Is this the Nuclear Fusion we are looking for?

[Neven]

E-Cat: The saga continues

[vox_mundi]

Scientists Revisit the Cold Case of Cold Fusion
https://phys.org/news/2019-05-scientists-revisit-cold-case-fusion.html

In a $10 Million dollar 3-year study funded by Google, scientists from the University of British Columbia (UBC), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Maryland, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Google are conducting a multi-year investigation into cold fusion, a type of benign nuclear reaction hypothesized to occur in benchtop apparatus at room temperature.

... "We need a fundamentally new energy technology that can be scaled within the span of a human lifetime," says UBC chemist Curtis Berlinguette, principal investigator on the study. "This program provided us with a safe environment to take the long shot—given the profound impact this could have on society, we should remain open to it even if there is an unknown probability of success."

A progress report published today in Nature publicly discloses the group's collaboration for the first time.

Nature piece sums up the findings of Google’s investigation into cold fusion: there’s “no evidence whatsoever” the phenomenon exists.

For some, cold fusion represented a classic example of pathological science. This term was coined in the 1950s to describe a striking claim that conflicts with previous experience, that is based on effects that are difficult to detect and that is defended against criticism by ad hoc excuses. In this view, cold fusion joins an insalubrious list that includes the N-rays of 1903, the polywater affair of the late 1960s and the memory of water episode of the late 1980s.

Is that the final nail in the cold-fusion coffin? Not quite. The group was unable to attain the material conditions speculated to be most conducive to cold fusion. Indeed, it seems extremely difficult to do so using current experimental set-ups — although the team hasn’t excluded such a possibility. So the fusion trail, although cooling, is not yet cold, leaving a few straws for optimists to clutch on to.

--------------------------------

Google Revives Controversial Cold-Fusion Experiments
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01675-9
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01683-9
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1256-6
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01673-x
http://news.mit.edu/2019/3q-yet-ming-chiang-reopening-the-case-of-cold-fusion-0527

Google’s team was made up of 30 researchers who had no strong opinions on cold fusion. All had access to each other’s data and apparatus, and could review each other’s work.

The researchers pursued the three experimental strands that they deemed sufficiently credible. In one, they tried to load palladium with amounts of deuterium hypothesized to be necessary to trigger fusion. But at high concentrations the team was unable to create stable samples.

A second strand followed up on 1990s work by US physicists who claimed to have generated anomalous levels of tritium — another heavy hydrogen isotope, created only through nuclear reactions — by bombarding palladium with pulses of hot deuterium ions. Google’s analysis of nuclear signatures showed no tritium production from this experiment.


Pulsed plasma apparatus.

A final strand involved heating up metallic powders in a hydrogen-rich environment. Some current proponents of cold fusion claim that the process produces excess and unexplained heat, which they theorize is the result of fusing elements. But across 420 tests, the Google-funded team found no such heat excess.


Detecting excess heat at high temperatures.

But the researchers say that both palladium experiments warrant further study. The hypothesized effects in the tritium experiment could be too small to measure with current equipment, they suggest. The team also says that further work could produce stable samples at extremely high deuterium concentrations, where interesting effects might occur.

... This project was carried out in stealth. We didn’t want the fact that Google was funding research in this area to become a distraction. For the first couple of years, we didn’t even tell other members of our group the real reason behind the hydrogen storage experiments going on in the lab!

Our objective was to be scrupulously objective, and I think we have managed to avoid any form of “confirmation bias.”

[Sigmetnow]

Google’s team was made up of 30 researchers who had no strong opinions on cold fusion. All had access to each other’s data and apparatus, and could review each other’s work.

This was the very best part of the project.

[vox_mundi]

Skunk Works' Exotic Fusion Reactor Program Moves Forward With Larger, More Powerful Design
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29074/skunk-works-exotic-fusion-reactor-program-moves-forward-with-larger-more-powerful-design

Aviation Week was first to report the updates on the Compact Fusion Reactor, or CFR program, including that Lockheed Martin is in the process of constructing its newest experimental reactor, known as the T5, on July 19, 2019. The company's legendary California-based Skunk Works advanced projects office is in charge of the effort and had already built four different test reactor designs, as well as a number of subvariants, since the program first became public knowledge in 2014.

The CFR program is built around new patented reactor design, which The War Zone has explored in detail in the past, that uses superconducting coils to more effectively generate a magnetic field to contain the heat and pressure of the reaction. Lockheed Martin's hope is that this will overcome challenges that have relegated nuclear fusion power generation to the realm of experimentation since the first concepts emerged in the 1920s.



Lockheed Martin says that the CFR design could eventually be small enough to fit inside a shipping container, but still be able to power a Nimitz class aircraft carrier or up to 80,000 homes. The patent documents suggest it might eventually be compact enough to even power a large aircraft.

The U.S. military, in particular, is becoming so concerned about meeting future battlefield power generation needs that it is once again considering building small, mobile fission reactors to provide that energy. A practical CFR would offer a much safer and efficient alternative.



When it first announced the project, the company said it could have a working prototype of the revolutionary power source as early as 2019

[johnm33]

This may be of interest https://aureon.ca/
"The model offers a key premise and makes a number of predictions. Using this premise the SAFIRE team designed and built a proof-of-concept bell-jar reactor and then a larger 44,000 part reactor. Both reactors were fired up and running as predicted within minutes of construction completion.

Many experiments were run. The model was thoroughly tested and revealed itself to be both viable and powerful. Everything predicted proved accurate. Even the numerous unexpected discoveries fit the model."

[kassy]

And you can use it to clean up nuclear waste. Looks like an interesting project.

[Iain]

Breaking news: Commercial Fusion Reactor 10 years away.

More efficient magnets, operating at a balmy -253C are a step forward:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56843149

[Sciguy]

Breaking news: Commercial Fusion Reactor 10 years away.

More efficient magnets, operating at a balmy -253C are a step forward:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56843149

A little optimistic on the timeline.  They hope to have a pilot plant running "in the early 2030s".  If tests in the next few years show that the new magnets work.   I suspect it would take several years to go from a pilot plant to a commercially viable technology that could begin to be deployed.

In other words, we're still at least two decades away from commercial fusion power.  As we have always been.

[NeilT]

Agree.  In my experience lab to volume production takes at least a decade for simpler implementations.  For extremely complicated implementations it can take multiple decades.

So if they prove the lab results in small scale in a decade, it will take another decade to get to full scale capacity.

[interstitial]

Breaking news: Commercial Fusion Reactor 10 years away.

More efficient magnets, operating at a balmy -253C are a step forward:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56843149

The long running joke.
1980 headline fusion a decade away
1990 headline fusion a decade away
2000 headline fusion a decade away
2010 headline fusion a decade away
2020 headline fusion a decade away

IDK maybe it finally is but the claim has been repeated for so long that it is hard to take it seriously.

[KiwiGriff]

Re: Is this the Nuclear Fusion we are looking for?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines

[Iain]

Yes - the "10 years away" was tongue in cheek, it's been ten years away for decades.

However if it does at least work - produce a net positive useful amount of energy - development could be rapid.

It's a crisis, we need nimble fighter aircraft, we'll build a whopping great Spitfire factory here.
No objections?Good.

[Sigmetnow]

Re: Is this the Nuclear Fusion we are looking for?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines

I’m trying to remember why I chose the title for this thread back in 2013.  It may have been a combination of: so many articles around that time touting nuclear fusion breakthroughs; a play on Obi-Wan’s line from the first Star Wars movie; and that the answer was probably “No.”

[Sciguy]

Yes - the "10 years away" was tongue in cheek, it's been ten years away for decades.

However if it does at least work - produce a net positive useful amount of energy - development could be rapid.

It's a crisis, we need nimble fighter aircraft, we'll build a whopping great Spitfire factory here.
No objections?Good.

It would also have to be less expensive than the alternatives.  Given how cheap wind and solar are right now, I don't ever expect to see a commercially viable fusion plant.

