The problems with Helion Energy - a response to Real Engineering
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- Опубликовано: 18 май 2024
- A short humorous analysis of challenges with the fusion approach of Helion Energy.
Contents
00:00 - Introduction
01:03 - Low reactivity
02:55 - Neutrons
05:33 - Bremsstrahlung
06:17 - Diagnostics
06:57 - Conclusion
References
[1] www.helionenergy.com/
[2] “A New Way to Achieve Nuclear Fusion: Helion”, • A New Way to Achieve N...
[3] arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/defau...
[4] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-r...
[5] S. Atzeni and J. Meyer-ter-Vehn, “The Physics of Inertial Fusion” (OUP, 2009). ISBN: 9780199568017
[6] Data also available from: scipython.com/blog/plotting-n...
[7] The first high-speed colour video from the COMPASS tokamak
• The first high-speed c...
[8] K. Hagiwara et al. (Particle Data Group), “Review of Particle Properties” Phys. Rev. D 66, 010001 (2002), Section 28. “Radioactivity and radiation protection” retrieved from pdg.lbl.gov/2002/radiorpp.pdf
[9] www.helionenergy.com/articles...
[10] Chernobyl 4th reactor core after the explosion
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
[11] www.iter.org/mach/HotCell
[12] www.iter.org/mach/Diagnostics
[13] M. Maslov et al., “Status of the JET LIDAR Thomson scattering diagnostic” JINST 8 C11009 (2013).
[14] J. Kilkenny et al., “The National Ignition Facility Diagnostic Set”, LLNL-TR-666418 (2015).
[15] B. Wang, “Helion Energy got funding for possible breakeven fusion device this year”, Next Big Future (2018), www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/10...
I'll start by saying I'm partial to the FRC scheme for fusion; from what I understand of it, I think it's one of the most elegant and parsimonious methods to achieve high temperatures and confinements out there, and so I am in fact "rooting" for companies like this one and TAE Technologies, even if I also think their claims of going straight to proton-boron11 fusion are ludicrous. But something else bothered me a lot recently about Helion. The CEO, David Kirtley, recently appeared on a collaboration video done by the large youtube channel of Simone Giertz and her friend Cleo Abram titled "we did nuclear fusion", where the three claim to have done nuclear fusion on a Farnsworth fusor in their garage. It's a fiction. Kirtley sets the entire apparatus up, clearly with most parts brought from his company, no problems there so far. However, in many shots we see all three participants staring wide-eyed into a large viewing window at the plasma formed on the inner grid electrode while they're about a foot away from the device. It is painfully obvious neither of the two women know the first thing about how a fusion reactor works or why this would be extremely ill advised (the plasma in an operating electrostatic ICF reactor like this is producing VAST quantities of hard x-rays and it is dangerous to be that close to it or even in the same room while it is operating - to say nothing of the albiet small amounts of still hazardous neutron radiation). This is no sin on their part, they readily admit they're no experts on fusion in both videos. But it did make me raise several eyebrows I didn't know I had with respect to the behavior of Kirtley. Why would he allow this reckless behavior? Why would he himself be standing right there with them next to the device while it was in operation? Then I watched the video more closely again - he never takes the grid potential higher than 6kV. There was no fusion and no x-rays that could penetrate the wall of the vessel or the glass window. It was a ruse. You need to have a potential difference on the grids of AT LEAST 30kV to even begin seeing any fusion reactions at all. He knows enough physics to be aware of all of this. He was therefore deliberately allowing them, and the credulous audience, to believe they were actually doing fusion reactions when nothing of the sort was happening at all - they were merely staring at a pretty glowing pink cool deuterium plasma in a bottle. I believe this to be very suspicious behavior from a CEO of a commercial nuclear fusion company.
I'm not sure you're aware of this, but I granted you some sort of comment moderation rights on RUclips a few videos ago. Use your powers responsibly. :)
@@ImprobableMatter I was not aware, but as I am also not aware of how to use such features, and also see no obvious evident changes in the user interface when viewing videos on this channel, you have little to worry about for the time being 🤣
perhaps it has something to do with the fact that my channel's comments have for whatever reason often been "dennabwodahs" by youtube. I'm afraid I'm unable to type that word forwards normally, lest it be noticed by the bots and then this very comment also "auto-devomer".
"neither of the two women know the first thing"... uh oh, problematic internet man sensors are going off
@@UpToTheWhalesNow
Yeah, they did in me for a little too, until he reminded me that they both admitted such in the video.
further proof that giertz is really just a paid shill / tv personality
Like most fusion startups, Helion has for several years promised net electricity in a few years; unfortunately the schedules are typically pushed back at an average rate of approximately 1 year per year.
1 year per year? "Those are rookie numbers..."
These start-ups are a great advancement for commercial fusion. Now it isn't any longer permanently 30 years away. Now it's permanently 5 years away... 😅
How else can they keep getting new investors who are completely science fusion illiterate to invest?
Helion energy?
pffft nothing to do compared to electric eye energy
(did anybody get the lame pun? :p )
@@TheChzoronzon I don't get it.
I feel that more and more large infocentric youtube channels are becoming venues for large corporations to advertise on. Thank you for the explanation, and for making this video. No fancy graphics were needed to get the point across.
This is very true !!
they have been for quite a while, take a look at kurzgesagt for example
@@pedrolmlkzk exactly! just heard about that recently
Very true~
that sadly is true. Thankfully there are often responses like this one
Ive seen Real Engineering be criticized in the past for taking manufacturer/company claims at face value. I went into the Helion video with this in mind, but I dont know a ton about fusion beyond some high level concepts so nothing in particular stuck out at me, glad to see someone turning a critical eye on the company claims.
I was particularly pissed by the Spinlaunch episode (spoilers I am a fan of space cannons like project HARP). They put in a lot of time and effort making feature length episodes, but then parrot stats found on company websites. As the team have said, they aren't saying these companies will succeed, just looking at innovative soultions to problems. Nonetheless, picking high profile companies that are publicly begging for funding to visit and sing praises of said companies, not to mention presenting sometimes wrong explanations of phenomena just drives me up the wall. And Brian really seems like a nice guy with a great sense of humour, so I'm not sure why they consistently mess up their company visits then cry foul when people don't agree with their take.
😒
While I know extremely little about fusion, I've seen enough PR puff pieces to recognize one without having to delve into the technical side. At no point does the video approach the claims made by Helion critically, so the video wasn't setting out to inform their audience, only to regurgitate what the company fed them.
@@josephc.9520 Yep felt similarly about the Spinlaunch episode.
@@josephc.9520 I knew just enough about physics to realize the obvious problems about spinlaunch.
I did not know enough about fusion to realize the obvious problems about Helion. Until now.
@@Akumasama What are the problems with spinlaunch?
I generally like Real Engineering, but I really appreciate this sobering look at the claims on that video. The entire thing was like listening to a VC pitch, and everything seemed just a little too good to be true. It's sad when quality creators sell out for a buck. Oh well, and nice work sir! 👍
Well he's a structural engineer, not a nuclear physicist lol. But yes too bad he is naive like the rest of us.
@@djayjp Naive, or unwilling to be skeptical? That means instead of pitching a feel good video for a company, he'd have to talk to experts and openly challenge his hosts. It's easier and gets more views to just peddle what's being sold.
@@chrimony Correct, naive and/or lazy perhaps. He's not a journalist, sadly. He needed to get an outside/independent perspective from those qualified to critique the company's claims.
Honestly I think it's more like he was excited by what he saw and was told, which can lead to someone developing a few blind spots. We're all human and have been guilty of it one way or another. A charismatic and enthusiastic CEO can be both good and bad.
Maybe he's found that there's $$$ in these types of videos? (like Spin Launch before)...is he getting paid? It really was more of a pitch than a critical review. You can tell that he isn't super knowledgeable about the tech in both videos by the questions he was asking. It's a bizzare twist for the RealEngineering channel.
