceleration and compression magnets act as regeneration brakes on the plasma rebound. Power out is more than power in so the net power is bled off the capacitors each reaction cycle as direct power with a better than 95% efficiency. Modern power electronics are a wonder.

Helion has turned their pulse method of producing fusion into their method of power extraction. Very nice.

IMO the high net power direct to electric power would make their reactor a perfect candidate for space exploration.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

https://www.king5.com/amp/article/tech/ ... 4cbdb911d8

Just to make sure that this is clear. The author of the above article is wrong. This prototype will NOT (and I got that confirmed), will NOT put energy to the grid. It will however produce Helium3 on a commercial scale and it will demonstrate other technologies necessary for a commercial fusion power generator.
Also, only the building will be completed by 2022. The system itself won't be quite operational yet by then.
Still, pretty big news, as far as I am concerned. Helion are certainly not wasting any time.
The name of the new facility is Polaris, btw.

Here is the press release:
https://www.helionenergy.com/articles/h ... ashington/

Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

The Seattle times has another interesting tidbit about Helion's plans:
Their Fusion generator will only need an engineering Q of 3!
Kirtley said the goal is for the company’s fusion systems to produce three times the amount of energy that has to be put in to operate the machinery.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/r ... 27440847-1

Munchausen
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Location: Nikaloukta

Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Munchausen »

Video from groundbreaking event to be seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=682aJqa7Ioc

Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

Great find!
There are some nice bits of information in here.
New large manufacturing facility for fusion generators and components, named Antares and a nice visualization of Polaris(?) in action. Looks like there will not just be one, but 3 fusion generators! Incredibly hard push forward! I for one can't help but be excited about this!

Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

Took the liberty to find Helion's Antares facility on Google Maps and mark the (estimated) location and scale of Polaris next to it.
Attachments
HelionLocationMarked.jpg
HelionLocationMarked.jpg (175.04 KiB) Viewed 4298 times

Munchausen
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Munchausen »

Here is an article depicting something similar to what Helion is doing:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1 ... nfac189cs6

Observation of self-organized FRC formation in a collisional-merging experiment

"Self-organized field-reversed configuration (FRC)-like formation was observed after the super-sonic/Alfvénic collisional merging of two FRCs in the FAT-CM device at Nihon University. "

"After this dynamic collision, a magnetic configuration of FRC with fast toroidal rotation is self-organized within a few tens of microseconds. This observation indicates robustness of the extremely high-beta, simple magnetic configuration."

Free full text article.

Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

Interesting that they are doing this now. I mean IPA did that in 2008 (or earlier) and I pretty sure there were earlier experiments that did the same.
TAE is also using two colliding FRCs to form a larger and hotter FRC in the center (though I believe they are using less speed than Helion does).
IIRC, John Slough even helped TAE implement this into C2( I believe was the prototype).
I believe Helion is accelerating their FRCs to over 450 km/s (each) before merging.

Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

I have been wondering what Helion will present in the upcoming meetings in November/December. I assume here that they will reveal all the operation parameters of Trenta and more details about the device.
David Kirtley has been really tight lipped about the parameters of Trenta, even to me. So this is pure speculation. What I know is that Trenta achieved 9 keV temperatures.
I also know the parameters of VENTI from the JASON paper and from what I heard they presented even better results at the TOFE meeting in December 2018: 8 * 10^22 i/m3 * 2keV * 0.00004 seconds = 6.4 * 10^18 keV * s/m3.
Now according to David, they presented > 10^19 keV * s/m3 at the 2018 TOFE meeting. Unfortunately that presentation is not public.

Their website says that they have achieved 10 Tesla magnetic fields. VENTI, according to JASON only had 8. Gain scales a B^2.4. So that should mean 1.7 times the density.
Trenta has 3 times the radius of VENTI and about 30 times the volume.
Now for FRCs confinement times scales with radius^2.6. Power output scales as volume * confinement. 3 times r for 18 times the confinement time.
So by my sloppy math, I estimate that Trenta has about 130 times the nTTauE of Venti.
That would put it in the low 10^21 keV*s/m3- range, close but not quite Q(sci).Though there might be some other positive (or negative) effects that I am missing so give it a +/- a factor of 5 or so.
Does that sound plausible?

Giorgio
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Giorgio »

Skipjack wrote:
Sun Aug 22, 2021 3:46 am
Their website says that they have achieved 10 Tesla magnetic fields. VENTI, according to JASON only had 8. Gain scales a B^2.4. So that should mean 1.7 times the density.
Trenta has 3 times the radius of VENTI and about 30 times the volume.
Now for FRCs confinement times scales with radius^2.6. Power output scales as volume * confinement. 3 times r for 18 times the confinement time.
So by my sloppy math, I estimate that Trenta has about 130 times the nTTauE of Venti.
That would put it in the low 10^21 keV*s/m3- range, close but not quite Q(sci).Though there might be some other positive (or negative) effects that I am missing so give it a +/- a factor of 5 or so.
Does that sound plausible?
My biggest concern is that all the various scaling rules might at a certain point smooth out in an asymptote like it happened to other teams.
I understand their concert to protect their research, but unfortunately without enough info is hard (at least to me) to make any meaningful prediction.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

Skipjack
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Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

Giorgio wrote:
Sun Aug 22, 2021 9:37 am
Skipjack wrote:
Sun Aug 22, 2021 3:46 am
Their website says that they have achieved 10 Tesla magnetic fields. VENTI, according to JASON only had 8. Gain scales a B^2.4. So that should mean 1.7 times the density.
Trenta has 3 times the radius of VENTI and about 30 times the volume.
Now for FRCs confinement times scales with radius^2.6. Power output scales as volume * confinement. 3 times r for 18 times the confinement time.
So by my sloppy math, I estimate that Trenta has about 130 times the nTTauE of Venti.
That would put it in the low 10^21 keV*s/m3- range, close but not quite Q(sci).Though there might be some other positive (or negative) effects that I am missing so give it a +/- a factor of 5 or so.
Does that sound plausible?
My biggest concern is that all the various scaling rules might at a certain point smooth out in an asymptote like it happened to other teams.
I understand their concert to protect their research, but unfortunately without enough info is hard (at least to me) to make any meaningful prediction.
I agree. That is why I emphasized that this was pure speculation and extrapolation on my part. Wished they were not quite as tight lipped.
I love Helion. I have known David Kirtley for over 7 years. I also understand why they are so reserved about their work. I mean we all know the "voodoo fusion" article where Helion got severely burned because their predictions -that assumed perfect funding- did not materialize at the time.
So yes, I get why David (who I respect very much, mind you) is extremely reserved nowadays. But darn, just throw us nerds a bone every now and then, will you?! ;)

Giorgio
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Giorgio »

Skipjack wrote:
Sun Aug 22, 2021 10:20 am
But darn, just throw us nerds a bone every now and then, will you?! ;)
The only regret I have for not having chosen a researcher career is that I do not have a nice institutional email that I could use to tease companies like Helion to release some data to a fellow researcher! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

Skipjack
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Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

haha! I wished I had studied physics. But back then fusion was all about JET and ITER and there were no fusion startups on any map...
That and the math in our college had an 80% drop out rate and that scared the *&^%* out of me :)

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