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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

#181

Post by tfgg »

exDM69 wrote: post #178
wamatt wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's insanely cool that YC is now part of this. Also love that pg credits Sam for making it happen. On a somewhat related note. Despite the setbacks and the bad rep nuclear gets, fusion really could be a better future. The energy density is in a class of its own, compared to that of renewables. Prof David MacKay demonstrates this quite effectively here[1]. This of course is not to take anything away from renewables o…

> On a somewhat related note. Despite the setbacks and the bad rep nuclear gets, fusion really could be a better future. It sure could be a better future but the "bad rep" problem is bigger than I ever thought. The coalition of green parties in the European council (or Commission? Parliament? EU bureaucracy is confusing-) have the following in their program (paraphrased): "Cancel the funding of all nuclear power proj…

I was interested for a source, so I found this:

http://www.greens-efa.eu/nuclear-safety-in-europe-following-...

"23. Calls on the Commission, the Member States, the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and other public banks to freeze public funding for nuclear fusion, including ITER, or fission, except for the decommissioning of nuclear facilities;"

What the hell? I just don't understand the Green parties sometimes and could never support them while they still do rubbish like this.

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

#182

Post by Retric »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #174
phaemon wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prof Mackay's talk pretty much says that in order to use renewable energy the whole UK would have to be covered in electricity generating equipment. However, 15% of UK energy is generated from renewables (excluding nuclear), which would mean that currently one seventh of the landmass of the UK was covered in wind turbines etc. Which it isn't. You'd be able to tell. So, one of us has made a mistake with our calculatio…

To start with, you're talking about electricity generation, where he is talking about total energy requirements. So your 15% figure doesn't include the energy consumption of cars, aeroplanes, many types of heating etc. I believe he also includes the embodied energy of imports (this was in his book), where if goods are manufactured overseas and imported, it may make sense to count the energy used to manufacture them,…

If your talking total energy then you need to include food and farms already take a lot of land.

So, while close it's vary misleading as going 100% renewable would take less new land than he is suggesting. Add to that you can mix wind farms and regular farms at the cost of less than 1% of the farm land. Not to mention off shore wind farms. Which further reduces the land requirements well below his calculations.

Also, Hydro is vary efficient built in storage using it 24/7 is vary wasteful.

Wind is 24/7, and solar aligns with peak demand fairly well. Anyway, rather than storage your better off with extra wind capacity that's often wasted, with solar to meet your daily peak and hydro to fill in the gaps.

PS: Adding a few peaking power plants is still a good idea, going 80% renewable is a much more reasonable goal until most of the world is at that point. It's silly to chase a few extra % when china is using so much coal power.

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

#183

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #6
porter wrote: post #5

another perpetual motion machine?

The same kinds of dismissals were probably said about everyone who tried to make an airplane. Someone eventually made it work, though.

Yes, and it was a prominent physicist who most famously said it: "heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible"

- Lord Kelvin, 1895 http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/speeches/fg_kitty_hawk...

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

#184

Post by Joeri »

tfgg wrote: post #181
exDM69 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On a somewhat related note. Despite the setbacks and the bad rep nuclear gets, fusion really could be a better future. It sure could be a better future but the "bad rep" problem is bigger than I ever thought. The coalition of green parties in the European council (or Commission? Parliament? EU bureaucracy is confusing-) have the following in their program (paraphrased): "Cancel the funding of all nuclear power proj…

I was interested for a source, so I found this: http://www.greens-efa.eu/nuclear-safety-in-europe-following-... "23. Calls on the Commission, the Member States, the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and other public banks to freeze public funding for nuclear fusion, including ITER, or fission, except for the decommissioning of nuclear facilities;" What the hel…

It's because even ITER produces radioactive waste, and the greens are only interested in clean energy. In their view, with hydro, geothermal, wind and solar we have all the clean energy sources we need, if people cut back their energy consumption. That is, ofcourse, a big if.

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

#185

Post by marvin »

tjradcliffe wrote: post #142
marvin wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a simplification. Defending yourself against unprovoked attack is not juvenile, although there are moral systems that advocate rolling over and giving up if you are attacked. And there is a whole spectrum of combat actions where "defense against unprovoked attack" is one extreme. In industrialized countries, wars of aggression are usually never profitable, but the same can unfortunately not be said for less-d…

Actually, wars of aggression are almost never profitable. Accumulating riches via conquest is almost always a myth, because armies a) destroy much that is of value and b) are unbelievably expensive. "Wealth through superior firepower" has hardly ever been achieved. Even Rome mostly got rich through trade after its armies conquered Europe and North Africa, and a lawful peace was imposed. Had everyone been economically…

Interesting that wars of aggression have almost never been profitable; this fills a hole in my understanding. I've always understood that this fact only became obvious after WWII, and almost 10 years of terribly destructive fighting in Europe and elsewhere.

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

#186

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

One thing that I am curious about: What does it mean by "the expanding plasma is converted directly into electricity" ?

Directly how? No boiling water driving pistons, no intervening steps at all? It seems a bit like "and then a miracle occurs" to me.

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

#187

Post by DennisP »

dkirtley wrote: post #135
omegant wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you guys thinking in a crowdfounding campaign, I'll give money to help projects like yours.

Not yet, right now we are focused on pushing the technical milestones as fast as possible. This is a great question, what do people here think about a crowdfunding campaign for something like fusion, is it worth it?

I helped out with the recent Focus Fusion crowdfunding. Our goal was $200K, we raised $180K, but it also brought in some new investors who took us well over the goal, and who gave the crowdfund the credit for their interest.

We had a very low budget so our marketing was bare-bones.

We had a lot of excitement, but also a lot of skepticism and pushback. Our hired marketing team insisted on an extremely optimistic presentation and that turned a lot of people off. Of course I don't know whether we would have done better with a more measured approach. With LPP being such a small team and so far off the beaten path we faced a lot more skepticism to start with.

The Solar Roadways campaign ran on Indiegogo at the same time and raised over $2 million. They managed to make a video go viral.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/focus-fusion-empowerthewo...

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways

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

#188

Post by robertfw »

malandrew wrote: post #64
marcell wrote: post #60

Can someone explain why this team is confident that they can build a commercially viable reactor in 3 years? Conventional wisdom is that nuclear fusion is "decades away". What does this team know that others don't?

My bet is either: (1) They have a solid lead we don't know about; or (2) Saying you are 3 years away generates hype and interest that keeps netting you the funding to work on something as long term as decades away. Even if they secretly think it is exactly one decade away, it is in their interest and the interest of the current investors to say it's only a few years away since they will depend on other investors to g…

This is something I've struggled with - I am always the cautious type. This is good advice I think for many projects , even those that are not quite moonshots.

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

#189

Post by sbierwagen »

dkirtley wrote: post #136
sbierwagen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He3 is never added? How long can a reactor run without supplying He3? (This thread is having a hard time settling on a single isotope notation.)

The best way to make Helium 3 is with Deuterium fusion. Its a very interesting bootstrap question -- how do you build new reactors, if you have to have working reactors to generate fuel?

So really it's a mixed-mode D-D/3He-D reactor? How much more common are D-D reactions than 3He-D reactions while the reactor is running normally?

How much does the initial charge of 3He cost, given that the stuff costs $7,000 a gram?

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

#190

Post by sbierwagen »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #186

One thing that I am curious about: What does it mean by "the expanding plasma is converted directly into electricity" ? Directly how? No boiling water driving pistons, no intervening steps at all? It seems a bit like "and then a miracle occurs" to me.

There's a couple of ways of doing it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_energy_conversion
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