[NeilT]

It would also have to be less expensive than the alternatives.  Given how cheap wind and solar are right now, I don't ever expect to see a commercially viable fusion plant.

Not really, stable, always on and likely to become cheaper over time would be enough to do it.  If, for instance, the plant has a 50 year lifespan with a fully depreciated build cost over 2 decades, it could become very popular.

Also if operations were close to 24x7 for that 50 years, it could easily disrupt wind and solar or push them to the variable energy market.

A good solid core of fusion plants could push renewables fully to the stored energy market where they are very well suited.

After all UK geothermal is being touted as a viable solution with a strike price of £145 per MW/h

[morganism]

a good overview of Helion Energy's process, and probs. They still seem to be way ahead of any other small generator project...

"
Helion's and TAE's reactors have some things in common but they are quite different. Both merge two FRC plasmoids into a single FRC in a central chamber.
The differences are:
1. Helion accelerates their plasmoids to higher speeds.
2. TAE keeps their merged plasmoids in a semi- stable steady state after merging. Helion compresses them when they merge in the central chamber with a very strong magnetic pulse.
3. TAE keeps replenishing their merged FRC with neutral beam injection. Helion lets them dissipate after the extreme compression (pulsed).
As far as I am aware, both have roughly have the same energy confinement time but have different plasma lifetimes, pressures and temperatures.

There are benefits and disadvantages to both. One could imagine TAEs design as a pot without a lid that is slowly boiling on the stove.
TAE has to constantly add heat to keep it boiling and eventually replenish the water.
Helion's pot is more like a pressure cooker that boils really quickly (until it blows steam). Then they put a new pot with cold water on the stove and start over again.
I am not aware of Helion observing higher plasma stability at higher temperatures. The thing is that Helion does not really need long plasma lifetimes, due to the pulsed nature of their reactor design. Helion's challenge is to have strong enough magnetic fields to quickly compress and heat the plasma. TAE's challenge is to keep their plasma alive and hot for long enough.

So far it looks to me like Helion's reactor core will be MUCH smaller than TAE's. The former will be around the length of an oversized shipping container, including direct conversion technology. TAE's PB11 machine is going to be 80 meters in length. So Helion can build their reactors off site and ship them in one piece, maybe even with enclosure, shielding, etc. TAE will have to assemble their reactor core on site and they will need some fairly large buildings too. That drives up overnight costs. I mean look at size of that thing on page 65 here: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2109/ML21090A288.pdf

Helion also has a more efficient (~95%) energy recovery and conversion scheme due to the pulsed nature of their reactor. They can vary energy output and load follow by varying pulse frequency. They should even be able to replace gas peaker plants, which would allow them to charge a lot more for the same amount of power produced (up to 200 USD/MWh).
To the best of my understanding, TAE can not do any of that. Their direct conversion (if they manage to develop it), will be interesting and they currently estimate it to be only about 30% efficient. That also means that they have more waste heat to deal which requires more cooling equipment. Helion's reactor core essentially produces the same amount of waste heat as a diesel train engine. So it is quite simple to cool that on a small footprint.
On the other hand TAE's reactor is going to produce about 350 MWe/core while Helion's will only produce 50MWe. So multiple Helion cores would be needed to produce the same amount of energy. The waste heat can also be used for things like industrial and residential heating, so it is not completely wasted.

As for neutrons:
Helion's reactor only releases 5% of it's energy as neutrons. That is quasi- aneutronic. And mind you, those neutrons can be used to do some work as well (breed Tritium for more He3 and make a few extra MeV at the breeding blanket).
Also note that while PB11 is much more aneutronic than D-D-He3, they still produce some via some side reactions. Plus they have a lot of X- Rays to deal with due to the much higher temperatures involved with PB11.

Personally, I think that the market is big enough for multiple reactor designs and we will see several of the fusion companies succeed in different niches of the market. There are a lot of different fission reactor designs out there. So why would fusion be any different?"

https://talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1669&start=285

https://twitter.com/Helion_Energy/statu ... 0777482250

https://www.helionenergy.com/wordpress/uploads/2021/06/fusion-scientific-breakthroughts-helion-62221-converted.pdf

[morganism]

Sam Altman


Helion

"I’m delighted to be investing more in Helion. Helion is by far the most promising approach to fusion I’ve seen.

David and Chris are two of the most impressive founders and builders (in the sense of building fusion machines, in addition to building companies!) I have ever met, and they have done something remarkable. When I first invested in them back in 2014, I was struck by the thoughtfulness of their plans about the scientific approach, the system design, cost optimizations, and the fuel cycle.

And now, with a tiny fraction of the money spent on other fusion efforts but the culture of a startup, they and their team have built a generator that produces electricity. Helion has a clear path to net electricity by 2024, and has a long-term goal of delivering electricity for 1 cent per kilowatt-hour. (!)

If this all works as we hope, we may have a path out of the climate crisis. Even though there are a lot of emissions that don’t come from electrical generation, we’d be able to use abundant energy to capture carbon and other greenhouses gases.

And if we have much cheaper energy than ever before, we can do things that are difficult to imagine today. The cost of energy is one of the fundamental inputs in the costs of so much else; dramatically cheaper energy will lead to dramatically better quality of life for many people."

https://blog.samaltman.com/helion

[morganism]

The chase for fusion energy
An emerging industry of nuclear-fusion firms promises to have commercial reactors ready in the next decade.


Long derided as a prospect that is forever 30 years away, nuclear fusion seems finally to be approaching commercial viability. There are now more than 30 private fusion firms globally, according to an October survey by the Fusion Industry Association (FIA) in Washington DC, which represents companies in the sector; the 18 firms that have declared their funding say they have attracted more than US$2.4 billion in total, almost entirely from private investments (see ‘Fusion funding’). Key to these efforts are advances in materials research and computing that are enabling technologies other than the standard designs that national and international agencies have pursued for so long.

The vaccines showed “what you can do if you have the resources”, says Windridge. “If we had that kind of commitment in energy, I think it would be incredible to see what can be achieved.” As with the vaccines, too, society desperately needs more clean, carbon-free sources of energy. “This is an existential challenge,” says Mowry. “Fusion is the vaccine for climate change.”

https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-021-03401-w/index.html

[NeilT]

Some very interesting stuff in there.  Including how the GF reactor creates Tritium for fuel.  Given that, by weight, Tritium is the most expensive material on the planet.

[vox_mundi]

Chinese Tokamak Facility Achieves 120-Million-Degree C for 1,056 Seconds
https://interestingengineering.com/chinas-artificial-sun-has-just-hit-a-new-nuclear-fusion-milestone

Researchers working at China's tokamak facility have announced that the team was able to hold 120 million°C plasma for 1,056 seconds (17.6 minutes). In their announcement to the press, they noted that their achievement was a new record for holding superheated plasma.

... The particular tokamak reactor is called EAST, which stands for Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak. It is located in Hefei, China, and it also broke a record in May when it ran for 101 seconds at a temperature of 216 million°F (120 million°C).

[morganism]

Shipping Container Sized Commercial Nuclear Fusion is Fully Funded and May Arrive 2027

What are Helion’s technical achievements?
In 2020, they completed their 6th prototype, Trenta. Trenta runs nearly every day doing fusion. It has completed almost 10,000 high-power pulses and operated under vacuum for 16 months. With Trenta, Helion became the first private organization to reach plasma temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius (9 keV). Trenta is still operating today.

Additionally, they have demonstrated that our magnets run at 95% energy efficiency, exhibited compression fields greater than 10 Tesla, and sustained plasmas with lifetimes greater than 1 ms.

What will Polaris do?
Helion’s 7th fusion prototype, Polaris, will demonstrate net electricity from fusion, and will also demonstrate helium-3 production through deuterium-deuterium fusion.

Its construction will allow them to scale up the technical advancements they have achieved in their first 6 prototypes to commercial scale. Additionally, they will increase the repetition rate of fusion pulses. In Trenta, they ran fusion pulses once every ten minutes. Polaris will pulse once a second (1 Hz)."

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/01/174306.html

Helion secures $2.2B to commercialize fusion energy  (11/21)

The low cost and high power availability mean that the company could start powering whole data centers as the default power source: “We are excited about being at the 50-megawatt scale, and being able to get electricity costs down to a cent per kilowatt-hour. You can completely change how data centers work, and you can really start answering climate change. Our focus is making low-cost and carbon-free electricity.”

Due to physical limitations with the way the power is generated, the current generation of the company’s tech wouldn’t be able to replace your Tesla Powerwall and solar panels — the size of a generator is roughly the size of a shipping container. But at 50 megawatts, the generators could power around 40,000 homes, and with that amount of power, the technology could open some really interesting opportunities for distributed power grids.

One interesting innovation in Helion’s power generation solution is that it doesn’t use water and steam as intermediary steps in the power generation.

“At the beginning of my career, I kept looking at the way we were doing fusion and said hey, you have this beautiful energy that is all electric, including the plasma. And then what do you do? You boil water, you use an old, low-efficiency, capital-intensive process,” explains Kirtley. Instead of going via water, the company decided to skip a step and use inductive energy instead. “Can you bypass that whole era? Could we do the equivalent of bypassing the gasoline engine and go right to electric cars right from the beginning? And so that’s been what we’ve been focusing on.”

The company is aiming to be able to generate more electricity than what it takes to run the fusion reactor by 2024, and the CEO points out that the goal at this point is to generate electricity at a commercial scale.

“Our 2024 date is not a key demonstration of the science at this point. The goal is to go after commercially installed power generation. There’s a huge market, and we want to be able to get this out in the world as soon as possible,” concludes Kirtley.

“By focusing on getting to electricity as soon as possible, we should be able to count on fusion as part of the natural conversation we’re having about climate change and about carbon free electricity generation. We’re really excited we’ve secured this funding, and the amount we raised should be able to get us all the way there.”

https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/05/helion-series-e/

[Tor Bejnar]

This is good news, indeed, Morganism, even if they end up seven years late of their "go commercial" goal (as the article admits to their being seven years late for a previous goal).  2031 is only 9 years away - not the proverbial "We'll have it in 20"!

[morganism]

The exceptionally cool thing, i think, is the 95% thermoelectric conversion rate. And no radioactive byproducts or radiation produced.

By bypassing the steam turbine stages, this is robust enough to use as ship power. Even space tugs for mining ops.

[morganism]

 NuScale Power Signs Collaboration Agreement with the U.S. Reactor Forging Consortium
04/22/2022

This remarkable collaboration will strengthen supply chain capabilities as NuScale Power approaches commercialization

Grant secured through Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for work with Concurrent Technologies and North American Forgemasters

 Today, NuScale Power and the U.S. Reactor Forging Consortium (RFC), comprised of North American Forgemasters (NAF), Scot Forge, and ATI Forged Products, announced they have signed a Collaboration Agreement to leverage the existing robust forging supply chain in the U.S., to prepare NuScale to deploy its small modular reactor (SMR) technology to customers worldwide and to support, retain, and expand U.S. manufacturing jobs.

The RFC is the combination of highly qualified expert suppliers of nuclear-grade forgings for the worldwide nuclear industry. The combined three companies act as the only fully integrated manufacturer of large alloy and stainless steel open die, seamless rolled ring, and large uniquely-shaped forgings (heads with integral nozzles) in the Western Hemisphere with as-forged piece weights exceeding 160 tons.

Under the Collaboration Agreement, the RFC and NuScale will cooperate in design for manufacturability reviews for forged geometries to reduce welding, chemical composition tailoring and optimized configuration for fabrication. The collaboration will support the U.S. supply chain planning as NuScale approaches near term commercialization of the NuScale Power Modules

https://newsroom.nuscalepower.com/press-releases/news-details/2022/NuScale-Power-Signs-Collaboration-Agreement-with-the-U.S.-Reactor-Forging-Consortium/default.aspx

[NeilT]

Meanwhile Switzerland has been bounced out of ITER because it pulled out of bilateral negotiations with the EU.

https://menafn.com/1104143154/EU-Swiss-Political-Deadlock-Throws-Shadow-Over-Nuclear-Fusion-Research&source=24

Hardly the progress we want, but most nations and groups of nations put their own political aspirations before climate change.

An interesting part of that article is that Russia is a key provider of resources and equipment for ITER and Ukraine is also a research and delivery partner.

Two steps forward, three steps back.

[morganism]

Helion Energy: New Everett company has the sun in its eyes

Next door, a 30,000-square-foot concrete building is nearing completion. It will house Helion’s newest fusion generator, a seventh-generation prototype, called Polaris.

Helion hopes that Polaris, will generate more energy than it takes in by 2024.

When that target is reached, the company plans a manufacturing facility that can produce 20 fusion generators a day, Kirtley said. To achieve that, “we’ll need to hire well over 1,ooo people,” Kirtley said.

So far, Helion has raised $500 million, bringing total investments to $577 million. Another $1.7 billion is available from investors should Helion reach key milestones.

The Pacific Northwest might be the perfect setting to achieve all this, Kirtley said.

There are not many places in the world that can claim a confluence of talent and advanced industry, Kirtley said.

“We are excited to move our headquarters and the bulk of our operations to Everett because of the area’s innovative culture and commitment to science, technology, engineering and math fields,” said Jessie Barton, who nominated the company for the award. Barton is the company’s communications lead.

Snohomish County has rolled out the welcome mat, Kirtley said.

“We’re honored to have this award because we’ve had such a positive response from Everett and Snohomish County,” Kirtley said.

Helion is working with the Snohomish County Public Utility District and other groups to introduce the technology.

It also has partnered with the Advanced Manufacturing and Training Center at Everett Community College, Barton wrote.

More community engagement is planned, Kirtley said. Helion plans to offer virtual tours and establish internship opportunities.

“A lot of what we want to do is not just hire people that are already trained but work with local universities, local student groups, high schools,” Kirtley said. “Our scientists and engineers have been visiting the schools. That’s been a very exciting interaction.”

A presentation at a local high school generated 184 questions. “It was absolutely astounding,” Kirtley said.

https://www.heraldnet.com/business/helion-energy-new-everett-company-has-the-sun-in-its-eyes/?%3Futm_medium=social&utm_source=Facebook_HeraldNet_organic

"Once they demonstrate net electricity (the article confuses that and says "net energy", because well... journalists), they plan to hire more than 1000 people and produce 20 fusion generators a day. That would be roughly 365 GW a year. That means they could produce enough fusion generators to serve the entire US grid in a little over 3 years! Replace the electricity production of the entire world in 7.5 years!
I think it is ambitious, but even half of that would change the world in unforeseen ways."

https://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6499&p=133912&hilit=helion#p133912


(we should start working on a new grid now, even if just burying tunnels for later high temp superconductors.)

[morganism]

Helion up and running at new location.

they have optimized the pulse firing driver to increase pulse rates driving plasmas.

"Our electrical engineering team has successfully tested our new continuously operating pulsed semiconductor switch technology for the Polaris program. Tested to 52% higher switched energy than required!"

https://twitter.com/Helion_Energy

https://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6499&hilit=helion&sid=922541d61a3af083baa2b77bb1621f66&start=165

[kassy]

Scientists Achieved Self-Sustaining Nuclear Fusion… But Now They Can't Replicate It

...

To make nuclear fusion a viable energy source for humans, scientists first have to achieve something called 'ignition', where the self-heating mechanisms overpower all the energy loss.

Once ignition is achieved, the fusion reaction powers itself.

In 1955, physicist John Lawson created the set of criteria, now known as the 'Lawson-like ignition criteria', to help recognize when this ignition took place.

