Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

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

Post by RERT »

Hi. I don't endorse this linked article, and indeed I think the Ad Hom attack on Eric Lerner is quite outrageous, if par for the course on the left.

However, I did glance back in early notes here and see aggressive claims from years ago. In that context the article includes a useful wee catalog of them, for all the competitors, not just Helion. Bit of a cold shower. I think they are making amazing progress, but it does seem like believing their schedule would be a triumph of hope over experience.

https://slate.com/technology/2021/12/nu ... ranos.html

Which I suppose makes the Christmas sweepstake: when will they actually demonstrate net electricity?

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

Post by Skipjack »

The slate article is complete and utter nonsense, bordering on slander. So many false claims by an author who is just trying to promote his book. If the article is any indication, the book is not worth the paper it is printed on.
I know that the author never bothered to even try to contact the companies he wrote about (but that seems to be standard practice for "journalism" these days).
Mistakes:

1. Theranos is ONE BIOTECH company that failed. Nothing to do with fusion. Most fusion companies have a history of peer reviewed papers to back up their claims. None of them have IPOs yet and their investors should be quite well informed about the risks and actual state of the research.

2. The claim that there is no hardware is also false. Most of the companies have had at least one, if not several integrated prototypes. Some going back to research at major universities. E.g. Commonwealth Fusion Systems has heritage in Alcator C- Mod. ZAP has had 3 prototypes so far (ZAP, ZAP-HD and FuZE) and they are working on their 4th (FuZE-Q). Helion is currently operating their 6th prototype!

3. The passage about Helion claiming a useful reactor in 3 years in 2015 is also false. The company said back then: We are trying to raise 35 million and it takes 3 years to build a machine that will proof our concept.
They never said that they would have a full scale power plant in 2018. The funding was simply not there. They finally got the funding in 2019 and Trenta, which has been breaking records and has demonstrated all the major aspects of their design has been operational for almost 2 years. Polaris is currently under development and that will take 3 years to demonstrate net electricity output. But oh well...

4. Also, Tokamak Energy never made such a claim either. I have been following them for years. Their timeline originally aimed for Q(sci)>1 in 2025. Covid has played a number on everyone so that one likely slipped a little. But they never said 2021 for energy production.

5. General Fusion also has lacked the funding to build a fully integrated machine.

There is a difference between "we need money and then we can do this" and "we are going to do this", but that subtlety is seemingly completely lost on that guy.

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

Post by RERT »

Thanks SJ

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

Post by Skipjack »

The SOFE presentation video is now up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHirlGXlJ38

These are the 2020 results only. Note that they were still operating at "only" 7.1 Tesla, while they are now at at least 8 Tesla. If you look at the scaling laws, which are holding very well, the B field strength is very important. Also note their extreme(!) ratio of ion to electron temperature which is really important because it reduces the Triple product requirements significantly compared to an equilibrium (Ti=Te) plasma.

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

Post by Skipjack »

So from the picture of Trenta in the video and the fact that their plasmoids are 2 meters in diameter, I estimate (speculate!) that Trenta is 3 meters tall and from that I infer that it is about 16 meters long (give or take a couple). That would make Trenta slightly longer than a standard shipping container.
In their previous video they mention that Polaris will be bigger than that. If their diameter gets any bigger, this could become a problem if they are planning to transport their generators by road. There is a reason why the Falcon 9 rocket is so tall and thin. 3.1 meters (the diameter of F9) is the maximum diameter that allows the thing to be transported by road without much difficulty. Any larger than that and you won't fit through many underpasses and might have to move overhead signs and stop lights, or find much longer routes (if you can find one at all). Other than that, you have to transport it in pieces or per ship (which is often not possible). David does not want to talk to me about this. So I am not sure what their thoughts and plans for that are right now. I assume that for the moment, they are more worried about other things (like make the power balance and fuel cycles close and while keeping a certain power output and achieving a higher repetition rate, which seems to be their greatest worry).

Edit: They might actually keep the radius at around the same 2 meters. So was likely just me overthinking things ;)
Last edited by Skipjack on Sat Dec 18, 2021 4:07 am, edited 2 times in total.

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

Post by Carl White »

Skipjack wrote:
Sat Dec 18, 2021 2:37 am
So from the picture of Trenta in the video and the fact that their plasmoids are 2 meters in diameter, I estimate that Trenta is 3 meters tall and from that I infer that it is about 16 meters long (give or take a couple). That would make Trenta slightly longer than a standard shipping container.
In their previous video they mention that Polaris will be bigger than that. If their diameter gets any bigger, this could become a problem if they are planning to transport their generators by road. There is a reason why the Falcon 9 rocket is so tall and thin. 3.1 meters (the diameter of F9) is the maximum diameter that allows the thing to be transported by road without much difficulty. Any larger than that and you won't fit through many underpasses and might have to move overhead signs and stop lights, or find much longer routes (if you can find one at all). Other than that, you have to transport it in pieces or per ship (which is often not possible). David does not want to talk to me about this. So I am not sure what their thoughts and plans for that are right now. I assume that for the moment, they are more worried about other things (like make the power balance and fuel cycles close, while keeping a certain power output).
How about transport by blimp? :wink: Maybe not as ridiculous as it sounds:

https://newatlas.com/aircraft/h2clipper ... ble-cargo/

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

Post by Skipjack »

Carl White wrote:
Sat Dec 18, 2021 3:07 am
How about transport by blimp? :wink: Maybe not as ridiculous as it sounds:

https://newatlas.com/aircraft/h2clipper ... ble-cargo/
Oh, the cargo blimps... I have been around for over 46 years and I can't count the number of times that airships were supposed to have a comeback.
There was that one company in Germany called "Cargolifter" that I remember quite vividly. They built a giant hangar to build their airships in... then they went bankrupt. It is an amusement park now :(
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CargoLifter

And that is only one of many...