Thank you for this breakdown. I am a materials research scientist in the US national lab system working on new materials for commercial fusion, and I'm glad to see someone call out that Real Engineering video for the problems in it. D-T fusion is far-and-away the most likely first fuel to work. Tritium is a nightmare to work with (lucky for me, since it gives me a job), so I understand the aversion to working with it. And while tritium is hard to procure (you pretty much have to buy it from heavy water nuclear facilities - the US DOE is hesitant to sell any directly), helium-3 is much, much harder to procure at the quantities needed for commercial power.
All that aside, we are closer to fusion than ever before. Still far away, but significantly closer.
If only there was already a massive fusion reactor beaming terawatts of energy at the whole planet constantly. 😔
@@philipm3173 If only non space-based solar power wasn't a worthless meme
@@jaffacalling53 Well youre in luck cause it isnt, and i dont know what you mean by this comment. The cost of solar energy has went down significantly in the past decade and is becoming quite worthvile
Thank you for the info.
No disrespect but you're wasting your time and effort on a technology that will NEVER become a reality or be any solution to our current energy crisis.
Your efforts would honestly be better spent on developing plasma gasification and recycling of electronics and or cheaper and more environmentally sustainable solar panels and battery technology.
Thank you for this. Ever since I saw that Real Engineering video and others like it a few weeks back, Helion's proposal had seemed, if not "too good to be true" then at least "too advantageous and free of the cruft and problems I expect in a prototype to be the complete picture." I'd looked for a video like yours on them, but it didn't exist at the time.
I haven't heard the term cruft for about 18 years, so thanks for that
Just a side-node: Every time someone pronounces terms like "real" or "true" with such an importance, what's behind all this is far from the announcement.
Mostly this is done by satirists and brings us joy. With "Real Engineering" I am absolutely sure, that they are top-notch comedians!
For their apologies(That is satire!): They have to lie and cheat, of course, because their primary goal is to collect money (from the gullible). Is that righteous? Not my business to judge. If you fall for such snake oil dealers, it's your own fault anyway! (So mostly governments... and so all of us).
Let's just have a goof laugh together about the "next groundbreaking prototype" that solely exists as fancy 3D rendering. At least the laughter is something of value and does good, am I right?:)
Helion sponsored a whole lot of youtubers this round of funding.
I'm studying to be in the industry right now and in the course of speaking with potential employers i spoke to helion guys.
The claim is that with lower fusion rates, they can reclaim lost power usually used to heat plasma. The net total is supposedly gain. I'm not convinced.
I'm glad you're out there doing this though. They need more criticism
Criticism is defiantly appropriate but it seamed mostly miss guided in this video. The reaction density was equated at 1:50 with power density while expecting that the density of material is the same. We have no information on the density of the plasma, (might be much better), the power per reaction is shown to be 4x as high in the slide at 1:12.
Equating some neutron radiation to burning chernobyl seams deeply disgenerous, many fissle material emit neutron radiation (we are exposed to it naturally) and meters of shielding can be accomplished by water tanks like in every other commercial reactor. Bremsstrahlung is usually less of an issue in pulsed reactors and happens to all fusion reactor designs.
The detection of fusion: Measuring the heat of plasma is nothing new and if they have achieved 100 million °K it is basic statistics whether they had some fusion
Helion will be late and haven't yet even achieved a gain factor above 1, constructive criticism is definitely appropriate and they like are looking for funding.
Neither REs video nor this criticism proves or disproves whether their approach is viable, I wish all fusion researcher and start-ups good success.
@@leonfa259 The power extraction method they claim to be putting in use uses the tendency of the plasma to push back against the magnetic fields of the coils, producing net energy output. This would mean that they don't need to spend energy on temperatures above 100m K, they just need to form the fusion plasma with enough energy to push back against the fields. That being said, they haven't actually tested the system yet, so there's no telling just how much that extraction method can produce.
I have very little knowledge of fusion, but i think what you just said is that Helion isn't producing as much power, so it's not losing as much. Which is great if they're going for efficiency but runs into problems if they actually want to produce power.
Taken to the extreme, my body is a highly efficient fusion reactor because it wastes no fusion power 🙄
@@pills- The gain factor is how much energy is produced through fusion divided by how much energy goes in to the plasma (heating and compression).
Helion only says that they achieved fusion which is an important milestone but still far away from commercial viability or ever energy production.
The raw power output of the fusion is depended on density and temperature of the plasma and the kind of fusion reaction.
Helion is not making any new round of funding at the moment. In the last one (2021) they obtained enough money to operate for several years (more info in their wikipedia page). If you really talked to them you could have asked.
Thank you for pointing this stuff out in a way that's easy enough for someone with just a high school level of nuclear physics can understand. I had a kind of gut feeling that there was something missing that didn't quite make sense, but couldn't pick out stuff like you did.
Thanks. I fear the chart close to the start will turn a lot of people off, but I don't know how to explain that D-3He is less reactive without really dumbing down.
Your graph is perfect thanks. but I do wonder why they cant reflect neurons back in and have them absorbed by helium or hydrogen. Could you do a video on neutron moderation and capture? I always had the impression materials like graphite and beryllium could actually be used to reflect or absorb neutrinos at will without any sneak nuclear side reactions. Just an amateur here and would love to understand what goes into it
The plasma in these sorts of fusion machines is very tenuous (some parts of outer space even have higher densities). There just aren't the number of nuclei in the plasma to absorb the neutrons, so it has to be done outside the vacuum vessel. In proposed D-T reactors, there is a thick blanket to do just this, but Helion makes no mention of such a thing.
@@ImprobableMatter
1. The blanket in D-T reactors is for Tritium breeding, not shielding.
2. Helion will use shielding in the building. For the machine itself, the 2.45 MeV neutrons from D-D are below the activation energy of many materials. There are only very few activated components and those are very short lived. They would be below background levels of radiation within less than a year after decommissioning.
That's good reasoning you had a kind of gut feeling
Edit: I livestreamed a deep dive on Helion here: ruclips.net/video/wK5v1Nw98xs/видео.html
My first quick-fire response video in the @AdamSomething style. There are many other related issues I didn’t mention, but here are the main ones. I wasn’t really feeling like spending significant effort on this, so it’s even rougher than usual. I’m still considering a livestream at some point to answer further questions, talk about ignition at NIF and other things that have come up.
Excellent brake down. Real engineering has become a hype channel.
10/10 ty
something i found confusing. You argue that D-T is a better fuel mix than D-3He due to its higher reactivity, but later you show the reactivity for D-D and it is significantly higher than D-3He at 100M K. In this case, why not use D-D fusion, D being much more abundant than either T or 3He? Or perhaps there was something wrong with the plot and D-D reactivity is lower?
You also discussed the problem of neutron radiation but D-3He fusion produces 4He and and a proton whereas D-T fusion produces a neutron The absence of neutrons was given as one of the advantages of D-3He vs. D-T fusion.
Finally, you implied that Helion is working at a much too low temperature. But isnt it likely that their plan is to increase the temperature as they iterate their design to eventually approach temperatures where D-3He reactions are more frequent? Also, bremstrahlung increases with increasing temperature, so there must be a sweet spot where the amount of energy lost due to bremstrahlung vs. the amount retained in the plasma optimizes the total power that can be extracted. This would be below the optimal temperature for reactivity.
Yes, at 100MK the reactivities in order are D-T, D-D, D-3He. I talked about D-3He (the worst reactivity) at this precise temperature, because both of these are what is claimed by Helion.
As I say, if you try to go with D-3He, you will inevitably end up having D-D reactions which release neutrons too.
I can't read the minds of what Helion want to do, or predict what they will manage to achieve. I simply commented on what they claimed so far. You are correct that there is a temperature sweet spot, and unsurprisingly this is what most other fusion proposals are targeting (mostly with D-T).
@@ImprobableMatter Interesting. The D-D reaction dominates at 100MK, so you need 1,000MK to get a 10x suppression of D-D vs. D-He3 rates is that right?
Thirty years ago I was studying high energy and plasma physics at uni, and it was a real passion. Eventually I moved more into informatics and high performance computing, but I never forgot my roots.
Many times since then I’ve had very intelligent friends or coworkers make comments to me about the latest “breakthrough” in fusion science and have had to try to work out how much effort it’s worth making to clarify what’s really going on. Your videos are excellent, they’ve helped bring me up to date with some developments in the field as well as reiterated the fundamental obstacles in a way that I can pass on to laymen, confident that they will appreciate them and gain a greater understanding.
You are doing something excellent here and I’ve been glad to find it. Thank you.
holy cow! I don't care about fancy 3d graphics, this is a human explaining real science, and making sure the people who listen to him understand what's actually occurring! amazing!
They do have many videos of how they build their reactors. The 3D non-sense is what this channel makes up.
Watching his video set off quite a few red flags in my head. I'm glad you made this one to explain many of its shortcomings. What really got me was when they described their plan to generate the Helium3 using a deuterium-deuterium reaction, to which I thought "So your whole setup is just deuterium-deuterium with extra steps!"
No it really is,
Helion themselves said they would have a Hybrid D-D D-He3 reactor that needs appropriate shielding.
They mentioned it might be nice to get a helium 3 breeding reactor only for simplicit but I'm reminded by this video you need the neutron protection reguardless...
It was stated that the sacrificial reactor to produce fuel would in theory keep operating costs lower for the fusion reactor. Another thing they mentioned was that was not enough traditional fuel to support the reactors everyone else is working on, so their approach is novel from a viability stand point. I don’t know anything about chemistry so I have no idea if that claim about burning through all the nuclear fuel in a month is accurate or not.
@@thedillydotcom The issue pointed out in this video is that at the temperatures they are operating at, D-D fusion will still have a much higher rate than D-He3 in any reactor configuration
@@thedillydotcom There's only something like 40kg of Tritium worldwide and at energy generating injection rate ITER would really burn all of this in weeks.
Deuterium is cheap and basically infinite from sea water.
ITER wants to combat this using a Tritium breeding blanket made of Lithium-Beryllium to generate fuel in place. Unfortunately this is an experiment and ITER never intends to produce power.
It's pretty helpful and good business to make tritium for other reactors.
The novel part of Hellion I think they are really talking about the combination of pulsed and field reverse configuration plasma *in s way that makes sense and is stable*. It doesn't matter if they don't have a self sustaining reactor because there is nothing to sustain, it's pulsed.
Even 30% energy return makes it easier to test over and over again.
The sacrificial reactor is maybe not the best way forward, the neutrons released and slow enough to have some materials not made radioactive by them. But then you need the vacuum vessel to be like. metres thick for minimum damage.
@@bluerendar2194 Right, but, it doesn't matter if a tritium-fueled reactor is 40x more efficient if you don't have enough tritium to fuel it. The whole fuel section of this video was complete nonsense because it totally ignores the reason they want to avoid depending on tritium in the first place. IIRC their reactor can also work with a tritium based fuel! So if tritium does actually become viable as a fuel, they can just use that. But they are not ASSUMING that it will become viable, and are developing their reactor under the assumption that it needs to work with a less efficient fuel. IDK why the video author thinks that it's like some glaring hole in their plan.
The fact that fusing a Helium3 fuel is less efficient than fusing a tritium fuel doesn't automatically mean that it is unworkable, any more so than the fact that incandescent bulbs are less efficient than LEDs means they are unviable. To extend that analogy, when LEDs were not cost effective to manufacture as light bulbs, incandescents were, all things considered, more useful - because we could actually use them. It seems it could be the same case with He3 reactors.
Very well explained. I'm somewhat concerned about the hype most of these start-ups are making, because when investors realise they have been mislead (to use a soft word,) honest fusion will suffer badly and may never recover. My hope is that those which are seriously based on solid physics and engineering will succeed. On second thought, fusion has always been hyped, and that's why it's become the laughingstock of many scientists. Sad!
To be fair, the only people investing in these startups are people who're absolutely prepared to lose it. A lot of the funding is coming from ppl like Bill Gates and their various foundations and whatnot. Of course that money might be better spent on other energy ventures like geothermal or LFTRs etc.
I'm generally skeptical of fusion. The advantages of fission are basically non-existent, and the disadvantages are many (probably orders of magnitude higher reactor costs, very high energy demand to start fusion, etc).
@@lozoft9 Bill gates is such a moron outside his programming skills .
This is just classic venture capitalism bullshit. Theres still plenty more legit fusion science, most prominently ITER.
even honest fusion uses more beryllium then can be mined easily and "wears out" and will have to be replaced on a schedule similar to fission fuel. fission is the way forward until fusion researchers actually produce power at scale for multiple decades.
After watching the Real Engineering video, I browsed Helion's site looking for more info. What I noticed was a distinct lack of numbers, especially ones regarding the efficiency they're supposedly getting. While getting down into the physics is hard, a ratio of power input to power generated is something the layman like me can easily understand, and if they were truly close to commercial viability you'd think they'd be bragging even harder than LLNL did with their recent, rather anticlimactic announcement (yes, it's an achievement that proves inertial confinement works, but it didn't bring us much closer to a working system). Frankly Helion just seems like they're looking to farm venture capital.
NIF is a nuclear warface research facility. Hence the name National Ignition Facility comes from. Ignition for what? Hydrogen bomb! Hydrogen bomb uses fusion to create its devastation.
They aren't that close, the next iteration (Polaris) which they are still building is the one that will test the true viability of their idea, if Polaris doesn't reach breakeven i think they will have trouble getting more funding for the next iteration. I think they choice of making smaller iterations and learning from them (and then getting funds for the next one) is a better way to do some science than waiting 15~20 years to finish a really big prototype like ITER. Of course, if they had the money to do a big one from day one they would've done it, but i kinda like it this proof of concept approach.
Can it also be a scam? Sure. But i think it's clear that they believe this will work, comparing them to snake oil salesmen is kinda disingenuous.
@@l4nd3r You have a point, and everyone looking at their project should remain open-minded. I just believe that if they want to appear up-front with their status, they should put in benchmark numbers similar to other projects on their website.
After seeing the Princeton tokamak in high school in 1983, talking to their scientists, and getting really jazzed about the subject, the elusiveness of fusion power has been a heartbreak for decades. My generation of geek also had to live through the Fleischmann and Pons cold fusion hype as well. We're all a bit jaded now.
I knew they looked too good to be true. Excellent breakdown, more easily digestible than Real Engineering's original video.
Some notes (not critical just pointing out some things based on what I've seen)
- The idea of FRC being novel is a bit weird. In their own video material (recent) I remember Helion themselves mentioning there is pre-existing literature. Feels like throwaway marketing comments.
I didn't know aobut the other FRC reactors. I'm dissapointed I haven't heard more about them.
- They keep on mentioning 100 million kelvin but from what I've heard/seen it seems that's just what they've achieved so far / planned initially.
They consistently state "over 100 million degrees kelvin" in all their material. And in the Real Engineering video mention they pushing higher and higher (than 100 million is better),
I'm *cautiously* optimistic they will push higher and that's what they said they're building future machines for. The only question is how high.
- The Real Engineering video glosses over neutrons being produced in pure D-He3 fusion but implies it. In the same video I remember a hybrid D-D D-He3 reactor being used and that was really the main goal and they were unsure about the idea of a fuel only D-D reactor. I'm guessing they will neccecarily stick to the hybrid reactor primarily,. *because* of the neutrons and general plasma damage.
- Are Helion actually claiming particle gyro radii are actually larger? I figured particle drifting and turbulence would make it larger and they have to account for it reguardless of the simulation.
- Very tongue in cheek video. got a lot of chuckles out. This is my favourite physics channel to date.
You're right the public information provided by Helion is pretty disparate, at least in terms of SEO.
Especially when compared to ITER. Bit of a shame. and a bit suspicious, but whatever.
You should watch David Kirtley's recent talk at Princeton. He addresses some of the issues in his talk there. He also explains in detail how their machines scale and the expected operating regimen of their power plants (< 500 million degrees so they get enough D-D reactions for He3 breeding, density matters and so does Te:Ti). Things that IM does not know and did not care to look up.
Ion gyro radii are 25% larger than expected. That is a relatively small change, but it affects the design of an optimal machine.
The neutrons produced in D-D side reactions are only 2.45 MeV. That is below the activation energy of many materials (which Helion is using).
@@elmarmoelzer2229 Do you have directions to that talk?