Ignition of nuclear reactions usually happens inside extremely intense environments, such as supernova, or nuclear weapons.

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility in California have spent over a decade perfecting their technique and have now confirmed that the landmark experiment conducted on 8 August 2021 did, in fact, produce the first-ever successful ignition of a nuclear fusion reaction.

In a recent analysis, the 2021 experiment was judged against nine different versions of Lawson's criterion.

"This is the first time we have crossed Lawson's criterion in the lab," nuclear physicist Annie Kritcher at the National Ignition Facility told New Scientist.

To achieve this effect, the team placed a capsule of tritium and deuterium fuel in the center of a gold-lined depleted uranium chamber and fired 192 high-energy lasers at it to create a bath of intense x-rays.

The intense environment generated by the inwardly directed shock waves created a self-sustaining fusion reaction.

Under these conditions, hydrogen atoms underwent fusion, releasing 1.3 megajoules of energy for 100 trillionths of a second, which is 10 quadrillion watts of power.

Over the past year, the researchers tried to replicate the result in four similar experiments, but only managed to produce half of the energy yield produced in the record-breaking initial experiment.

Ignition is highly sensitive to small changes that are barely perceptible, like the differences in the structure of each capsule and the intensity of the lasers, Kritcher explains.

"If you start from a microscopically worse starting point, it's reflected in a much larger difference in the final energy yield," says plasma physicist Jeremy Chittenden at Imperial College London. "The 8 August experiment was the best-case scenario."

...

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-achieved-self-sustaining-nuclear-fusion-but-now-they-cant-replicate-it

[morganism]

Helion Energy is giving a presentation here at APS


Session BO03: Stellarators and Helical Systems: W7-X, LHD, HSX, CTH, and Others

9:30 AM–12:30 PM, Monday, October 17, 2022
Room: Ballroom 100 C

Abstract: BO03.00010 : Fundamental Scaling of Adiabatic Compression of Field Reversed Configuration Thermonuclear Fusion Plasmas

Helion’s Trenta prototype compressed Field Reversed Configuration (FRC) plasmas to thermonuclear fusion conditions, reaching 9 keV plasma temperatures [1].  FRC plasmas are fundamentally high-beta and if heated through pulsed, adiabatic compression, they operate in a unique collisionality regime that supports both thermonuclear fusion conditions as well as maintains an ion to electron temperature ratio.

In the presented work, a theoretical analysis of FRC compression to generator-relevant fusion conditions is derived from fundamental scaling laws. This work includes independent ion and electron heating [2], radiation losses [3], empirical particle transport scaling [4], fusion reaction rates, ion temperature distribution evolution, and D, T, and He-3 fuels.

As will be shown, for all operating conditions above 20 keV, a high-beta D-He-3 FRC outperforms a low-Beta D-T plasma in terms of electrical and fusion power output"

https://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DPP22/Session/BO03.10


https://www.helionenergy.com/articles/helion-supports-congressional-call-for-fusion-energy-regulation/


Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by mvanwink5 » Wed Aug 31, 2022 5:23 pm
Direct conversion of plasma energy to electric energy is far more important than 'efficiency' (fuel cost for fusion, machine size). IMO the big issue is handling heat rejection and direct energy conversion, taking heat rejection from perhaps 60% rejected heat down to 5% for a direct conversion machine is a game changer in that it effects machine location (away from rivers, lakes, coast), eliminates cooling towers and their maintenance, etc."

https://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6499&hilit=helion&sid=2fe307aaf5967d1380b2509a10f10867&start=195

[sidd]

Re: reaching 9 keV plasma temperatures

lil low, aint it ?

sidd

[morganism]

What it feels like to visit a fusion company lab on a day when wildfire smoke cloaks the horizon
Published Fri, Nov 4 2022

KEY POINTS

    Visiting Helion Energy's enormous workspace and lab in Everett, Wash., pulled the idea of fusion out of the completely fantastical and into the potentially real for me.
    I happened to visit on a day when the air quality was so bad from nearby wildfires that Helion asked its employees to stay home for their health and safety.
    It was a weird juxtaposition of hope and dread. "The cognitive dissonance of sometimes what we see out in the world, and what we get to build here is pretty extreme," said CEO and co-founder David Kirtley."

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/11/04/visiting-helion-energy-when-the-seattle-region-was-cloaked-in-smoke.html

Pulling the quartz tube out of our plasma formation test was no easy feat, but our production and engineering teams got it done. Now installing more electromagnetic coils to start forming thousands of FRC plasmas.

https://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6499&hilit=helion&start=255

Helion views on Utube just hit 1.5 mil.

[Sigmetnow]

Here we go again….
 
US Says Scientists Make Breakthrough in Nuclear Fusion Energy
Laboratory in California records reaction with net-energy gain Milestone still just a small step in clean power development
December 12, 2022, 10:02 AM EST

Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory near San Francisco were able produce a fusion reaction that generated more energy than it consumed, according to a person familiar with the research who requested anonymity to discuss results that have not yet been fully disclosed in public.

Fusion is the same process that powers stars and the achievement is a major milestone that shows it may eventually be possible to tame the energy of the sun to create a commercial power plant on Earth. Though that is still many years away, the technology offers the promise of abundant carbon-free electricity.

In the experiment, lasers were used to bombard hydrogen isotopes held in a superheated plasma state in order to fuse them into helium, releasing a neutron and carbon-free energy in the process.

The breakthrough “could be a game changer for the world,” said Representative Ted Lieu, a California Democrat.

Scientists have been experimenting with the technology for decades, but tests typically require enormous amounts of power. Generating a fusion reaction that puts out more energy than it consumes — technically called a net-energy gain — has been elusive.  …

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-12/nuclear-fusion-energy-breakthrough-made-by-scientists-in-us

[vox_mundi]

The experiment, heralded in the Department of Energy’s own release as history-making and announced Tuesday by Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, converted 2.05 megajoules of laser energy into 3.15 megajoules of energy from fusion, all produced and recorded and spent in less than a blink of an eye.

It is, at once, a meaningful scientific achievement, and one whose entire reason for being rests inside the long-term work of sustaining an arsenal of oblivion.

... “Our thermonuclear weapons have fusion ignition that takes place in our weapons, so studying fusion ignition is something we do to support the stockpile stewardship program”

- Mark Herrmann, Lawrence Livermore’s program director for weapon physics and design, - Dec. 13

“In addition, fusion ignition creates these very extreme environments that we have no other way to access on Earth. In this experiment, for the first time ever, we were able to put some samples of materials that are important for future stockpile modernization efforts that are going on at Lawrence Livermore today in very close to this intense neutron burst and then see how did they respond to that intense neutron burst.”

The stockpile stewardship in question refers to the continued existence of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, the second-largest in the world.

“We’re using the output from these really cool science experiments to actually test materials for stewardship applications,” said Herrmann, in a phrase that seemed exactly backwards. The great discovery of the day was scientific, but the facility exists for weapons science first, civil energy second at best.

“Fusion is an essential process in modern nuclear weapons, and fusion also has the potential for abundant clean energy,” Marvin Adams, NNSA deputy administrator for defense programs, said during the Dec. 13 presser. “As you have heard, the breakthrough at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) has ramifications for clean energy. More immediately, this achievement will advance our national security in at least three ways.”

... Those three ways all emphasized the importance of nuclear science for maintaining and sustaining a nuclear deterrent, without conducting live explosive nuclear tests. Having the scientific expertise and skill to evaluate nukes without detonations lets the U.S. show the world it knows what it’s doing when it comes to nuclear weapons, said Adam. It also lets the U.S. prove to allies that, because the American nuclear arsenal is well and competently maintained, there’s no need for these countries to develop their own nuclear programs.

... In the meantime, the nuclear labs at NIF will continue to better study and understand the materials and science of nuclear warheads and explosions. There’s always room on the budget for the science of energy (destructive), even and especially as it incidentally leads to breakthroughs in the science of energy (productive). Just don’t expect the weapons research to get the same high-profile publicity from the DOE or Secretary Granholm.