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

Post by Skipjack »

See above edit. Likely they will keep the radius around 2 meters. That is IMHO a good thing.
Also worth noting: Quite a few former SpaceX people are now working at Helion (and I had several of them inquire with me). I think that is an indication of where that company is going...
Actually, I think that Helion won't be the next SpaceX, they will be the next Tesla!

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

Post by mvanwink5 »

Actually, I think that Helion won't be the next SpaceX, they will be the next Tesla!
Whichever one is the highest value. Helion's fusion power generator will power ships, the grid, foundries, off world cities. It is the 95% direct conversion, no need for superconductor magnets, no moving parts that are key.
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:
Sat Dec 18, 2021 4:32 am
Actually, I think that Helion won't be the next SpaceX, they will be the next Tesla!
Whichever one is the highest value. Helion's fusion power generator will power ships, the grid, foundries, off world cities. It is the 95% direct conversion, no need for superconductor magnets, no moving parts that are key.
I agree. I think their biggest advantage is the lack of a steam plant.

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

Post by mvanwink5 »

I still am baffled that the Sx community is hard headed ignorant of the state of commercial fusion progress. For instance, Marcus House, a popular space launch enthusiast just made a comment about fusion being always 20 years away, for reference at the end of this ytube vid he makes that comment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUTau0YrktY
The science community seems to have trouble being aware when something is done outside of Gruberment funded projects. Such is the extreme deficiency of sticking to Corporate owned media.
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:
Sat Dec 18, 2021 8:57 pm
I still am baffled that the Sx community is hard headed ignorant of the state of commercial fusion progress. For instance, Marcus House, a popular space launch enthusiast just made a comment about fusion being always 20 years away, for reference at the end of this ytube vid he makes that comment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUTau0YrktY
The science community seems to have trouble being aware when something is done outside of Gruberment funded projects. Such is the extreme deficiency of sticking to Corporate owned media.
Yeah, it is a shame :(

mvanwink5
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Location: N.C. Mountains

Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by mvanwink5 »

SJ,
I think you might be right, that it will take hardware making electric power to shake the tree of nay saying block heads. Count down to 2024. Worse than waiting for Christmas. Shame we (me) can't invest in Helion. :lol:
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

RERT
Posts: 271
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Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by RERT »

I don't take naturally to pessimism, but I suppose integrity demands skepticism of things I like as well as things that I think are are bat-****-crazy.

Anyway: watching the SOFE presentation gave me a little pause. Did we not hear that the existing divertor will last 10's of thousands of pulses? That's a big number, but 3 hours operation at 1 Hz, never mind 10. And high energy fusion products will challenge it more. In general my sense was of a man cataloging many challenges to be overcome, not outlining a speedy path to success. Probably his style.

Even so, my money is on 2027 not 2024 for net electricity: and not much for not long. Only a 50p bet though...

R.

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

Post by Skipjack »

RERT wrote:
Mon Dec 20, 2021 7:32 pm
I don't take naturally to pessimism, but I suppose integrity demands skepticism of things I like as well as things that I think are are bat-****-crazy.

Anyway: watching the SOFE presentation gave me a little pause. Did we not hear that the existing divertor will last 10's of thousands of pulses? That's a big number, but 3 hours operation at 1 Hz, never mind 10. And high energy fusion products will challenge it more. In general my sense was of a man cataloging many challenges to be overcome, not outlining a speedy path to success. Probably his style.

Even so, my money is on 2027 not 2024 for net electricity: and not much for not long. Only a 50p bet though...

R.
They have since changed the divertor design to a new one with magnetic shielding and different materials, but yes, this is still an area of ongoing research for them.
Generally David seems concerned about things will that will affect their economics. If the machine needs a lot of maintenance, then they wont be able to achieve their cost targets. That said, they are relatively easy to service due to the relatively low radiation and the very simple, linear layout. So that is working in their favor.
Generally increasing the pulse rate seems to be a major challenge in their eyes. It is one thing to have a record breaking pulse once in a while or repeating that 864,000 times a day.
That is why Polaris will operate at only 1 Hz while future power plants will operate at 10 Hz. It is a stepping stone along the way and it will allow them to ramp up the total number of pulses over a much shorter time than Trenta did. That way they can see where the problems are.
The good news is that they have the money (and experience) to tackle the issues. If they meet their Polaris milestones, they will have another 1.7 billion coming. That can buy a lot of expertise and materials.
Generally, I (being the relentless optimist that I am) believe that once even one of the fusion outfits shows something that is convincing to the general public (like Polaris), 3rd party suppliers will run their doors in. I want to bet that there are solutions for many fusion related problems sitting in some company's drawer somewhere, waiting for a market. Heck, even the HTSC manufacturers did not think of fusion as a market until the MIT came knocking on their door.

As for timelines. I personally have a bet running that puts 2027 as the earliest year that Helion will put power on the atual grid (in a demo plant).
Polaris will demonstrate production of small amounts of net electricity sooner than that, but it will not put that on the grid.
The regulatory process alone would take longer.
Helion seems to have a ~3 year tact rate. So 2027 is the earliest I think, with 2030 at the latest (accounting for potential technical delays, regulatory stuff, a potential intermediate prototype, etc).

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