I've watched a good few interviews but I think the one you're referring to is different,
I'm also considering getting to get access to that video on nebula, even if it costs...
I actually remember hearing about the activation energy somewhere but it didn't quite sink in yet because the video was information dense. Quite interesting really.
@@elmarmoelzer2229 I would also really like to see that interview.
A good critic of a bad critic....
@@ukaszlampart5316 I wish the spam filter would stop deleting my every attempt to share a link.
mediacentral then princeton then edu then /media/JPP08December2022_DKirtley/1_9p8c7d85
I was hoping you made a video like this!, I was really skeptcical of everything mentioned by Helion (with my mid understanding of nuclear physics), and now I got my confirmation of why by someone with the right qualifications to do so! I love your videos they are really informative! keep up the good work!
The algorithm sent me here and I'm really liking all these graphs and citations. I really like your delivery, you got a good blend of facts and barbs. Gonna check more out.
I'm glad someone had the stones to make this video. Startups unwilling to disclose specifics other than "trust us bro, it's not snakeoil" discredit by proxy fairly legitimate efforts by Commonwealth Fusion Systems and maybe even slightly more dubious efforts like General Fusion. Until Helion can provide hard numbers on how efficient their machine is, they shouldn't be claiming anything about their relative performance to tokamaks.
Been a while since I've been to a video doomed to blow up in a while, honestly forgot how disproportionate the subs are to views and quality here, _and _*_really_* underestimated how many flaws Helion had.
I had pretty immediate red flags when I noticed that they weren't using the neutrons, but I didn't see too many problems otherwise, but then again, I've got _a _*_lot_* to learn...
1:29 "Helium mix optimal"
Man, that brought back memories!
1. Low reactivity.
Reaction probability depends not only from the temperature itself, but rather from Lawson criteria, which depends from temperature, time and pressure conditions as well. By regulating all these three conditions required for fusion, and by the concentration of each element in a fuel mix, you could achieve the desired rate of each reaction type between fuel components.
Let's see which types of reactions happen in Helion's reactor when D and 3He components are heated and compressed enough in its core:
a) D + D -> n + 3He
b) D + D -> p + T
c) D + 3He -> p + 4He
As you may see, not only the neutrons and protons are produced in D+D reactions, but they also produce even more helium-3, which is used inside the core immediately, increasing the net energy output from 3He type of reactions.
2. Neutrons.
Neutrons carry around 4% of net energy gain produced inside Helion Energy reactor.
There is a very neutron-transparent material exist like zirconium. This metal is easy to work with, its forgery and turning are rather cheap.
What's also a good thing about zirconium is its ability to remain stable and not turn into dangerous isotope even after 4 consecutive neutron absorption.
Neutrons going outside of the reactor are good friends since they'll be absorbed by the lithium blanket and help breed tritium, which eventually turns into a new He3 fuel, rare isotope required to power new Helium Energy reactors.
When I looked up Helion I was confused as I didn't see any Physics positions even though they are hiring, and iirc they don't have a chief physicist on the project either, the CEO has a masters in Applied physics, but honestly I'd expect them to have atleast one Particle physicist and a nuclear physicist on the project too, but through my short and not very thorough research I couldn't seem to find any names or positions like that in the company. Great video, thanks!
I am also confused on how there is no oversight from the Atomic Energy Commission or any other organization caring about safety.
@@the11382 Claiming something in a RUclips does not require a particle physicist, and does not generate radiation. The AEC doesn't need to worry.
@@the11382 that’s not entirely true. The Atomic Energy commission became the NRC and I guarantee they are keeping track and regulating Helion. The company will have to have a license for the tritium and an accelerator license in whichever state they operate.
@@eljanrimsa5843 Awesome comment!!!
You can find a whole bunch of plasma physicists they employ on linked in
Just some points: the reactivity graph is reactivity averaged over what are assumed to be Maxwell-Boltzmann distributions of particle velocities - good assumptions for things that pulse on long time scales compared to the collision frequency like tokamaks. But in helions approach, I’m not sure the compression is slow enough for the species to relax to a maxwellian, so using graphs of sigma instead of might be more helpful if we know what kinds of particle velocity distributions Helion expects.
Also, the FRC is well studied, but not both collision and compression of FRCs by magnets instead of metal liners
The “large gyro radii” comment comes from the field reversal: you get figure 8 and betatron orbits in addition to tokamak like gyro orbits that have larger radii.
By their own admission they claim temperatures, so near enough equilibrium, hence those reactivities are near enough correct. As you must know, and as I described it in my more in-depth video, the sigma for D-T is way higher anyway.
Ahh! Now I finally understand why 'aneutronic' fusion is not generally pursued by the big projects.
To give the benefit of the doubt to Helion and Real Engineering, Trenta is supposed to be a prototype machine, and Real Engineering said in his video that he posted two interviews with Helion researchers as well. I haven't watched those, so I can't claim anything about them, but it is something to think about.
What I find most funny is, its far more complicated to overcome the higher temp/density fusion issues, D-He3 has. Than it is to solve the tritium resource issue. Its like sawing off a leg to get out a splinter.
I was waiting for someone to do an analysis of Helion Energy fusion reactors. A quick question what do you think is the most viable method to achieve fusion energy production? I personally think it would be a stellarator design
Of the current startups, I would go for Commonwealth Fusion from MIT, but even then they have a mountain to climb and will probably take longer than they promised to investors if they succeed at all. Long term the stellarator is indeed quite promising.
Great question & answer. Thanks 👍
@@ImprobableMatter How about TAE? They are old soldiers on the battlefield, so I assume that they know what they are doing.
@@zhchbob Their company name refers to proton-Boron reactions. They also have an FRC and despite their name they have now switched to D-T, so they agree with me on one thing at least.
@@ImprobableMatter It seems to me that they only plan to use the D-T reactor as a step stone to prove they can achieve ignition so that to attract more investments. Eventually, they still aim at a proton-Boron reactor for energy production.
I don't know why RUclips seems to eat some of my comments. :(
After watching this I went back and re-watched David's presentation last week, they did discuss Bremmsstrahlung radiation and had charts showing it is much lower in a high Beta system (like FRC) than a low Beta system (like a Tokamak).
What I don't understand is the difference between your power output chart and Helion's. They show peak power output per unit volume is lower at 100 KeV than 10 KeV. Around 10-20 is the peak per their graphs. He comments it is since temperature getting too high means your density gets too low.
Edit: Above is from the D-T chart. For D-He3, the ideal is 50 keV.
At 01:20 I'm showing purely the reactivity (no mention of bremsstrahlung at this stage). Something like 20 keV is a pretty good target once you take bremsstrahlung into account. Also bear in mind that using Helium3 means even more bremsstrahlung losses than the D-T reaction, because the power lost goes as the square of the ion charge.
@@ImprobableMatter The D-He3 charts do show higher bremsstrahlung than the D-T charts, now that I know what to look for, and what that term means. Thanks.
@@ImprobableMatter Helion's machines have a very low Te:Ti ratio (
My two cents:
Pulsed fusion may be an easier method to achieve particularly high fusion temperatures, since it’s just a matter of accelerating the plasma over a longer distance / with higher force. While the complexity and inherent problems of this machine means it’s likely not the silver bullet for fusion energy, I think it’s got at least a few things going for it. Any deuterium fusion is definitely a neutron hazard, going for D-H3 and/or D-D fusion might increase the magnitude, but it’s a hazard either way. If you put cheap neutron absorbent material inside the vacuum chamber, at least you can mitigate the damage to expensive components. Naturally this means you can’t have electromagnets right next to the fusion compartment, so designing a pulsed fusion reactor around this limitation may be rather different. Perhaps one where net momentum in the lab frame isn’t zero, such that neutron flux forms a more controllable cone.
Thank you sir, I've been waiting for someone to explain how this is too good to be true.
