5 ms·

Can someone with some knowledge on nuclear energy explain to me how this solution varies from say, General Fusion (http://www.generalfusion.com http://www.gener

by iLoch 12y ago

Can someone with some knowledge on nuclear energy explain to me how this solution varies from say, General Fusion (http://www.generalfusion.com http://www.generalfusion.com)? They're a company more local to me, and while these companies are looking to accomplish the same thing, their approaches are wildly different.

trhway 12y ago
they try to do the same - pulsed inertial confinement. Pulse of some force upon a speck of fuel (or a small plasma cloud of the fuel). Similar to compression stroke in ICE, specifically - diesel. Whoever masters the 250TW (that's "terra", like burning of 1g of gasoline in under 0.1 nanosecond) of power pulse delivery - wins the race. My bet is on Sandia Z-machine though to break even first. DPF (that Helion seems to be a kind of) is the next best contender (and probably more practical/efficient approach for household scale fusion reactors when we will reach that stage) i think.
dkirtley 12y ago
Both GF and us (Helion) are attempting to dramatically shrink the size and cost of fusion reactors. We are doing that by compressing a fusion plasma repeatedly to generate energy, rather than trying to heat and confine it for long periods. The main difference is that Helion uses high field pulsed magnets to compress the plasma, GF uses pistons to generate liquid metal shocks.
- omegant 12y ago
  Are you guys thinking in a crowdfounding campaign, I'll give money to help projects like yours.
  - dkirtley 12y ago
    Not yet, right now we are focused on pushing the technical milestones as fast as possible. This is a great question, what do people here think about a crowdfunding campaign for something like fusion, is it worth it?
    - Cederfjard 12y ago
      What kind of money would make such an attempt worthwhile? I'd imagine we're talking sums well above your average Kickstarter.
    - omegant 12y ago
      Well there've been campaigns out there that have reached above $1 mill. It's difficult but doable, I don't know what kind of money will you need this three years, probably it's not worth the (PR) risk of failing to reach the goal quantity. On the other side it could be a way a good PR move on it's own. I'm sure there is some people at YC that are able to give an autoritative opinion. There it's also the option of getting some scientific teams(universities, institutes) to help in a crowdsourcing way. For no money, just stock and the possibility to help with a world changing project like yours. I know it's possible because I've got some high level volunteers (NASA, European level matematic institute, Airbus ingeneers) in contact with Dirk Ahlborn (Jumpstart) to work on the Hyperloop (they got more than 80 volunteers selected). I don't know if having ingeneering, designers and matematician teams working remotely could be helpful to you at this moment, but it's another way to get people around the world to help, and now that you have YC backing it'll be easier.
    - DennisP 12y ago
      I helped out with the recent Focus Fusion crowdfunding. Our goal was $200K, we raised $180K, but it also brought in some new investors who took us well over the goal, and who gave the crowdfund the credit for their interest. We had a very low budget so our marketing was bare-bones. We had a lot of excitement, but also a lot of skepticism and pushback. Our hired marketing team insisted on an extremely optimistic presentation and that turned a lot of people off. Of course I don't know whether we would have done better with a more measured approach. With LPP being such a small team and so far off the beaten path we faced a lot more skepticism to start with. The Solar Roadways campaign ran on Indiegogo at the same time and raised over $2 million. They managed to make a video go viral. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/focus-fusion-empowertheworld--3 https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/focus-fusion-empowerthewo... https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways

by iLoch 12y ago

trhway 12y ago

they try to do the same - pulsed inertial confinement. Pulse of some force upon a speck of fuel (or a small plasma cloud of the fuel). Similar to compression stroke in ICE, specifically - diesel. Whoever masters the 250TW (that's "terra", like burning of 1g of gasoline in under 0.1 nanosecond) of power pulse delivery - wins the race. My bet is on Sandia Z-machine though to break even first. DPF (that Helion seems to be a kind of) is the next best contender (and probably more practical/efficient approach for household scale fusion reactors when we will reach that stage) i think.

dkirtley 12y ago

Both GF and us (Helion) are attempting to dramatically shrink the size and cost of fusion reactors. We are doing that by compressing a fusion plasma repeatedly to generate energy, rather than trying to heat and confine it for long periods. The main difference is that Helion uses high field pulsed magnets to compress the plasma, GF uses pistons to generate liquid metal shocks.

omegant 12y ago
Are you guys thinking in a crowdfounding campaign, I'll give money to help projects like yours.
- dkirtley 12y ago
  Not yet, right now we are focused on pushing the technical milestones as fast as possible. This is a great question, what do people here think about a crowdfunding campaign for something like fusion, is it worth it?
  - Cederfjard 12y ago
    What kind of money would make such an attempt worthwhile? I'd imagine we're talking sums well above your average Kickstarter.
  - omegant 12y ago
    Well there've been campaigns out there that have reached above $1 mill. It's difficult but doable, I don't know what kind of money will you need this three years, probably it's not worth the (PR) risk of failing to reach the goal quantity. On the other side it could be a way a good PR move on it's own. I'm sure there is some people at YC that are able to give an autoritative opinion. There it's also the option of getting some scientific teams(universities, institutes) to help in a crowdsourcing way. For no money, just stock and the possibility to help with a world changing project like yours. I know it's possible because I've got some high level volunteers (NASA, European level matematic institute, Airbus ingeneers) in contact with Dirk Ahlborn (Jumpstart) to work on the Hyperloop (they got more than 80 volunteers selected). I don't know if having ingeneering, designers and matematician teams working remotely could be helpful to you at this moment, but it's another way to get people around the world to help, and now that you have YC backing it'll be easier.
  - DennisP 12y ago
    I helped out with the recent Focus Fusion crowdfunding. Our goal was $200K, we raised $180K, but it also brought in some new investors who took us well over the goal, and who gave the crowdfund the credit for their interest. We had a very low budget so our marketing was bare-bones. We had a lot of excitement, but also a lot of skepticism and pushback. Our hired marketing team insisted on an extremely optimistic presentation and that turned a lot of people off. Of course I don't know whether we would have done better with a more measured approach. With LPP being such a small team and so far off the beaten path we faced a lot more skepticism to start with. The Solar Roadways campaign ran on Indiegogo at the same time and raised over $2 million. They managed to make a video go viral. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/focus-fusion-empowertheworld--3 https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/focus-fusion-empowerthewo... https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways