Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

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

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

Post by crowberry »

mvanwink5 wrote:
Wed Sep 07, 2022 5:54 pm
I will point out once again, Helion is not just making Polaris to prove net electric power from fusion, they are making a fusion electric power generator FACTORY. Who else is so forward looking? Helion is accelerating commercial fusion in a real way. Not just about science, engineering, but generator manufacturing at scale. What more could we ask?
CFS is building a magnet factory on their Devens site. The facility is not only for making SPARC and ARC, but also for the commercial activities succeeding the prototype strong field tokamaks.
https://www.cfs.energy/news-and-media/c ... re-site-in

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

Post by usesbiggerwords »

mvanwink5 wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 9:04 am
Elon Musk at it again (on Twttr) acting as if Fusion will not be practical, then hawking solar & batteries, which he sells coincidentally, as if they are the only practical solution.
This IMO borders on dishonesty. I provided links to Helion, Zap, GF, TAE to start with.
Not that I'm defending him, but he may not permitted by the SEC to say anything that might be construed as damaging to his business, given his role as a fiduciary. He's still wrong, however.

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

Post by mvanwink5 »

Not that I'm defending him, but he may not permitted by the SEC to say anything that might be construed as damaging to his business, given his role as a fiduciary. He's still wrong, however.
I actually believe Musk is fully aware of the real progress of Helion due to his friendship with Peter Thiel who is a venture capital investor in Helion (Thiel's association with Musk goes back to PayPal). Moreover, Musk's solar and battery business is at high risk once commercial fusion news hits, so I see it as being disingenuous to misrepresent fusion progress. I am not found of doing business in this way.
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 »

David Kirtley weighing in on the purpose of the new capacitor production facility. Looks like Polaris timeline will be accelerated by this.
HelionCapacitorKitchen07.JPG
HelionCapacitorKitchen07.JPG (91.14 KiB) Viewed 2009 times

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

Post by mvanwink5 »

David Kirtley weighing in on the purpose of the new capacitor production facility. Looks like Polaris timeline will be accelerated by this.
Brilliant. Helion is amazing.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

usesbiggerwords
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Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:20 pm

Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by usesbiggerwords »

mvanwink5 wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 5:15 pm
I actually believe Musk is fully aware of the real progress of Helion due to his friendship with Peter Thiel who is a venture capital investor in Helion (Thiel's association with Musk goes back to PayPal). Moreover, Musk's solar and battery business is at high risk once commercial fusion news hits, so I see it as being disingenuous to misrepresent fusion progress. I am not found of doing business in this way.
I agree. It would have been better for him to say nothing, but this is Musk we're talking about. I doubt he can keep his trap shut.

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

Post by Skipjack »

Fantastic video with new insights into Helion's current activities. We see some of the build progress of Polaris and some other never before seen shots!
A bit light on the physics and engineering information, but great overall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GJtGpvE1sQ

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

Post by Skipjack »

Oops! Forgot the link to the video, Corrected now LOL.

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

Post by mvanwink5 »

Perfect video with one caveat, the last comment says net electric within a decade, whereas in the video Helion is targeting 2024 with proven technology and a fully funded, in progress program. Further, we have seen Helion's aggressive progress which makes such an optimistic timeline reasonable.
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 »

Turns out the video footage was actually taken 4 months ago.

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

Post by Giorgio »

mvanwink5 wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 5:15 pm
Moreover, Musk's solar and battery business is at high risk once commercial fusion news hits, so I see it as being disingenuous to misrepresent fusion progress. I am not found of doing business in this way.
Even if commercial fusion demonstration was to hit the news tomorrow there are plenty of issues that still need to overcome before it will start to be commercially developed and worldwide adopted. Many will wait until few reactors will be up and running to judge the real return on investment before jumping on the fusion wagon, other will wait for the plant prices to drop or until a second/third generation will come out, other will complain anyhow about its dangers (whatever those will be in their brain) and slow down adoption.
It will take decades before commercial fusion will start to make a dent into our actual electrical production mix. Just look back at the history of electricity production from nuclear fission, I am pretty confident that the road of commercial fusion will be very similar.
A society of dogmas is a dead society.

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

Post by mvanwink5 »

Nothing ever rolls out as fast as one can imagine, however, just the demonstration will change the calculations being made. Would you as a group of investors spend $1 trillion on batteries, solar cells, high voltage lines to see someone put in a system local, no batteries, no high voltage transmission lines, that costs 1/2 per MWH? You would not, or, might not be able to recoup your investment.

Everything changes in 2023 if Zap breaks Q>1 or 2024 Helion has net electric.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

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

Post by jrvz »

I've been studying one of the Helion patents https://patentimages.storage.googleapis ... 1811A1.pdf. and have some questions...
In Fig. 3:
The "80 percent" refers to the fraction of energy, the fraction of reactions, the fraction of He-3, or what?
80 percent and 4 percent don't add up to 100 percent, so where is the other 16 percent?
The He-3 from the first reaction listed is shown re-entering the burn chamber then exiting again. Is this indicating that some of the He-3 is fused to He-4 before it even leaves the chamber?
The D-D reactions are described as "side" reactions, so most of the energy comes from D + He-3? How can enough He-3 be produced for the system to be self-sustaining? Especially since any T must be stored for something like eleven years, to allow it to decay to He-3?
- Jim Van Zandt

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

Post by Skipjack »

jrvz wrote:
Fri Sep 16, 2022 1:11 am
I've been studying one of the Helion patents https://patentimages.storage.googleapis ... 1811A1.pdf. and have some questions...
In Fig. 3:
The "80 percent" refers to the fraction of energy, the fraction of reactions, the fraction of He-3, or what?
80 percent and 4 percent don't add up to 100 percent, so where is the other 16 percent?
The He-3 from the first reaction listed is shown re-entering the burn chamber then exiting again. Is this indicating that some of the He-3 is fused to He-4 before it even leaves the chamber?
The D-D reactions are described as "side" reactions, so most of the energy comes from D + He-3? How can enough He-3 be produced for the system to be self-sustaining? Especially since any T must be stored for something like eleven years, to allow it to decay to He-3?
A couple of things:
1. The patent is pretty old and some things have changed since then.
2. The patent is held fairly broad to allow them some wiggle room with what they are doing.

To my understanding, 80% refers to the energy in charged particles that can be used for direct conversion to electricity.
4% would be neutrons. The rest is likely X-Rays, some thermal losses and other minor losses that can not be recovered easily.

Yes, they breed He3 from D-D reactions. That He3 is then fed back in as fuel. D-He3 is aneutronic and does result is higher energy charged particles (14.7 MeV Protons and 3.67 MeV He4) than the D-D reaction. So that is why they do that.

The last I heard, they are planning to have Two D-D reactions for every D-He3 reaction. One of the D-D reactions results in a He3 and a neutron. The other in a Triton and a proton. The Tritium gained that way will eventually decay into more He3 that they can use as fuel for future power plants or just sell and trade for He3 on the free market (both isotopes have about the same market value, currently anyway).

They could theoretically surround the reactor with a Lithium blanket, which would yield them some extra power at the divertor and extra Tritium for trading (or decaying). I believe that they are currently not planning to do that however.

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

Post by mvanwink5 »

Nearly 400,000 views on the Helion video! Unbelievable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GJtGpvE1sQ
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

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