This is a good video. I think the description of the relevant physics is accessible and interesting, and I appreciate the counterpoint to the overly optimistic marketing video made by real engineering. That said (and this critique is meant in the spirit of friendly feedback), at points it feel a bit needlessly adversarial. Presumably Helion made these choices (in part) for physics/engineering reasons. If that's the case, then some discussion of why you think they chose this approach (perhaps accompanied by a discussion of the flaws with their choices and assumptions) would have been welcomed. Alternatively, maybe they made these decisions for really dumb or gimmicky reasons, in which case explaining those details and nuances would have also been welcomed. If Helion is a scam, then say so and explain why. If they're not a scam and are just wrong or misguided or have a massive flaw with their rationale then explain that part... otherwise we're treading a bit too close to the "disstrack debunk video" format for my liking. Like I said, meant in the spirit of friendly feedback.
Fair enough, I will go into more detail and give credit where it's due.
@@ImprobableMatter After thinking about all the various videos I've seen a little longer, I think my only gentle criticism would be that addressing what Helion is trying to accomplish would be better served by watching and responding to their actual Princeton presentation last year. It was about an hour long, a purely scientific and technical presentation, presumably intended for experts in the field or those studying it.
There's of course nothing wrong with criticizing issues you see in the Real Engineering video, or other videos or marketing material that's out there. But those are third-parties with no expertise in nuclear power, and so you're a possibly getting a distorted view through their eyes.
I feel like a couple of points or concerns you raised in this video were in perfect agreement with David making those same points in his presentation.
If nothing else, David's comment that low beta reactors will never be able to generate enough fusion to be commercially viable was interesting to me.
I agree, this one is overloaded with snark and dismissiveness without really giving us a high quality rebuttal. I would have liked to see a more thorough job here, in particular with respect to their claims about their next machine, and the real engineering puff piece. For instance, the parts about fuel production and maybe some comparisons with respect to tokamak and incidentally-radioactive waste.
@@ImprobableMatter One example of a place where I would've appreciated more detail is the concern about neutron radiation from D-D reactions - you point out that the Trenta reactor doesn't have sufficient shielding for power-plant levels of energy, but since Trenta is only a prototype and operating well below power-plant levels of energy, it would've been nice to see some estimates for how much of a concern neutron radiation would be, at the levels they're actually operating at.
@@ImprobableMatter can you talk about the claim that the traditional fusion fuel supply available on earth would be burned up in a month and a half of operation in the majority of reactor designs. One of the things i was most interested in by their “marketing video” was the promise of a more sustainable fuel supply for fusion power plants.
Ever since Real Engineering's video came out, I've felt like there's some big piece of the puzzle not being mentioned. I don't know much about this stuff, so I was left going "This looks good, but it seems off somehow." without any way to see what is wrong. It just seemed like the way they were claiming things would work doesn't actually produce energy.. not enough to overcome the need to produce feedstock.
Same response here
You earned yourself a sub, haha. Extremely well explained!
God bless you to make more knowledgeable explanations in the future.
Thank you for your work! Always good to see a different side. I think Real Engineering was just excited as we all are. Would be really interesting to see his opinion on this response.
Thank you, I’ve also seen an influx of these fusion startups doing marketing and PR through RUclips content creators- and I’ve been fighting against the overly optimistic and misleading content therein. Unfortunately there’s only so much one person can comment battle with. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for these videos, cause I've always wondered how these companies are getting the funding and how little they seem to publish. I use to follow the General Fusion company's work but I don't believe that company's own researchers ever published a single paper on their progress (if any), so I've become suspicious of these kind of companies and their so-called progress. Thanks for the videos and the breakdown of the complexities involved.
Love the video and all the documentation! Extremely thoroughly, and actually fairly simple and elegant in the explanation despite being such an advanced topic.
This is a shockingly well done video. You need to make more!
Kept thinking about your series of videos on fusion while I watched the real engineering video. Looking forward to what you come out with next. I hope you can also do some more videos on computers, there's very few videos out there like your "from silicon to apps". So many people only have exposure to the software side of engineering a computer, and have no knowledge of the entire system
Love this video. There are many more youtube channels in need of peer reviewing. ;)
Thank you for making this video. I’m not very science fusion smart and I saw Real Engineerings video. This helps clear up my vision through rose pink glasses, and lets me realise stuff better.
Thank you for your effort
Kirov reporting!😊
In fusion as elsewhere - hype is detracting from important work, and a more balanced approach.
I have the same thoughts whenever I hear the word Hydrogen...
This stuff is so complex there is infinite room for relocating goalposts
Yeeeah... I'm a subscriber to Real Engineering and even I thought the video was a load of bollocks and corporate PR fluff. I can't blame Brian too hard for taking a nice cheque to write and record a fluff piece, because we've all got bills to pay at the end of the day, but he definitely sacrificed some of his channel's integrity by bending the truth as much as he did.
I felt disappointed with RealEngineering too.
If anything, seeing that video pop up is what made me extra skeptical of the startup. They're clearly spending a ton of money on sponsored content and marketing, but they didn't really have anything to show in those appearances.. Course, that's just feelings and vibes haha, so it's good to hear some of the physics issues laid out here.
He did the exact same thing with Nikola a year or two ago.
I had the exact same concerns when he published his SpinLaunch video. The Helion one sealed it.
He did a nowhere near critical enough piece on Nikola a couple years back -- not too long before stuff came out. IIRC he caught quite a bit of shit for it. So this is not the first time he's sacrificed some of his channel's credibility.
Brilliant video, thank you for your time and effort
I can remember reading an article in the early 70`s yes the 1970`s where the author suggested that fusion power was 50 years in the future and always would be.So far his forecast has been suprisingly accurate .
The D-He3 mix still burns D-D at a significant rate. FRC experiments have been around for decades. It sounds like a marketing pitch to grab investors. FYI my background is in nuclear engineering/ plasma physics.
We haven't even mentioned the plasma instability problems inherent in this class of devices.
And a lot of those FRC experiments were actually done by Helion, believe it or not. Their co-founder Professor John Slough is a household name in FRC circles.
As for past FRC experiments. They were sufficiently different:
FRCs have unique properties. They get more stable with radius, ratio of elongation/radius and higher temperatures.
Helion's machines are pulsed and do not attempt to hold the plasma stable for prolonged periods of time. That helps a lot.
I would better that if Helion does generate any fusion it will be all D-D fusion. Much like a car when one tire is stuck in the mud. The tire with the least resistance spins while the other tire doesn't move at all.Since the energy levels for D-D is about 4 to 6 times less, He3 is unlikely to ever fuse in their reactor.
Since whenever we get good news about fusion research it gets shot down near immediately, what's the outlook for tech like LFTR?
RE did not ignore the product of tritium in the video, they simply stated that in the way that helion plans on capturing the energy, the neutron produced would not produce power.
Hey , thanks for this explanation as a simple man I can appreciate you breaking down the problems with helion. I will say I was caught in the hype. Cheers
Real Engineering isn't concerned about the 'real" part. It's more of a futurism fan channel.
I am really happy this video got recommend to me.
While I was watching Real Engineering's video I kept thinking:
"If this type of reactor is so much better in so many ways, why are public institutions in Europe building Tocamac?"
Well, thank you for explaining to me.
I would caution against making an assumption that public institutions in Europe are on the right path due to this video's existence and the situation between Helion, even if it convieniently fits here. There are many cases in history where European nuclear powers have simply stuck to their own guns on ideas or executions of plans from those ideas to great detriment. Think British Nuclear for example. Just because Helion is wrong does not make "public institutions in Europe" right lol
I just found this amazing channel, thanks for the corrections on a youtuber I also enjoy. I'll definitely be sticking around
Lol that Red Alert Kirov reference at 1:27 was subtle but worth the like I hit! :D
I have some questions.
1) with regards to reaction:
While Helion does have a „lower“ temperature of 100mil( lets take that as it is) However temperature is not the only factor. The other major factor is Ion density.
Helion has a high density of 3*10^22. For comparison, from what I found Iter will reach temperatures of 150 mil K and an ion density of „only“ 10^19.
So while you might have a smaller reactivity per se by the choice of fuel, this does not mean, that you can not archive sufficient reactions to produce enough energy.
As for the neutron radiation issue, this might drive up costs, but in contrast to Iter, where Beryllium is used in the walls to breed T, Helion can optimize chamber materials to not degrade and shield against neutron radiation. Which is a major advantage.
I might misunderstand fundamentals here, so if anyone who really knows what he is talking about could enlighten me that would be great.
The main problem with the much lower reactivity is how much energy input it will require to reach those plasma conditions. Countless experiments, including other FRCs, have performed fusion reactions and some have even generated 10s of megawatts of energy using D-T, but never having broken even. How likely is Helion to suddenly do better than all of them with a 1000 lower reactivity?
ITER will have ion densities of about 10^20 and temperatures of at least 250MK. Note the quoted figures are typically for the center of the plasma and get lower towards the edge; this must also be the case for Helion.
The whole premise of Helion is that it is supposed to produce no radioactive waste whatsoever. In the Real Engineering video, they say that "tokamak reactors are going to face the exact same issues as nuclear fission energy. They will be too expensive and won't be able to compete with cheaper forms of electricity". By their reckoning then, radioactivity = unprofitability.
@@ImprobableMatter I agree, that radiation is a major issue and also a cost factor.
To evaluate that we would however need to know the actual costs when the reactors are actually industrialized. However it is pretty obvious that a fusion machine of the size of maybe a dozen meters will be much easier to handle than a fission powerplants where the fissile material has actual long half-lifes of high radiation and with the pressure chamber a lot more exposed material.
For cost you also have to look at the competition. And renewables are cheap, however they have a low capacity factor and are not reliable. So there is certainty a need for base load reliable scaleable energy capacity.
To the energy density issue I must add that this is the advantage of inertial confinement fusion. Building up kinetic energy and then converting that to higher chamber pressure and thus density should be more energy efficient than trying to do the same thing with a magnetic field.
This is an aspect you might would have wanted to adress in your rebuttal, as well as setting reactivity itself better into context. Thank you tho, Ive learned something
Higher ion density is going to be a drag, not an improvement for fusion. When ever two ions bump into each other the will lose energy below the threshold needed to break the coulomb barrier. Ideally you want ions to pick up the most speed possible before colliding into another ion.
@@ImprobableMatter " is how much energy input it will require to reach those plasma conditions." - but this touches on a topic I really don't think you analyzed well enough. If the method they intend to use to capture energy works, they should be able to capture a (hopefully significant) fraction of the energy they put in to create the plasma conditions. They're harvesting the energy of the plasma pushing outwards as it expands due to the pressure of the plasma, no?. Some of that will be from the energy added by the fusion, but most of it will be the energy they put in to start with, I would think.
@@auspiciouslywild They will have significant losses from the RF heating they claim to have, bremsstrahlung, plasma turbulence (hence losses of hot ions to the walls and so on), probably many others. There's no way they'll get away with, for example, having 10% fusion energy on top of what they put in and remaining efficient enough to get a net gain from that.
I'm all for criticism of popular ideas; if they're good ideas they'll survive.
When watching the original, I somewhat figured I'd bump into this kind of video. No proof of commercial scale viability = vaporware! Excellent video.
I'm just a lay-person so your educated skepticism is very valuable to me in mitigating my excitement.
My only issue with your commentary is, it seems, and maybe this is my own ignorance, to often be talking about their reactor as it is now. It's my understanding that they are in an iterative process and still aren't attempting to achieve their end product design, they are instead developing scaled down reactors that will help them develop their engineering processes and develop their understanding of the reaction they are focused on.
I think this comes up most prominently when you're talking about the temperature. Your perspective is that they are "content" with a very low temperature. Do you know That they aren't planing to increase that as they iterate their reactor design? You might, again you clearly know what you're talking about and I'm a lay-person.
I will say, when I've watched videos from them, they clearly implied that radiation wasn't an issue in their process, and saying it was a much larger one in systems like JET. Learning from you that that appears to be an overt deception on their part clearly sets off the alarm bells. If there's that major deception, it would be ignorant to assume their aren't others.
Indeed, Helion's power plants will operate at 300 million degrees ion temperature, or maybe even higher. Trenta is a subscale experiment that is currently at some 100 million degrees ion temperature. Still impressive for a relatively small and cheap machine. Also note that their extremely low electron to ion temperature ratio of
@@elmarmoelzer2229 Agreed. I believe the iteration they are on (6?) is like a tock on Intel's now defunct "tick-tock" system. Build something, engineer it perfect. Scale it up, re-engineer, etc.
First, a proof of concept. While this has been done for decades, extraction and refinement of the materials needed can be done much cheaper today and as such the technology is once again becoming a more viable solution.
I'm not at all saying this video is wrong, as it does point out potential problems with Helion's representative in the video mentioned, but I think it might be a bit premature to attack something that's literally still in development.
Can you evaluate if the fusion reactor proposed by General Fusion is of any good? It seems a interesting concept (compressing rotating liquid metal to generate enormous pressure to the D + T gas mixture in the center) but I have no qualification to judge how realistic it is.
I recently was looking at other fusion start-ups and thought the same about them: I cannot easily dismiss them as fast as most others (not caring about neutrons), but even though I'm a total noob on the topic, I do see some problems here anyway:
-the "liquid metal" is in direct contact with the gas/plasma, that is supposed to be fusing: that means either a) It get's to hot and ionizes/evaporates, which cannot be intended or b) it is supposed to equilibrate after the fusion pulse happend and has an enormous heat capacity. I assume option B is supposed to happen, which could be achieved by having a LOT of metal there.
- Neutrons: if the metal is present in enormous quantities, the thickness might be sufficient to shield the rest of the machine from Neutrons, so far so good. Any radioactive isotopes generated by the Neutrons might be filtered out, when the heat is exchanged from the liquid metal to the power generators (or heat exchangers before that).
- The amount of liquid metal in the mashine: This might also be a huge problem. First of all moving the metal requires more energy, the more metal is used, and as the metal is not superfluid (That would be AWESOME!), Rotating the metal will require constant adding of energy. Deforming the metal to compress the fusion gas/plasma also needs more energy, the more metal is used. So afai can see, it all comes down to the balance of energy costs due to rotating/compressing the liquid metal, filtering out "bad" isotopes and losses due to heat exchange and the Carnot process vs. the amount of energy generated by fusion in the middle of the liquid metal.
I'm not good enough to do the calculation, but maybe @ImprobableMatter is...?
Simple answer: None of them will ever work. Fusion as a viable energy source is a dead end.
@@theonlyhero Commenting here to see Matters response
Thank you for making this video! I've tried to point out the flaws of the RE video to others but I think there is alot of wishful thinking out there. S Hossenfelder is also good at pointing out alot of wrongs with fusion claims.
Love to hear your analysis on General Fusion.
thank you for this video. i will admit i was persuaded by the video put out by real engineering.
i looked at the comments and everyone seemed to be really enthusiastic about it. but one guy seemed pretty critical of the company. this prompted me to look up more critical opinions on hellion. i couldn't find anything but your video's on fusion.
i really shouldn't take things at face value. i won't pretend i fully understand what you are talking about it the video. or that i am any the wiser on the subject. but you have made me more critical and doubtful. and as a result i won't be spreading potential wrong information about this topic. it really made me realize that i know nothing about this type of stuff.
It's human after all, Fusion has such a big promises that would solve a lot of our problems (no more need to Fission reactors if you want to move on from coal/gas generation), that would lessen the effects of climate change that we tend to hype up any small improvement or any new prototype that generates power for a fraction of a second that we lose sight that we are still far off from any commercial viability. But there's never been as much money being poured into fusion research, so i have no doubt that the famous "we're 30 years" from achieving fusion is correct now.
The entire fuel processing is something I haven't seen them address sufficiently.
I don't know how bad it is for D+3He fusion, but 4He "ash" quickly (I think it was around 10% fraction) makes D-T fuel unable to fuse properly at the same operational temperature.
So you either need to always have something like 90% unspent fuel that you need to send somewhere for reprocessing, or have a separation system for 3He and 4He. Systems like that usually eat up a lot of energy. For ITER, those systems constitute a significant fraction of the overall energy input.
If you produce tritium as well, you can tack on another system to separate tritium from deuterium.
At that point, you have a facility that can produce nuclear weapon grade & scale amounts of tritium, which means a looooot of red tape.
ash is removed after each pulse
this is one reason pulsing is a lot easier than igniting
I enjoyed the video by Real Engineering and yours, as I learned a few things.
