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Radical hydrogen-boron reactor leapfrogs current nuclear fusion tech?

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Re: Radical hydrogen-boron reactor leapfrogs current nuclear fusion tech?

#211

Post by DennisP »

freeopinion wrote: post #205
joshvm wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price per kwh is not solely about generation efficiency, it's also about distribution and infrastructure. There will always be a cost associated with that which will rise with inflation. Even if we went totally renewable and all your electricity was "free" then you'd still have to account for on demand storage and infrastructure costs. The main benefit of nuclear is its relatively low carbon footprint and in theory l…

What's the fun of tech forecasting if you don't over-promise? A fusion reactor the size of a shipping container? Plop one down between my neighbor's house and my house. Right where our backup generators now sit. It's about the same footprint. No more distribution costs. Well, except for Amazon's fees to drop off the uranium now and then. :)

Uranium is for fission, not fusion. Fuel for this fusion reactor would be some compound of hydrogen and the most common boron isotope. There's plenty of that in a regular box of Borax.

Re: Radical hydrogen-boron reactor leapfrogs current nuclear fusion tech?

#212

Post by njarboe »

smolder wrote: post #175
njarboe wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope that fusion power can become a major power source in the future and humanity really needs it to expand off planet, but like you said above, nuclear fission power got to stage 7 and then stalled. I think the nuclear fusion community should drop the word nuclear completely from their vocabulary or they are likely to end up with the same fate, if they ever get to stage 7.

If we can figure out fusion as a power source, maybe we can also figure out how to improve the quality of people's information exposure too, leading to a smarter population. Currently we try to hide the best information behind paywalls or in private knowledgebases, we neglect schools or profiteer through them (US in particular), and we inundate people with stupefying advertisements and misinformation.

Although both things are very difficult, the knowledge needed to create a commercial fusion reactor is very different to educating a whole populous not to be so afraid of radiation (which is natural and found everywhere all the time).

Re: Radical hydrogen-boron reactor leapfrogs current nuclear fusion tech?

#213

Post by acidburnNSA »

tinco wrote: post #198
acidburnNSA wrote: post #76

Always happy to see people doing new and interesting stuff with fusion. I got into nuclear technology because of ITER back in the early 2000s. Worked on it continuously (mostly in advanced fission) ever since. > "The timeline question is a tricky one," he says. "I don't want to be a laughing stock by promising we can deliver something in 10 years, and then not getting there. First step is setting up camp as a company…

Off-topic question: is there some software part in nuclear energy systems that is restricting plants or research? I'd like to contribute to the industry as a non-physicist, but it's hard for me to imagine what kind of software might be missing or is being sold by too expensive specialist companies. I imagine most software is tied to the specific devices they run on, but perhaps there's coupling or analytical software…

It just so happens that a nuclear fission reactor analysis framework recently emerged on github partially with hopes that people like you would be interested in contributing. It hasn't been widely publicized and is pretty esoteric but is there.

https://github.com/terrapower/armi

Some more open source things in the domain can be found here: https://github.com/paulromano/awesome-nuclear/blob/master/RE...

Re: Radical hydrogen-boron reactor leapfrogs current nuclear fusion tech?

#214

Post by DennisP »

hinkley wrote: post #183
eveningcoffee wrote: post #23

Cool thing about this is that it will be a direct energy capture if I understand it correctly. "The hydrogen/boron fusion creates a couple of helium atoms," he continues. "They're naked heliums, they don't have electrons, so they have a positive charge. We just have to collect that charge. Essentially, the lack of electrons is a product of the reaction and it directly creates the current."

This doesn't sound like it would be more energy-dense than a chemical reaction. How much power can you extract - electrically - from two alpha particles?

Depends on how fast they're going. Fusion generates quite a lot of energy per reaction.

According to HB11's papers, each shot would have about 30 kilojoules input power via laser, consume 14 grams of fuel, and produce over a gigajoule output power, or 277 kWh.

They think within a decade the lasers will be capable of one shot per second. Right now it's more like one per minute.

Re: Radical hydrogen-boron reactor leapfrogs current nuclear fusion tech?

#215

Post by DennisP »

LaMarseillaise wrote: post #199
pier25 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why, but AFAIK there are no countries investing heavily in fission to make that happen.

Thank you for your honest reply. I have heard of efforts in India and China to develop and build out nuclear fission plants, though I do not know the scale of these plans. However, even ITER (the largest fusion project right now) has a budget of only $10-20 billion. I have high hopes for ITER, but even that has been protested by anti-nuclear organizations such as Greenpeace. I worry that fusion, despite its many adva…

It's hard to imagine anyone successfully protesting a power source which is non-polluting, very close to non-radioactive, dispatchable, and likely cheaper than any other system with those properties. However, if the U.S. does turn out to be that silly, we'll likely get over it when we find ourselves being outcompeted by China, which will certainly have no qualms.

Re: Radical hydrogen-boron reactor leapfrogs current nuclear fusion tech?

#217

Post by foobiekr »

cfv wrote: post #185

On paper, this sounds absolutely awesome and a huge game changer. I'm super concerned about the military applications tho. Giving functionally endless, mostly free power to warmonger countries with the ability to field drones is something extremely concerning for me.

they basically already have endless, mostly free power in the sense you are getting at. that it isn't clean is irrelevant to their use case.

china, iran, the united states, etc. militaries are not hurting for energy and already make heavy use of small nuclear reactors where just hauling fuel is not an easier choice.

Re: Radical hydrogen-boron reactor leapfrogs current nuclear fusion tech?

#218

Post by 1024core »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #76

Always happy to see people doing new and interesting stuff with fusion. I got into nuclear technology because of ITER back in the early 2000s. Worked on it continuously (mostly in advanced fission) ever since. > "The timeline question is a tricky one," he says. "I don't want to be a laughing stock by promising we can deliver something in 10 years, and then not getting there. First step is setting up camp as a company…

Apparently Step 5 is not needed?

> The alpha particles generated by the reaction would create an electrical flow that can be channeled almost directly into an existing power grid with no need for a heat exchanger or steam turbine generator."

Re: Radical hydrogen-boron reactor leapfrogs current nuclear fusion tech?

#219

Post by sandworm101 »

1024core wrote: post #218
acidburnNSA wrote: post #76

Always happy to see people doing new and interesting stuff with fusion. I got into nuclear technology because of ITER back in the early 2000s. Worked on it continuously (mostly in advanced fission) ever since. > "The timeline question is a tricky one," he says. "I don't want to be a laughing stock by promising we can deliver something in 10 years, and then not getting there. First step is setting up camp as a company…

Apparently Step 5 is not needed? > The alpha particles generated by the reaction would create an electrical flow that can be channeled almost directly into an existing power grid with no need for a heat exchanger or steam turbine generator."

It isn't that simple. This thing will be DC, and at some random voltage. They will need huge bits of kit to convert the output into some sort of usable power. It is electricity yes, but not clean useful power.

Re: Radical hydrogen-boron reactor leapfrogs current nuclear fusion tech?

#220

Post by DennisP »

microtherion wrote: post #207
lallysingh wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these reactors are low heat, not radioactive, and use plentiful fuel, what's the threat model? Is it just worried about availability of power?

According to the article, the energy is generated by alpha particles, which are in principle a very dangerous form of radiation. It's not clear to me, though, whether the radiation stops as soon as the fusion does or not.

Substances which continuously emit alpha particles are dangerous.

This is something different. With every laser shot there will be a burst of alpha particles. Then they'll slow down and just be plain old helium. If the direct energy conversion works, they'll get slowed down very quickly.

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