... OBTW, the $847 Billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is due for Senate vote this week. DoE's $75 billion nuclear weapons (testing and maintenance) budget is part of it.

Coincidence? I think NOT!

[Freegrass]

What it feels like to visit a fusion company lab on a day when wildfire smoke cloaks the horizon
Published Fri, Nov 4 2022

KEY POINTS

    Visiting Helion Energy's enormous workspace and lab in Everett, Wash., pulled the idea of fusion out of the completely fantastical and into the potentially real for me.
    I happened to visit on a day when the air quality was so bad from nearby wildfires that Helion asked its employees to stay home for their health and safety.
    It was a weird juxtaposition of hope and dread. "The cognitive dissonance of sometimes what we see out in the world, and what we get to build here is pretty extreme," said CEO and co-founder David Kirtley."

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/11/04/visiting-helion-energy-when-the-seattle-region-was-cloaked-in-smoke.html

Pulling the quartz tube out of our plasma formation test was no easy feat, but our production and engineering teams got it done. Now installing more electromagnetic coils to start forming thousands of FRC plasmas.

https://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6499&hilit=helion&start=255

Helion views on Utube just hit 1.5 mil.

Here's a follow up video on that. Amazing technology. First time I hear about it...

[Sebastian Jones]

Nice to have you back Freegrass! I hope you are well.

[Freegrass]

Nice to have you back Freegrass! I hope you are well.

Thanks Sebastian. I still have my ups and downs... Maybe this moderation is what I needed. Now I can't post the bad stuff anymore when I'm down and on alcohol... And that's a good thing!

My apologies to everyone for my outbursts! It's called borderline... 

[Sigmetnow]

International nuclear fusion project may be delayed by years, its head admits
6 Jan 2023

An international project in nuclear fusion may face years of delays, its boss has said, weeks after scientists in the United States announced a breakthrough in their own quest for the coveted goal.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter) project seeks to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy. Installed at a site in southern France, the decades-old initiative has a long history of technical challenges and cost overruns.

Fusion entails forcing together the nuclei of light atomic elements in a super-heated plasma, held by powerful magnetic forces in a doughnut-shaped chamber called a tokamak. The idea is that fusing the particles together from isotopes of hydrogen – which can be extracted from seawater – will create a safer and almost inexhaustible form of energy compared with splitting atoms from uranium or plutonium.

Iter’s previously stated goal was to create the plasma by 2025.

But that deadline will have to be postponed, Pietro Barabaschi – who in September became the project’s director general – told Agence France-Presse during a visit to the facility.

The date “wasn’t realistic in the first place”, even before two major problems surfaced, Barabaschi said.

One problem, he said, was wrong sizes for the joints of blocks to be welded together for the installation’s 19 metres by 11 metres (62ft by 36ft) chamber.

The second was traces of corrosion in a thermal shield designed to protect the outside world from the enormous heat created during nuclear fusion.

Fixing the problems “is not a question of weeks, but months, even years”, Barabaschi said.

A new timetable is to be worked out by the end of this year, he said, including some modification to contain the expected cost overrun, and to meet the French nuclear safety agency’s security requirements.

Barabaschi said he hoped Iter would be able to make up for the delays as it prepares to enter the full phase, scheduled for 2035.


 
On 13 December, US researchers working separately from Iter announced an important technical breakthrough.

Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California said they had used the world’s largest laser to create, for the first time, a fusion reaction generating more energy than it took to produce.

“Some competition is healthy in any environment,” Barabaschi said about the success. “If tomorrow somebody found another breakthrough that would make my work redundant, I would be very happy,” he added.
…

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jan/06/french-nuclear-fusion-project-may-be-delayed-by-years-its-head-admits

[morganism]

A twitter post i missed on some of the phys of Helion Energy fusion

The key to iterating quickly and delivering results is having solid theory behind development. At @helion_energy
 we’ve been building fusion machines quickly for years, but the fundamental theory has remained the same.

I present that theory here:

[morganism]

Havn't seen this paper discussed before. Talking about polarization of DT fuel to reduce ignition energies, and improve nuetron directionality so shielding can be reduced or re-directed towards possibly breeder or re-enrichment strategies. Its actually a spaceship engine angle, but angles are relative to your frame of ref, right?
Doesnt help with Helion, which is a mag confined, or toiroidal, i assume.

From the Fab folks at Project Rho, or the Atomic Rockets interweb black hole of distractions...

I. Introduction

Nuclear fusion has long been considered an ideal form of propulsion for space travel. Fusion is roughly 4 times more energy dense than nuclear fission, which is, itself, roughly 2 × 106 times more energy dense than chemical fuels. This extreme energy density allows for rockets that can reach far higher speeds then any chemical rocket, and even exceed the propulsive capability of nuclear fission, while being able to operate with lower mass ratios. This, coupled with the high (approximately 4% of the speed of light) exhaust velocity of fusion-reaction products, puts interstellar travel within the reach of fusion-propelled vehicles as well as more near term uses such as interplanetary exploration and planetary defense.

     Fusion-propulsion suffers fromtwo primary complications though: the difficulty of igniting a self-sustaining fusion reaction and the large amount of ionizing radiation generated by the reaction, which requires a considerable mass of radiation shielding to protect against. Unfortunately, the fuel that is easiest to ignite (deuterium-tritium, or “DT") also produces most of its energy as ionizing radiation in the form of neutrons. Fuels that produce fewer neutrons are more difficult to ignite, requiring larger reactors and ignition power supplies, whose cost in mass is often more than enough to outweigh any reduction in shielding they may allow. This paper outlines how a well known nuclear physics technique, known as spin polarization, could potentially reduce the incident neutron radiation by ~20%, reduce fusion ignition requirements by ~45%, and increase the propulsive efficiency of the fusion rocket by more than 30% over a similar fusion rocket that does not use this technique. Spin polarization has long been know to affect the radiation emission of fusion reactions and more recently shown to lower the ignition requirements as well. Up until now though, it has never been considered for use in fusion rockets. The use of spin polarization would allow for lighter fusion rockets that suffer less radiation damage and require less circulating power for operation while also increasing propulsive efficiency.

     All nuclei possess an inherent angular momentum known as spin that plays a significant role in nuclear reactions, especially nuclear fusion. Spin polarization is the process of aligning the nuclear spin vectors of the fusion reactants prior to the reaction. For five-nucleon fusion reactions, notably DT and D3He (deuterium and helium-3), spin polarization serves to increase the cross section for fusion and force the reaction products to emit anisotropically. Increasing the reaction cross section lowers the requirements to reach fusion ignition, allowing the spacecraft to use less energy for ignition and requiring less total circulating power during operation. This will lower both the fusion reactor equipment mass and radiator mass. Additionally, the anisotropic emission of reaction products allows a substantial fraction (up to 80%) of the neutron radiation to be directed away from the spacecraft, lowering the craft’s shielding mass. For four-nucleon fusion reactions, notably DD (deuterium and deuterium), and those with greater than five nucleons, notably p11B (proton and boron-11), no clear benefit has been shown from spin polarization. Such reactions require more study before any comment can be made on their use.

     Several methods for producing spin-polarized fusion fuel have been considered and tested for the purposes of nuclear physics experiments and for producing beams of spin-polarized particles in particle colliders. For fusion reactors that require a constant stream of gaseous fusion fuel, various optical pumping techniques provide options for creating jets or beams of polarized fusion fuel. These techniques are quite technologically mature, but do suffer various polarization-loss mechanisms via contact with the walls of the fuel transport system. For fusion reactors that can operate with frozen fuel injection, spin polarization can be achieved via super chilling of the fuel and/or the application of a strong (>10 –T) magnetic field. This method allows for pellets of pre-polarized fuel to be created and stored before injection into the reactor. Neither method consumes a large amount of energy (of order 1-100 eV per atom) compared to the expected power output of a fusion reactor, thus, the additional power load on the spacecraft is small.