One thing the main stream media has been telling us for years is that Fusion “will provide limitless clean energy”. Which seems a bit wrong. As you point out, that left over Neutron flying about will make stuff radioactive. You still need some sort of containment.
I don’t think we’ll see a commercial on-grid fusion reactor in the next 40 years.
This really blew up!
Thankfully, cause now I discoverd your channel. Followd!
Im 100% certain that Real Engineering got some sort of compensation for making that video or making sure that Helion got the last say before the upload. there where Zero real
critique from the guy on Helions stake/investment and that just dont sit right with an engineering channel.
This was a really great analysis, and has me super curious what your take is on Commonwealth Fusion Systems. Their HTS coils really seem to be a game changer for practical fusion, but this is definitely not my field. Everything I've seen about them has been so positive, and I'd love to hear a reasoned take on if all the excitement is really justified.
Still hoping for your opinion of lppfusion/focus fusion society's "focus fusion" work some day. Any chance you could say something about it?
I vaguely thought the Helion presentation was glib and slick, being more like promotional material from the sales department than rigorous engineering. Intellectual honesty is needed it such presentations.
This is a decent analysis and makes a few mistakes, but the most glaring one is comparing this machine to Chernobyl. The potential for radiation release is completely different. The fusion devices that Helion makes are pulsed machines, they inject a tiny amount of fuel for each shot. In a power plant they would need to do this about 10 times a second in order to achieve a reasonable power rate. In their testing today they can shoot once a minute or once a second, as slow as they want or need to. They could achieve net electricity on a single shot, and it would still be a huge success. They wouldn't need the full radiation shielding until they get close to full power, which is like the last step in this process.
Helion does plan to surround the machine in a lithium or lead-lithium blanket to breed He3, but it sounds like they are taking the reasonable step of first trying to prove they can get net gain before they focus on breeding blankets.
Helion does not plan to use a Lithium blanket. They breed He3 by fusing Deuterium. They COULD use a blanket, but they are currently at least not considering it.
My exact words were "If the Trenta machine, as pictured, were to be producing power plant levels of energy, it would be like the exploded Chernobyl Reactor Number 4". This wording is flowery, but accurate. While I realize I chew my words a lot, the captions I provide can be considered a definitive transcript.
@@ImprobableMatter
1. Trenta is a slightly subscale experiment. It does not produce power plant levels of energy quite yet.
2. Power plants will produce 50 MW of electricity.
3. Fusion machines can not explode. That is just absolutely ridiculous. A single Helion pulse in a power plant would only contain a few kWh of energy.
@@elmarmoelzer2229 that one flew right over your head.
@@ImprobableMatterThis was a big red flag on your video for me. You brought up some important criticism/issues with Helion’s work so far, but your tone and framing weren’t any better than Real Engineering - just from the opposite perspective.
Thank you for the video. I'm expecting that Helion Energy will one day announce that they have decided to add some tritium to their fuel mix, and sometime later will fade away as other startups have done. (I hope I'm wrong.) In the course of events, they will probably announce one day that they have indeed produced some electrical energy, but the amount is not likely to approach or exceed the amount they are consuming.
Adding Tritium doesn't help them because they have no plans to harvest energy from neutrons/heat.
@@stephen4886 OK. I'm no plasma physicist, but it would seem that they (Helion personnel) will need all the heat they can get to promote their preferred reaction. Seems like the 3.5 Mev helium produced via the introduction of some tritium would add some heat to do that and to promote the plasma expansion that they need to drive the magnetic flux back through the coils to demonstrate electrical energy production. As long as they also get some of their preferred reaction, even if it is a small portion of the total, and they can show a little electrical energy has been produced, they could claim a great success to promote more funding. I have no idea of the interaction probability of the neutrons with the plasma, so the contribution of the neutrons to plasma temperature may indeed be negligible for all I know.
Thanks for providing a critique here. I didn't have really any way to know the accuracy myself or how optimistic to be. It's good to know the challenges to their success (even if they do one day succeed, thinking uncritically about them is stupid)
Thank you for keeping my RUclips algorithm clean with solid facts. I don’t like falling for popular face-value fantasies which I literally almost did before I found your video.
I was also pretty bothered by the one-dimensionality of the youtuber’s questions. They had nothing of essence (frustratingly so) which is why I’m additionally glad I found your video.
Subscribed
I'm not a nuclear physicist, but my mechanical engineering background says they could never pump enough coolant into the reaction volume to keep it from melting down, it's too small....compare it to the many cubic feet of volume of the magnetics in hydro generators (cooled by water)....also the capacitor storge, switching semiconductors and interconnecting electrical conductors need to be cooled as well. I squared R loss is what makes this an impossible design.
A very under-rated point. They plan 50MW net electrical output at a rep rate of 1-10Hz. So, charging/discharging at least 5MJ from capacitors at 10Hz reliably for months on end, with cabling which must run through the neutron-shielded radioactive area. Something tells me this won't be so easy.
Two questions come to mind after seeing both videos:
1. One of your main arguments centers around a graph showing reactivity v. temperature. Should we take density into account, and how this influences reactivity? It seems to me that Helion's approach is a hybrid between inertial and magnetic confinement fusion.
- Is there a similar graph you could show for the impact of density?
- Do the relative deltas for reactivity change with density (ie. does it perhaps reduce or increase relative dt-dt fusion)?
2. It's been bugging me that Helion's approach 'shoots' two compressed quanities of fuel towards eachother and expects them to just.. stop.. in the center. Do you have any input on the physics of this? Is there a certain density where the plasma actually collides? Can part of the fuel just pass through without colliding?
Ok.. perhaps more than just two questions ;)
(1) For the effect of density, multiply by density of reactant 1 and then by density of reactant 2 to get a rate per unit volume. The curves then depend only on the temperature. Higher density is better and to be fair to Helion, they claim to be able to reach higher densities. However, their reactivity will be much worse than if they put in D-T and also the D-D reactivity will be higher than D-3He, making more neutrons.
(2) The two blobs of plasma are confined by the magnetic field which moves with them and the two coalesce when they join and the plasma remains trapped by the magnetic field for a short time while fusion reactions happen.
You can see my very long, rambling deep dive in the livestream linked at the end.
1. As Improbable Matter points out, D-D reactivity will be higher as well, when the density increases.
It is worth noting that Trenta is not a power plant, but an experimental machine. The actual power plants will reach higher temperatures (up to 30 keV/330 million degrees) and/or higher densities. They can balance between density and temperature almost linearly (at least within a certain temperature range, from what I understand).
Anyway, at around 30 keV, reactivity of D-He3 is about to overtake D-D. That said and as Improbable Matter correctly pointed out, they will need the D-D reactions to make the He3.
So, they will have to deal with those 2.45 MeV neutrons in 1/3 of the reactions (maybe 1/4 once they have a stable supply of He3 from Tritium decay).
Those are not great, but the problems are not insurmountable, at least a lot easier to solve than with 14 MeV neutrons in D-T fusion machines.
2. FRCs have this weird (but established) property that they merge into a single, hotter and more stable FRC when they collide at hypersonic(!) speeds. Helion is not the only outfit using that. TAE does as well (Helion's cofounder John Slough actually helped TAE with getting that implemented into their C-2 machine) and there is literature on the topic from other groups, who have tried the same thing (e.g. a group in Japan).
Would it be possible they're banking on Deuterium-Helium 3 working "good enough" because helium is easier/cheaper to acquire than Tritium? Could it be possible for them to switch to D-T reaction in the same reactor at a later date once proving temperature capabilities? Idk, I'm still learning this stuff.
Helium-3 is also super rare.
