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

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

#71

Post by Aerospark »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #39
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 develo…

It would be pretty difficult to weaponize a closed system design without significant R&D. The only risk I see would be if some small component of their design was transferred to an existing military weapon to make it better.

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

#72

Post by ForHackernews »

cwal37 wrote: post #19

Nature had a fun article a few weeks back on the current trickle of VC into fusion startups. http://www.nature.com/news/plasma-physics-the-fusion-upstart... It's certainly interesting, and I wish these companies all the best. The consternation I see occasionally over a company like this getting a (relatively) small amount of funding confuses me. There are so many software startups that receive equivalent or greater f…

> or even Uber

Talk about an understatement. Uber is just a cheaper cab. Commercially viable fusion is a game-changer on a planetary scale: Halting global warming by replacing fossil fuels, hydrogen fuel cells become viable by generating hydrogen through hydrolysis, energy-intensive desalinization plants deliver fresh water for drinking and irrigation.

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

#74

Post by dkirtley »

scythe wrote: post #63
sbierwagen wrote: post #54

Safe: With no possibility of melt-down, or hazardous nuclear waste, fusion dose not suffer the drawbacks that make fission an unattractive alternative. Eyeroll. D-He3 fusion produces less neutron flux than D-T, but it's hardly aneutronic-- otherwise they couldn't breed He3 from it. After a decade, the whole reactor will be nuclear waste. I wonder what the service interval on an installed reactor will be? Or are they…

>D-He3 fusion produces less neutron flux than D-T, but it's hardly aneutronic-- otherwise they couldn't breed 3He from it. You can't "breed" 3He; you have to breed tritium, which decays to He3 with a half-life of 12 years. D-3He reactors do produce some neutrons, roughly 1% of the flux of D-T, and almost entirely from D-D side-reactions. Actually, a big problem with D-3He as of today is the lack of neutrons -- since…

Great reply. The wiki also has a long discussion about Helium 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3 Fusion produces neutrons either in the first or secondary reactions, but there are ways to minimize the amount of them and their energy (and damage/radioactivity)to where you don't generate "nuclear waste". There is an interesting continuum of fusion reactions from pure D-D (which produces little energy, but lots of lower energy neutrons) to D-He3 (that produces some neutrons and lots of energy) to pure He3-He3 (that is called 'anuetronic').

D-D fusion makes Tritium (that decays into He3), Helium 3, or Helium 4 through the fusion process itself, with no breeding.

We believe that there is a correct ratio called Self-Supplied in which you have a small amount of 2.4 MeV neutrons, only deuterium as an input fuel, and the majority of the energy is from the Helium 3 fusion. The hard part is how to separate out the right isotope mixture from the exhaust between pulses.

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

#75

Post by scottlocklin »

kayhi wrote: post #2

Anyone have more insights into how this works? The figure, deuterium fuel is confusing as deuterium is an isotope and am unsure what they mean 'extraction' (how?).

Their patents are easily found.

https://www.google.com/patents/US20140023170 https://www.google.com/patents/US20110293056

It's not a completely novel approach, and it's probably not a great investment compared to some other fusion startups, though I am glad people are investing in this rather than idiotic app companies. Kudos to the big-Y for taking on some useful risk. $1.5M is cheap, and should be dished out to many such companies.

Interestingly, the inventor seems to be interested in using the technology to build rockets. If they achieve > break-even, this might actually be a better use for the technology, as it is not obvious how to extract power from the plasma based on their patents, but it would be real easy to just shoot some plasma out one end of the thing for a dandy rocket engine. I guess MHD would work, and would not be a patentable innovation, but this really looks like a space rocket to me.

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

#76

Post by cpihl »

curtis wrote: post #69

I think these guys are using MagLIF (Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion). Here's an article about MagLIF research using the Z Machine at Sandia Labs: http://www.nature.com/news/triple-threat-method-sparks-hope-...

Close but with some important differences. We've tried that approach and it has some interesting potential applications but, when it comes to building a power plant that has to last decades, we think the engineering is just too difficult. Instead of pushing on a liner that then pushes on the plasma, we directly push on the plasma with magnetic field. The engineering, while still difficult, is much easier to tackle.

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

#77

Post by cwal37 »

ForHackernews wrote: post #72
cwal37 wrote: post #19

Nature had a fun article a few weeks back on the current trickle of VC into fusion startups. http://www.nature.com/news/plasma-physics-the-fusion-upstart... It's certainly interesting, and I wish these companies all the best. The consternation I see occasionally over a company like this getting a (relatively) small amount of funding confuses me. There are so many software startups that receive equivalent or greater f…

> or even Uber Talk about an understatement. Uber is just a cheaper cab. Commercially viable fusion is a game-changer on a planetary scale: Halting global warming by replacing fossil fuels, hydrogen fuel cells become viable by generating hydrogen through hydrolysis, energy-intensive desalinization plants deliver fresh water for drinking and irrigation.

I was trying to be nice. I'm a strong environmentalist via academics (BS/MS in environmental science), and currently a research analyst in renewable energy economics, so I have very strong feelings (and I like to think a well-grounded sense) about how fucked the environment and incentives around it are.

I was giving a (very) charitable reading of the occasional claim that Uber will change the way everything works via its framework. A more tempered tone normally does better on HN, but to be totally honest, I don't think any of those companies I mentioned could even come near what Helion would achieve if successful.

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

#78

Post by soperj »

malandrew wrote: post #61
TillE wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've already weaponized nuclear fusion into the most destructive bomb ever created. It probably couldn't get a whole lot worse than that. I think there are other paths to sustainable energy, but certainly viable fusion power is the holy grail.

I don't understand why this was downvoted. I'm not going to discount the possibility to invent something worse then our most powerful fusion bomb, but if we talk probability here, developing processes that allow greater control is likely to result in a worst case scenario where we have a weapon that is at most as powerful as what we already have, but more focused. IMHO focused fusion destruction is likely to be far m…

I'll never understand being able to kill someone in a humane way(through acts of war). You're killing someone.

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

#79

Post by philwelch »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #39
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 develo…

> 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.

The possibility of pivoting your business model to "building plasma cannons for the Navy" is less of a risk and more of an awesome opportunity. I mean, defense contracting is a bit of a drag and there's tons of red tape, but if there's anything as cool as building fusion reactors small enough to replace diesel generators, it's building plasma cannons for the Navy.

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

#80

Post by cpihl »

kayhi wrote: post #28
sloughj wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now we just buy deuterium off the shelf, it is low cost and plentiful. You can get deuterium by electrolysis of heavy water, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water

Perhaps low cost (25L, ~$600) is relative, depending on the purity, but am unsure how much scale a project like this would use.

I love this question because it helps illustrate just how different fusion is from other energy sources. If it works, a 50 MW Fusion Engine would run for 5-10 years on a single 55 gallon drum of heavy water.
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