     A limiting factor on the utility of spin-polarized fuel is the depolarization rate in the fusion reactor. For rapidly pulsed fusion reactors with no significant magnetic fields, the rate of depolarization can be shown to be far slower than the expected reaction time. In long-pulse or steady-state fusion reactors, the recycling of fuel from the reactor walls can significantly deplete the population of polarized fuel. Additionally, the presence of an external magnetic field can quickly depolarize the fuel depending on the alignment of the spin polarization with the magnetic field. Reactors with complex magnetic topologies may not be suitable for use with spin-polarized fuel (science fiction authors: this means if a tramp freighter ship lets its fusion engine tuning get run down, the thrust will drop and the radiation from the engine will rise). The details of the fusion reactor itself are beyond the scope of this analysis, which seeks to investigate the bounds on the potential benefits of spin-polarization for fusion propulsion. The following sections will outline the positive impact spin polarization will have on fusion rockets that choose either DT or D3He fusion fuel."

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/torchships.php#spinalign2

[morganism]

Re: Helion Energy to demonstrate net electricity production by 2024

Post by Skipjack » Wed Apr 05, 2023 6:22 am
AAAND as if to confirm my earlier post, Helion is planning to do high Q D-T experiments with Polaris...
These are to the best of my understanding to see whether they can make Helium3 breeders also produce usable net energy by burning the Tritium.
It is another option but they have not decided yet. It is all about economics and D-T comes with a lot of issues, even when you do not have to breed Tritium.
I think it is a clever thing to do. Plus, if they can do high Q D-T with their machine, it will further cement their leadership in the field, killing 2 birds with one stone. If they can pull all that off (and I am very confident they can), then all larger D-T fusion designs would be dead in the water. It would only leave more compact designs like Zap and some other small, alternative D-T designs. Otherwise, only those pursuing advanced fuels will have a chance to compete. "
(skip)

This is something that I believe they have changed relatively recently, but I might be wrong. They will still have orders of magnitude higher densities than a Tokamak, but they will likely keep it below the 10^24 ions/m3 but more moderate around or slightly below 10^23 or so.

With high Beta, you can scale between temperature and density linearly. If you want to favor D-D reactions over D-He3 reactions (e.g. in a lean He3 burning machine that breeds its own He3), they would use higher densities and lower temperatures. I believe they might be doing the same with D-T.
For D-He3 experiments they will dial up the temperature and use lower densities. There are a few other advantages to going with higher temperatures. E.g. FRC stability increases with higher temperature. The Te:Ti ratio decreases with temperature. This reduces losses."
(snip)
Venti was built for ARPA-E Alpha. That program had two phases. Helion completed Phase 1. They got 10^19 keV s /m3 out of Venti, actually surpassing expectations. That kind of triple product is mighty impressive for what was essentially a bench top system. Phase 2 was going to increase the B to 20 Tesla, but by then their investors decided that they should go straight to Trenta instead. The goal was D-He3 not D-T. So they viewed Venti as a bit of a distraction."

https://www.talk-polywell.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6499&hilit=helion&sid=a7dc9b0a105ad1b2f508c08ca30a07e0&start=375

https://twitter.com/Helion_Energy

[morganism]

Announcing Helion’s fusion power purchase agreement with Microsoft
In pursuit of building the world’s first fusion power plant, enabling a future with unlimited clean electricity

https://www.helionenergy.com/articles/announcing-helion-fusion-PPA-with-microsoft-constellation/


Microsoft agrees to buy electricity generated from Sam Altman-backed fusion company Helion in 2028

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/10/microsoft-agrees-to-buy-power-from-sam-altman-backed-helion-in-2028.html

(post and nyt too)

[morganism]

DOE announces $46 million for commercial fusion energy development

 The awardees are as follows:

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (Cambridge, MA)
Focused Energy Inc. (Austin, TX)
Princeton Stellarators Inc. (Branchburg, NJ)
Realta Fusion Inc. (Madison, WI)
Tokamak Energy Inc. (Bruceton Mills, WV)
Type One Energy Group (Madison, WI)
Xcimer Energy Inc. (Redwood City, CA)
Zap Energy Inc. (Everett, WA)

This funding is a major step to meeting the Biden Harris Administration's goals laid out at the March 2022 White House summit on Developing a Bold Decadal Vision for Commercial Fusion Energy.

In December, researchers at DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved fusion ignition and generated more energy from fusion than the input energy to the fuel target. This showed that fusion is a possible source of clean energy for humanity and that fusion science has reached a level of maturity to support the premise of that vision to accelerate efforts in the engineering development of a fusion pilot plant.

Applicants for these awards-selected by competitive peer review under the DOE Funding Opportunity Announcement for the Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program-went through a rigorous merit-review process that included evaluation of their scientific, technical, commercialization, and business and financial viabilities. The review also looked at the companies' plans to support DOE's efforts in advancing President Biden's Justice40 Initiative, whose goal is that 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain climate and energy investments flow to disadvantaged communities.

The total funding of $46 million is for the first 18 months, with funds coming from Fiscal Years 2022 and 2023. Projects may last up to five years in duration, with outyear funding contingent on congressional appropriations, and continued participation from the teams contingent on satisfactory progress in meeting the negotiated milestones."

https://www.energy-daily.com/reports/DOE_announces_46_million_for_commercial_fusion_energy_development_999.html


Foundations of stellar physics and nuclear fusion investigated

Research using the world's most energetic laser has shed light on the properties of highly compressed matter

 The international research team used NIF to generate the extreme conditions necessary for pressure-driven ionisation. They focused 184 laser beams on a cavity, converting the laser energy into X-rays that heated a 2mm metal shell placed in the centre. As the outside of the shell rapidly expanded due to the heating, the inside was driven inwards - reaching temperatures around two million kelvins (1.9m degrees Celsius) and pressures up to three billion atmospheres - creating a tiny piece of matter as found in dwarf stars for just a few nanoseconds.

The highly compressed metal shell (made of beryllium) was then analysed using X-rays to reveal its density, temperature, and electron structure. The findings revealed that, following strong heating and compression, at least three out of four electrons in beryllium transitioned into conducting states, that is, they can move independent from the nuclear cores of the atoms. Additionally, the study uncovered unexpectedly weak elastic X-ray scattering, indicating reduced localization of the remaining electron, that is a new stage shortly before all electrons become free and thus revealing the pathways to a fully ionised state."

https://www.energy-daily.com/reports/Foundations_of_stellar_physics_and_nuclear_fusion_investigated_999.html


(and for the phys folk, this is the first time they have noticed a phonon produced when photons created by exciton collapse)


 When the researchers applied a precise pulse of laser light, they knocked a tungsten diselenide atom's electron away from the nucleus, which generated an exciton quasiparticle. Each exciton consisted of a negatively charged electron on one layer of the tungsten diselenide and a positively charged hole where the electron used to be on the other layer. And because opposite charges attract each other, the electron and the hole in each exciton were tightly bonded to each other. After a short moment, as the electron dropped back into the hole it previously occupied, the exciton emitted a single photon encoded with quantum information - producing the quantum emitter the team sought to create.

But the team discovered that the tungsten diselenide atoms were emitting another type of quasiparticle, known as a phonon. Phonons are a product of atomic vibration, which is similar to breathing. Here, the two atomic layers of the tungsten diselenide acted like tiny drumheads vibrating relative to each other, which generated phonons. This is the first time phonons have ever been observed in a single photon emitter in this type of two-dimensional atomic system.

When the researchers measured the spectrum of the emitted light, they noticed several equally spaced peaks. Every single photon emitted by an exciton was coupled with one or more phonons. This is somewhat akin to climbing a quantum energy ladder one rung at a time, and on the spectrum, these energy spikes were represented visually by the equally spaced peaks.

