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by seren 4326 days ago
Helion seems unreal. I am not ready up to date with fusion research, but as far as I know there was not even a demo or prototype in lab producing energy for a few seconds (or minutes), and they claim to have a product in 6 years. Can someone tell me what I've missed ?
2 comments
adwf 4326 days ago
You're probably not missing anything. By my (limited) reckoning, even if they can get their design to work in theory, I think they're grossly underestimating the materials requirements for the fusion reactor.

From what I recall, one of the big problems that any reactor project has is that the reaction has a tendency to destroy the reaction chamber. Not just the heat, but the neutron radiation can completely screw up the reaction chamber walls, which then need replacing. It's one of the reasons the ITER project is so large, to make it relatively robust in the face of such destructive power. I also remember reading a while back that the force from the electromagnets in the ITER project is sufficient to launch the entire reaction chamber off the ground, something like 5000 tons...

Having said that, I think it's cool that they're attempting it and I think that fusion projects have been grossly underfunded in the past. The reason why it's always 30 years away is because they're always cutting the funding!

I'd love to be proven wrong on this, but I imagine they'll have unexpected escalating costs surrounding the actual building of a working durable reactor and the company will die before it gets off the ground.

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idlewords 4326 days ago
It seems like the kind of high risk thing VC money should be thrown at. It would be cool to see more research into cold fusion, too. The well was poisoned back in the eighties and the field never recovered.
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seren 4325 days ago
This is definitely cool, and "if" something come out of it, it will be huge. I am a bit skeptical they'll have a product in a few years, but it is possible that they can find important pieces of the puzzle, that could later be sold and reused by another company.
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27182818284 4326 days ago
When I was majoring in physics 10 years ago, a prof with expertise in nuclear physics said the only thing stopping us was funding.

Just of late I came across this graph which says something similar: http://i.imgur.com/JyUZDe2.jpg

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