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Fusion is infinitely harder for this than fission. No company has demonstrated stable fusion with a positive net energy gain. Most of these startups are borderl
by sigmoid10 2y ago
Fusion is infinitely harder for this than fission. No company has demonstrated stable fusion with a positive net energy gain. Most of these startups are borderline scams for milking gullible VCs. Helion in particular has been around for more than a decade and was supposed to reach break even in 2023. They haven't even achieved a fully stable D-D reaction so far. The biggest thing it has achieved is siphoning tons of money from OpenAI's investors because of some questionable actions by Sam Altman.
- Intralexical 2y agoFusion overall is harder than fission. Is the direct energy capture part also harder for glowy fusion gas than scary fission rocks?
- selectodude 2y agoI think the concepts are the same but the execution (heat up water with plasma) is still a work in progress.
- Intralexical 2y agoThat's the "thermal middleman" part they're trying to cut out. By analogy, compare Concentrated Solar Power versus Photovoltaics.
- thayne 2y agoI think in a Deutritium-Tritium fusion reaction a lot the energy is in the neutron. And since neutrons are neutral you can't really directly convert that into electrical energy.
- DennisP 2y agoYep, for D-T 80% of the energy is in neutrons. Helion is using D-D/D-He3, and for that it's about 5% in neutrons, and most of the rest in fast-moving charged particles. So they have a simple way to extract electricity directly. They squeeze the plasma with a magnetic field from a copper coil, then there's an explosion of charged particles, which pushes back against the magnetic field and causes electricity to flow in the coil.
- sigmoid10 2y agoD-D (which they are going for right now) is still 50% neutrons. D-He3 is the only aneutronic reaction, but it has tons of other issues.
- DennisP 2y agoAs I said, the combined reaction generates 5% of its energy as neutron radiation. The reason it's only 5% is that D-He3 is a much more energetic reaction. The main issue with D-He3 is that it's more difficult.
- sigmoid10 2y agoThat's what I said. But all things equal, D-D is definitely not the best path for direct energy production because of the vast amount of neutrons.
- fallingknife 2y agoWhat do you know that all those investors don't that lets you so confidently call this a borderline scam?
- sigmoid10 2y agoI have seen this whole scheme play out more than once by now. Helion is not the first fusion startup. Not by a long shot. It's just one of those who gathered media attention (and even that was not due to their science but to OpenAI's business practices). If you're an investor, you're welcome to hire me as an adviser and I'll tell you exactly where and how they are being delusional or outright dishonest. But most investors get hitched on nice pitch decks and certain keywords or names.
- DennisP 2y agoIt's a pulsed reactor by design, it's not supposed to create a "fully stable" reaction. They're actually pretty much on schedule, once you account for the several years it took them to get the necessary funding.
- sigmoid10 2y agoAll of those experiments say they are "on schedule" for whatever schedule they made up for this year. If you have been following this for as long as I have, you'll know that these statements are worth nothing.
- DennisP 2y agoYou're the one who referenced their earlier published schedule, which said they were "supposed to reach break even in 2023." They had a couple years of delay in funding after making that statement.
- sigmoid10 2y agoAll the more reason not to trust any schedule laid out by them this time.