"A phonon is the natural quantum vibration of the tungsten diselenide material, and it has the effect of vertically stretching the exciton electron-hole pair sitting in the two layers," said Li, who is also is a member of the steering committee for the UW's QuantumX, and is a faculty member of the Institute for Nano-Engineered Systems. "This has a remarkably strong effect on the optical properties of the photon emitted by the exciton that has never been reported before."

The researchers were curious if they could harness the phonons for quantum technology. They applied electrical voltage and saw that they could vary the interaction energy of the associated phonons and emitted photons. These variations were measurable and controllable in ways relevant to encoding quantum information into a single photon emission. And this was all accomplished in one integrated system - a device that involved only a small number of atoms.

Next the team plans to build a waveguide - fibers on a chip that catch single photon emissions and direct them where they need to go - and then scale up the system. Instead of controlling only one quantum emitter at a time, the team wants to be able to control multiple emitters and their associated phonon states. This will enable the quantum emitters to "talk" to each other, a step toward building a solid base for quantum circuitry."

https://www.energy-daily.com/reports/The_breath_between_atoms___a_new_building_block_for_quantum_technology_999.html


Tunable phononic coupling in excitonic quantum emitters

Engineering the coupling between fundamental quantum excitations is at the heart of quantum science and technologies. An outstanding case is the creation of quantum light sources in which coupling between single photons and phonons can be controlled and harnessed to enable quantum information transduction. Here we report the deterministic creation of quantum emitters featuring highly tunable coupling between excitons and phonons. The quantum emitters are formed in strain-induced quantum dots created in homobilayer WSe2.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-023-01410-6

[morganism]

Energy Subcommittee Hearing - From Theory to Reality: The Limitless Potential of Fusion Energy

https://science.house.gov/hearings?ContentRecord_id=1A693FA1-B7A9-4408-BE83-6253FFB7787D

Witnesses:

    Dr. Kathryn McCarthy, Director, U.S. ITER Project Office
    Dr. David Kirtley, CEO, Helion Energy
    Dr. Wayne Solomon, Vice President, Magnetic Fusion Energy, General Atomics
    Mr. Andrew Holland, CEO, Fusion Industry Association
    Dr. Scott Hsu, Senior Advisor and Lead Fusion Coordinator, U.S. Department of Energy


hearing charter (pdf)

https://republicans-science.house.gov/_cache/files/6/9/690a1b5a-f0a7-45d2-bd7d-364d3ae71976/85913024549EE49C39498FE0B6688368.2023-06-13-fusion-charter-.pdf

[gerontocrat]

DOE announces $46 million for commercial fusion energy development

46 million might not get them very far.... a very long article in Scientific American - brief extracts below

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/worlds-largest-fusion-project-is-in-big-trouble-new-documents-reveal/
World’s Largest Fusion Project Is in Big Trouble, New Documents Reveal

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is already billions of dollars over budget and decades behind schedule. Not even its leaders can say how much more money and time it will take to complete

It could be a new world record, although no one involved wants to talk about it. In the south of France, a collaboration among 35 countries has been birthing one of the largest and most ambitious scientific experiments ever conceived: the giant fusion power machine known as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). But the only record ITER seems certain to set doesn’t involve “burning” plasma at temperatures 10 times higher than that of the sun’s core, keeping this “artificial star” ablaze and generating net energy for seconds at a time or any of fusion energy’s other spectacular and myriad prerequisites. Instead ITER is on the verge of a record-setting disaster as accumulated schedule slips and budget overruns threaten to make it the most delayed—and most cost-inflated—science project in history.

ITER is supposed to help humanity achieve the dream of a world powered not by fossil fuels but by fusion energy, the same process that makes the stars shine. Conceived in the mid-1980s, the machine, when completed, will essentially be a giant, high-tech, doughnut-shaped vessel—known as a tokamak—that will contain hydrogen raised to such high temperatures that it will become ionized, forming a plasma rather than a gas. Powerful magnetic and electric fields flowing from and through the tokamak will girdle and heat the plasma cloud so that the atoms inside will collide and fuse together, releasing immense amounts of energy. But this feat is easier said than done. Since the 1950s fusion machines have grown bigger and more powerful, but none has ever gotten anywhere near what would be needed to put this panacea energy source on the electric grid. ITER is the biggest, most powerful fusion device ever devised, and its designers have intended it to be the machine that will finally show that fusion power plants can really be built.

The ITER project formally began in 2006, when its international partners agreed to fund an estimated €5 billion (then $6.3 billion), 10-year plan that would have seen ITER come online in 2016. The most recent official cost estimate stands at more than €20 billion ($22 billion), with ITER nominally turning on scarcely two years from now. Documents recently obtained via a lawsuit, however, imply that these figures are woefully outdated: ITER is not just facing several years’ worth of additional delays but also a growing internal recognition that the project’s remaining technical challenges are poised to send budgets spiraling even further out of control and successful operation ever further into the future.......



Whether the wait slips four or five or even more years, ITER is far from the only big scientific project to face enormous delays, cost growth and moving goalposts. Such obstacles, its advocates say, are unavoidable when attempting ambitious tasks that require large amounts of technological development. Proponents of megaproject largesse may cite the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as an apt example: intended to be completed in a decade at a cost of a bit more than $1 billion, it took 20 years and more than $10 billion to get the telescope off the ground. Those overruns were especially painful for astronomers but in hindsight seem justified, given that they ensured JWST’s successful launch, deployment and ongoing revolutionary observations in deep space.

But ITER and JWST are not remotely the same. ITER’s gestation has been even longer—stretching back to a handshake agreement between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid-1980s—and its cost is higher than any scientific endeavor in history. Adjusted for inflation, its price is about the same as that of the Manhattan Project, which made the first atomic bombs—and is almost certain to get larger. As early as 2018 the DOE’s undersecretary for science told Congress that the machine was going to cost much more than the then official price tag of $22 billion. ITER officials vigorously disputed this claim, but the as-yet-undisclosed effects of the project’s latest setbacks makes it clear, at least, that the final bill will be billions more still........

And unlike JWST, which began full operation mere months after launch, ITER won’t be fit for purpose for years after its construction ends. The real purpose of ITER—to run high-power fusion experiments using a mixture of the heavy hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium—won’t happen until more than a decade after the machine hits its first plasma milestone. (Originally those experiments were supposed to take place just five years or so after ITER’s debut. Over time, that turned into 10 years: the scheduled 2025 turn-on date would have meant a 2035 start to deuterium-tritium operations.) A further slip to ITER’s start date is likely to cause a corresponding delay in the deuterium-tritium experiments.

When assailed by costly, acrimony-inducing delays, the architects of ITER, JWST and other scientific megaprojects typically respond by reminding the public and policymakers that great monuments take time to build. The plans for Notre Dame and other Gothic cathedrals, for example, were of such grand scale and intricacy that, from their outset, everyone knew their creation would span generations; no one present at Notre Dame’s beginnings assumed they’d live to see it finished. ITER’s designers, however, did not initially hold such lofty expectations for the project. Instead they fully believed they’d see it completed within a couple of decades. Yet the project is now entering its third generation of planning and construction, and its important experiments are at least another generation away. ITER has become the Gothic cathedral of our time: a beautiful but immensely complex structure that we pray will help us find salvation from our energy and climate woes.

Then again, perhaps a cathedral is the wrong metaphor: while Notre Dame took a century to complete, it became an active structure much more quickly, one that was used for its intended purpose less than a generation after construction began. Nobody can say when that will be true for ITER. With each passing decade, this record-breaking monument to big international science looks less and less like a cathedral—and more like a mausoleum.

[NeilT]

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is already billions of dollars over budget and decades behind schedule. Not even its leaders can say how much more money and time it will take to complete

This is not a surprise.  Normally you work with lab scale developments until you have a sustainable reaction which you can rely on.  Then you scale the design to provide more energy.

How can you say how much more it is going to cost or how long it will take when you don't even know if it is going to work??

