Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Y Combinator And Mithril Invest In Helion, A Nuclear Fusion Startup

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 201 posts

Re: Y Combinator And Mithril Invest In Helion, A Nuclear Fusion Startup

#31

Post by dkirtley »

iLoch wrote: post #13

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

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

Re: Y Combinator And Mithril Invest In Helion, A Nuclear Fusion Startup

#32

Post by sillysaurus3 »

tormeh wrote: post #7
porter wrote: post #5

another perpetual motion machine?

Nah. Just a very risky investment. ITER uses "safe" physics that we know how works - it's a magnificent engineering exercise, but there are no new insights in fusion per se required. These guys seem to be aiming for an alternative solution with more eccentric science behind it. It will probably not work out, but neither does most start-ups.

What is meant by eccentric science? Would you be specific?

Re: Y Combinator And Mithril Invest In Helion, A Nuclear Fusion Startup

#33

Post by tomp »

> Helion Energy [...] says it has a plan to build a fusion reactor [..], a challenge whose solution has been considered decades away for, well, decades. Helion CEO David Kirtley says that his company can do it in three.

Three decades? Either this is a very long-term investment, or a very confusingly written article.

Re: Y Combinator And Mithril Invest In Helion, A Nuclear Fusion Startup

#34

Post by cwal37 »

dkirtley wrote: post #24
aetherson wrote: post #17

> Helion CEO David Kirtley says that his company can do it in three. Three... years? Decades? Days? Millennia?

We are hoping three years, three decades is just too late to matter. Part of what was not mentioned are the years that we have put into this already. Fusion is definitely a tough problem, but one that is worth it to solve.

Forgive me if this is forward, but are you guys hiring? I'm in no way a physicist, but I do know a few with strong experimental backgrounds (mostly in nuclear), and I try to keep my ear to the ground for intriguing job opportunities for my friends.

Re: Y Combinator And Mithril Invest In Helion, A Nuclear Fusion Startup

#35

Post by leephillips »

[deleted] wrote: post #20
pinaceae wrote: post #8

is this the equivalent of throwing shit at the wall and see what sticks? why do vcs with a specialty in software suddenly stray into completely unknown territory? nothing left to fund in software? rarely does this end well.

[deleted]

The NIF has never reached "break even" in the sense that most people might understand that phrase. Orders of magnitude more energy went into the system than could have been extracted from the resultant fusion reactions. However, post-analysis of a bunch of shots showed approximately two where, if you accept a model for the amount of laser energy that was incident on the target, somewhat more than that amount of energy was produced from nuclear fusion. Several other shots in the same series, under the same conditions, failed to produce this "break-even" energy. This is all in the actual papers, not, of course, in LLNL's press releases.

Re: Y Combinator And Mithril Invest In Helion, A Nuclear Fusion Startup

#36

Post by bellerocky »

fuddle wrote: post #29

Excellent news, I can't wait to drive a Tesla powered by fusion power.

I don't think mobile fusion reactors are what they're going for. And if you're looking to reduce global carbon emissions try walking, biking or using public transportation. It's true electric cars don't emit carbon the way a fuel based car does, but the production and maintenance of an electric vehicle certainly does.

Re: Y Combinator And Mithril Invest In Helion, A Nuclear Fusion Startup

#37

Post by tormeh »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #32
tormeh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. Just a very risky investment. ITER uses "safe" physics that we know how works - it's a magnificent engineering exercise, but there are no new insights in fusion per se required. These guys seem to be aiming for an alternative solution with more eccentric science behind it. It will probably not work out, but neither does most start-ups.

What is meant by eccentric science? Would you be specific?

Well, I don't know much about the subject, but the way I've understood it there's ITER and then there are a couple other reactor projects. Everyone except ITER is violating some kind of popularly held belief among physicists - they could be cheaper and better, but it's far from certain that they'll work at all. This just looks like another one of those.

Re: Y Combinator And Mithril Invest In Helion, A Nuclear Fusion Startup

#39

Post by ChuckMcM »

rdl wrote: post #23

It's interesting that you can justify this investment in at least four separate ways, independently: 1) Even if there is a low chance of success, it would be wildly profitable if successful, and investing early gets you a good share if it's successful. 2) Fusion power would make the world a better place; investing in this way, when you already have huge returns and it's someone else's money, is actually rational even…

The risk of #3 is that they don't create fusion but they do develop a machine that can emit streams of hot plasma which is then turned into the Navy's weapon of choice for close weapons support on carrier battle groups.

That said, I am looking forward to at least one of the fusion efforts bearing fruit. I'm something of an optimist here but I expect a durable solution to the 'energy problem' to emerge from our developing understanding of both quantum mechanics and particle physics. I am also cognizant of the fact that it also raises the bar on both good and bad things that humans can do. The tricky parts are in the transitions, pre and post event.

Re: Y Combinator And Mithril Invest In Helion, A Nuclear Fusion Startup

#40

Post by [deleted] »

tomp wrote: post #33

> Helion Energy [...] says it has a plan to build a fusion reactor [..], a challenge whose solution has been considered decades away for, well, decades. Helion CEO David Kirtley says that his company can do it in three. Three decades? Either this is a very long-term investment, or a very confusingly written article.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN