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Small fusion generators. TAE, helion energy and ZAP energy are 3 well founded companies (combined $1B+) aiming at building ~50MW generators based on non-tokama
by joak 4y ago
Small fusion generators.
TAE, helion energy and ZAP energy are 3 well founded companies (combined $1B+) aiming at building ~50MW generators based on non-tokamak fusion.
The generators are small enough to fit on a truck and could easily power the biggest container ships.
- dredmorbius 4y agoIf you've got the ability to build fusion generators, you've got the ability to create carbon-neutral analogues of existing fuels. You've also got that ability without nuclear inputs, from conventional renewables (solar, wind, geothermal). Those fuels can be far cleaner than bunker fuel, and a diesel or kerosene analogue burning in a well-tuned ICE or turbine would have limited negative effects. The marine-propulsion pollutants of most significant concern, aside from (fossil) CO2 are particulate, NOx, and SOx emissions. All are far more prevalent with heavier fuels, and are concentrated largely along shipping lanes far out to sea, other than at ports. These tend to settle out / mitigate reasonably quickly, and I believe their long-term ecological impacts are fairly minimal. The problems with nuclear marine propulsion are many, not the least of which are the 100--200 shipwrecks logged every decade or so, though you can add to that risks of piracy or terrorism involving nuclear propulsion. Keep in mind that present commercial fleets are on the order of eight thousand vessels. We've had experience with only about four hundred nuclear-powered vessels, virtually all military ships, of which about 170 are presently operational. The exceptions are three demonstration commercial vessels, the Otto Hahn, Savannah, and Mutsu, all of which failed to prove feasible, and a handful of Soviet-era icebreakers, now operated by Russia. Fusion itself remains both technically and economically infeasable for any foreseeable future. <https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3c52ll/shipping_and_safety_the_nuclear_option/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3c52ll/shippin...>
- Schroedingersat 4y agoFor some of the pulsed fusion concepts like helion and zap, they're either very close to technical viability or to finding an unknown (at least by outsiders) deal breaker. I'm much more sceptical on the economic viability. If it's past the edge of possibility with known materials now, there's no reason to think your reactor would suddenly last decades because you made a series kf incremental improvements from needing 10x the energy in as out to sorta do it once to 0.95x
- joak 4y agoThere is this misconception that fusion is far in the future. But these startups are aiming at commercial fusion before 2030. For instance, Helion plans for net electricity by 2024, in two years. Maybe the employees and the investors of these companies are fooling themselves and this will never happen. But they could succeed... I am just providing pointers so people could have a look and juge by themselves. I was pretty convinced by Helion and ZAP, less by TAE. Because we are on HN, I can mention that Sam Altman invested $375M of his own money in Helion, so he is indeed a true believer.
- space_fountain 4y agoI think the expectation is that fusion is still a very risky bet. The upside is large (or at least perceived to be large) so a lot of funding has gone into it, but the actual chance of a breakthrough large enough is still small
- taneq 4y agoFusion power was ~50 years away in the 60s, and still ~50 years away in the 90s. If it’s down to ~10 years now, that’s truly remarkable!
- dredmorbius 4y agoMy hypothesis is that the years are getting longer.
- dredmorbius 4y agoGah! The present commercial shipping fleet is eighty thousand vessels, not eight. Lost a 'y' there. About 1/3 of that is devoted to liquid fuel transport (oil tankers), a percentage which is down from the 1970s when it was roughly half the global shipping fleet. The absolute number of tankers has increased AFAIU, but other carriers, particularly container ships, have increased in fleet size faster. There are also bulk solid (coal) and gas / LPG (natural gas) fuel carriers, though both are smaller than the oil fleet AFAIK. And though I focus on shipping, synthetic hydrocarbon analogue fuels would also be useful to aviation. Probably the only way that large-scale long-range commercial flight will remain viable, if it does at all.
- TylerE 4y agoTankers have also gotten smaller, at least at the top end. The big 500k+ Ton (and that’s not a typo, we’re talking about 8 times heavier than the largest battleships ever built) ULCCs like Knock Nevis and Seawise Giant went to the scrapers a decade+ ago.
- dtgriscom 4y ago"are small enough" => "would be small enough"
- pfdietz 4y agoA serious question is the size of the fusion generator. They typically have volumetric power density far lower than a fission reactor or an internal combustion engine. I don't think they will fit in a small truck.
- Schroedingersat 4y agoIs this true of helion (ie. Does the plasma density more than compensate for duty cycle and small reaction volume)? They publish some of their stats, but I wasn't willing to put in the effort to turn it into an actual power density figure.
- pfdietz 4y agoI do not have the data to compute their power density. They are still going to have limits on the power/area of radiation hitting the first wall; the impulsive nature of that radiation will make the problem tougher.
- dredmorbius 4y agoThe suggestion is clearly fantasy.
- lazide 4y agoAimed at building != actually exists or will ever exist.
- goodpoint 4y agoThe day we have fusion generation so small to be run on a cargo ship we also have teleportation.