[morganism]

this is a critical function of most fusion tech now...

A new approach to controlling the properties of turbulence
(...)
In their experiments, Matsuzawa combined sets of eight vortex rings in a chamber, by firing them toward the center of a cubic water-filled tank from the eight corners. If these vortex rings were to be fired as a single set, they would divide and redirect, due to an effect known as vortex reconnections. Firing them repeatedly, however, as executed by the researchers, leads to the formation of an isolated blob of turbulence.

"Our approach provides unique design principles to localize, position, and control turbulence," Irvine said. "The properties of the blob are set by those of vortex rings; the size is set by the ring radius; the inner turbulent intensity is set by the energy carried by the rings. If we combine helical loops, we could also inject the other conserved quantities such as angular impulse and helicity, whose roles in turbulence are not well-known."

The recent work by this team of researchers greatly contributes to the study of turbulence, introducing a promising strategy to reliably control it experimentally. In the future, the strategy introduced in their paper could pave the way for new studies that would have previously been difficult to carry out. This could in turn help to answer long-standing research questions relating to the physical processes underpinning turbulence. "

https://phys.org/news/2023-06-approach-properties-turbulence.html


Creation of an isolated turbulent blob fed by vortex rings, Nature Physics (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-023-02052-0

Creation of an isolated turbulent blob fed by vortex rings

Abstract

Turbulence is hard to control. Many experimental methods have been developed to generate this elusive state of matter, leading to fundamental insights into its statistical and structural features as well as its onset. In all cases, however, the material boundaries of the experimental apparatus pose a challenge for understanding what the turbulence has been fed and how it would freely evolve. Here we build and control a confined state of turbulence using elemental building blocks—vortex rings. We create a stationary and isolated blob of turbulence in a quiescent environment, initiated and sustained solely by vortex rings. We assemble a full picture of its three-dimensional structure, onset, energy budget and tunability. The incoming vortex rings can be endowed with conserved quantities, such as helicity, which can then be controllably transferred to the turbulent state. Our one-eddy-at-a-time approach opens the possibility for sculpting turbulent flows much as a state of matter, placing the turbulent blob at the targeted position, localizing it and ultimately harnessing it."

[morganism]

(an older walkthru of Helion tech, and a simple description on the facility floor. recently released tho.)

https://www.dailymotion.com/dm_55bfe4971dbf1e59cd37cfc8ab049430

[morganism]

  This Fusion Reactor Is Held Together With Tape

High-temperature superconducting tape is behind one hope for a tinier tokamak
(cfs)
(snip)
The team’s superconductor of choice was yttrium barium copper oxide, or YBCO. To make YBCO tape, some manufacturers first use a laser to vaporize bulk YBCO into a plume. That plume then deposits as a thin film of YBCO onto a steel substrate, which is followed by an oxygenation process to change the YBCO’s structure into a state that enables superconductivity.

After Sorbom’s experiments—which became the basis for his doctoral thesis—confirmed that the YBCO tape could withstand the pummeling of fast neutrons squeezed from fusing atoms, a joint MIT/CFS team began the tricky process of acquiring the expensive, brittle HTS tape and winding it into coils. Over two years, the team managed to buy up most of the world’s supply of 4-millimeter-wide HTS tape—the largest amount of HTS tape ever procured—sourcing it as far afield as Japan and Russia.

(snip)
frames the HTS shortage in terms of national competitiveness. “China is pushing to make 3,000 kilometers of HTS tape a year, and we’d like to be able to turn out more than 10,000 km a year to keep fusion on a fast track. Right now we are looking at novel ways to generate high-throughput manufacturing processes and also bring down the cost,” which can add $100 million or more to the price of an HTS-magnetized tokamak.

“We’re going from making a few centimeters a year to hundreds of kilometers,” says Guinevere Shaw, program manager at the DOE’s Office of Fusion Energy Sciences. “For the United States to lead in building tokamaks, we need to figure out how to leapfrog ahead with HTS production, which is a complex enterprise that very few institutions can do.”

(snip)
 The working design calls for a continuously flowing loop of salt to be pumped into a tank surrounding the plasma chamber, where it absorbs radiated neutrons. The molten salt is then pumped outside the tokamak, where its heat energy is transferred into a fluid that drives a turbine to generate electricity. Because nearly all of the power that Arc produces will be absorbed in the molten-salt blanket, the load on the magnet-cooling system is minimized.

The molten salt will likely be a mixture of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride, known as FLiBe. This combo allows the salt to do double duty as a breeding medium in which some of the fusion neutrons interact with lithium atoms and change them into tritium. The tritium is then filtered out of the blanket and recycled into fusion fuel. "

https://spectrum.ieee.org/fusion-2662267312

[Sigmetnow]

Over two years, the team managed to buy up most of the world’s supply of 4-millimeter-wide HTS tape—the largest amount of HTS tape ever procured—sourcing it as far afield as Japan and Russia.

Reminds me of Tesla’s calculations, back when they were planning for their first volume EV, the Model S.  They determined they would need an amount of batteries equal to what was then the entire world’s supply. 
 
And so Gigafactory Nevada was born — followed not long afterwards by a battery manufacturing boom.

[morganism]

(latest update from Helion Energy)

Major developments continue at Helion

We have been moving quickly on several big initiatives over the last few months! It’s incredible to see what our team can do while we scale up major projects in pursuit of Polaris completion and look beyond to the world’s first fusion power plant! In addition to technical progress, we’ve been working on large advancements toward commercial fusion deployment, many of which I’m sure you’ve had a chance to see already. Here’s a recap of the latest ongoing work happening at Helion:
Technical progress

Vela: In May, we completed our largest ever pulsed power test! The test, which we called “Vela” (named after the Vela Pulsar), was designed to demonstrate our newly advanced switching technology repeatedly and at scale. Vela operated at 1 Hz and moved more than 11 GJ total energy through a simulated Polaris compression magnet. This test showed we can pulse Polaris once per second for long durations. For context, Trenta pulsed once every ten minutes. This was a huge win for our team!

Polaris Formation test: We completed construction on our Polaris Formation test last month and have begun initial plasma operations (pictured above). The testing in this machine will allow us to experiment with higher electric field and magnetic flux FRCs and a range of new fuel, diagnostic, pre-ionization, and control technologies!

Capacitor manufacturing: Over the last year, we have been building up our in-house capacitor manufacturing capabilities – and we just hit the triple digit count of in-house capacitors! The team is now working on an assembly line to prepare capacitors for Polaris installation.

Commercial developments

Landmark NRC decision: In April, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced its decision to regulate fusion under a byproduct materials framework (similar to how particle accelerators are regulated). This decision clearly distinguished fusion as separate from fission and creates a path for commercial fusion power plant licensing in the near future.

World’s first fusion PPA: In May we announced that our first fusion power plant will start putting electricity on the grid in 2028 and will provide power to our first customer, Microsoft. This announcement marked the first fusion Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) and sets a clear timeline for commercial fusion deployment. I am so proud of our team for their work on this and am thrilled to be working with industry leaders, Microsoft and Constellation, to bring the world’s first fusion power plant to Washington state!

Testifying before Congress: Last month, I spoke alongside my industry peers before the House Energy Subcommittee on Science Space and Technology. The hearing was a great opportunity to outline Helion’s readiness to deploy a first of its kind plant and our request to recognize the need for scaling manufacturing for mass fusion deployment in the 2030s. ICYMI, you can see more about the hearing here.
 
Clearly, we have been busy! We’re still expecting Polaris to be built early next year. Once it is built, we will begin operations, pushing to demonstrate electricity from fusion for the first time. It will take our whole team (and nearly 50 new team members); if you care about our mission and want to be a part of it, apply to our open positions!

Thank you for your continued support as we advance towards a future powered by clean, sustainable fusion energy.


David
Co-Founder & CEO

https://mailchi.mp/helionenergy/major-developments-continue-at-helion