So gladI bumped into this :)
Hello newcomer here and engineering/physics student. for me the biggest takeaway from real engineerings video was the ability to produce the products needed for larger tokomack reactors. The fuel problem for D-T is brought up a lot and it does need to be solved and the radiation on these reactor as you said is a large problem for both types. But could a reactor type such as helions be used more as like a we think of an oil rig or mine which takes in energy to run drills and things? Maybe it's alright to have a net loss on a smaller more replaceable system, if It makes larger reactors and their fuels leaps and bounds cheaper. Maybe Im misunderstanding something fundamental here but this type of reactor produces tritium in addition to the other reactions I'm not sure on what scales thought. Is it possible that this type of research and development of such a system could lead to a cost effective solution to the tritium/radiation problem? I'm interested in your opinion because I'm currently trying to work in the fusion field and helion is on the list of companies I'm considering, yes I am aware of the technical issues and am currently educating myself on fusion I am aware that a truely viable system might never be possible and that if it is its a long road and not just around the corner. A reply would be greatly appreciated as I am not and expert and don't yet have to tools to fully form an opinion. Thank you!
Yes, and indeed any number of reactor types could be used to run fusion reactions which potentially make sense even at an energy loss: produce neutrons to transmute radioactive waste from fission or other transmutation reactions, produce Helium3 for some application or other etc. This is not what they have claimed to want, however, not in the Real Engineering video or in their other publications.
Thank you!
Fusion power will never work, but if you wanted to produce tritium or He3 the most practical solution is a fission plant with a lithium jacket to convert neutrons into tritium. Tritium will decay into He3.
@@guytech7310 people used to say that flying machines would never work, they said no one would ever set foot on the moon.
The Nevers are always wrong in the long term.
@@orionstark Fool & his money soon part ways.
Nevers are always wrong? Where's my flying car? When is my Pam-Am pre-paid ticket to the moon going to be honored? Where are those Fuel cell cars? Where are the fission power plants that are too cheap to meter?
Your viewers are brigading the "Real Engineering" channel with idiotic comments. Good job, you're the new Thunderf00t.
What are your thoughts on Zap Energy approach? Sheared flow plasma?
My knowledge of nuclear physics is that of a high school graduate. I like Real Engineering but something seemed off about that video. Thanks for posting this.
RUclipsr Tom Nicholas made a great video on how good-willing popular science RUclipsrs end up endorsing baseless marketing claims from "futuristic" companies. He takes Veritasium and Waymo's self-driving cars as an example, and you mention Real Engineering and Helion, but I also think of PhysicsGirl and Toyota's hydrogen car, for instance
physicsgirl wont be on youtube for a long long time. she has long term covid effects and is not completely bedridden and will be for a long time.(i kow this has nothing to do with your statement. but just info for people who didnt know.)
(and yes your statement is completely right)
Hey, your videos are very informative, thanks a lot. I am really intrigued in studying nuclear energy at university. (What universities will actually teach this, like is Ontario tech a good one, or any European ones? ) But do you think it will lead to a clear job part where the industry has hope. Or as you said in an other video, fusion reactions with net gains will not come intill a couple decades? The concept seems great but with all these start-ups lying are their jobs that people can actually work in to make the field advance?(or just more time and research). In addition I was also wondering what diplomas you have, due to your knowledge on the topic it seems interesting to know how you got it. Thanks again for these nice fully factual reality checks.
Having a quick Google search, Ontario seems pretty good. Overall, I would go for a solid Physics/Engineering degree and then apply for PhDs or jobs. If you're 18, make sure you can ace the basics like trigonometry and calculus, learn to program in Python and C/C++. I did a Master's in physics, then a PhD in plasma physics, then a postdoc at JET and now I do space plasma physics (video coming soon).
Canada has an interesting history with nuclear power because of scientists fleeing from Britain during World War 2. Their CANDU reactors are neat, read up on them sometime. :)
Great stuff. Now try rewatching the real engineering video again without cracking up haha. Cheers improbable matter dude, subscribed. Oh and cheers for the references, it's almost like you actually do science
I had to do another take. Just as your explanation began, the "Kirov reporting" in had me. Thank you for your analysis and the bits n bobs.
Excellent video, it was interesting to see someone with experience in the field give their analysis.
You've probably been asked this before, but have you heard of the startup First Light Fusion, who are experimenting with kinetic impacts and shockwave dynamics to compress inertial fusion targets? I wonder what your views are on their method. Perhaps it could make for a decent video subject in the future as well?
Mentioned briefly here: ruclips.net/video/mxmxZI2Ltvs/видео.html
@@ImprobableMatter Thanks! I'll give it a watch.
I don't think Helion will succeed, but I do think they are on the right track when it comes to how they are thinking about harvesting their energy directly instead of using steam as a "middleman."
Much like how I view Tesla, while they themselves may not be on the right track, they are pushing the industry towards more sustainable technology. Even if Helion isn't using the right technology now, I hope their idea that directly harvesting the energy is better than just harvesting the energy through steam. Ideally a mix of the two technologies would be used. Direct harvesting to capture as much as it can, and steam turbines to capture the waste heat.
The main problem with Tesla is not their technology. The main problem is that fact that it's a car company, and cars are inherently inefficient when it comes to getting people from point A to point B.
I really don't think they are. Every part of the machine loses energy through heat. The capacitors, the confinement walls, the electrical conductors, the plasma itself, the neutrons emitted; there are so many losses that focusing only on capturing the energy from charged particles is... wasteful at best.
It makes much more logical sense to dunk the whole machine in water and generate energy from that steam. Same with NIF and Tokamaks.
Thank you, that was a great review
Thanks for making this video! I started watching the RealEngineering one but within a few minuts I got a strange feeling in my stomach. The way he talks about "the bright pink flashes from fusion multiple times" as if it's something only they can do gave me a clear idea that this was more sensational than educational. A *lot* of labs can initiate fusion. You can make surprisingly tiny machines that can initiate fusion. But achieving fusion with more energy out than in has only just been demonstrated, and from there there's a long way to generating more electrical power than what goes in.
Anyways, he might address these issues further along in the video, but just the way it was presented gave me a feeling that this was not going to be a nuanced approach to the subject.
I remember seeing that contraption in a video and wondering how the radiation was being stopped. Feel slightly less dumb for asking myself that now ;).
I could see it stopping x-rays / gamma potntially but no way walls that thin stop neutron radiation.
Another really good video!
Your fusion series has been outstanding and opened my eyes.
Could you do a fission series, about the new kinds of fission reactors proposed?
Especially flibe energy’s fluoride molten salt thorium reactor and others?
I am very bullish about these new kinds of fission reactors and I am wondering if my optimism is unwarranted. Most of the time I only hear about the advantages and potential of these reactors and I would like to know what kind of challenges there are to these designs.
I wish you all the best
Or one of the paper-designs that seem to be good. do one about dual fluid reactor, DFR.
I have a question about ITER and other types of tokamaks like SPARC. Is there possible to use spin polarised fuel which would be for more efficient ignition of fusion and also usage of neutrons?
It seems difficult to me, because each nucleus has to collide hundreds of times before fusing, so it seems like its spin would randomize too quickly to make a difference.
This is really interesting! However, I dont quite understand the temperature graph. Is the reactivity plotted at some specific density or is it constant over density? Is there some data for the reactivity as function of pressure and density for the different fuels?
Multiply each one by the density of reactant one and then the density of reactant 2 to get the total rate per unit volume.
Good to see someone finally bring an bit of reality to Fusion energy. In my opinion all of the designs are dead on arrive. Just looking at the cost of building & operating a commercial 1GWe fusion power plant cost at least 10 Times the cost of a fission reactor, and those are already too expensive. its like those fuel cell power cars talked about about 25 years ago: We'll all be driving Fuel cell cars by the 2020s! They forgot to meantion the costs would be about $500K per vehicle, which is totally affordable by the average consumer! /sarc
Helion always seemed almost too good to be true. I hope they succeed, but it is nice to see a contrary take on what they are doing . It seemed that whenever I googled something to understand their technology better, I just got something published by Helion, interesting but one would assume has some bias.
Your video deserves more likes and views. A good video.
Fusion energy is going to be totally rad for a bunch of people who haven't been born yet. In the meantime we need to get serious about small modular reactors so we can solve the clean energy problems we have right now.
Solar and wind are great but the storage problems are much harder than making better nuclear reactors. They're a great supplement but we can't run a power grid on them. It's not going to work if the wind stops blowing at night and hospitals and airports lose power.
Thank you for making these videos and calling out the bullshit. I wish you posted more, even branching into other topics if it interests you. Your knowledge is appreciated and your narration voice is perfect for science videos, very relaxing