A New Way to Achieve Nuclear Fusion: Helion

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Real Engineering

Real Engineering

Күн бұрын

Пікірлер: 15 000
@RealEngineering
@RealEngineering 5 ай бұрын
We launched our job recruitment platform this year, and Helion are hiring! startpropeller.com/employer/helionenergy/
@starbase51shiptestingfacil97
@starbase51shiptestingfacil97 3 ай бұрын
Engineering, but bad or no science.
@hubertim3758
@hubertim3758 3 ай бұрын
Cool story bro, did the same thing sticking a spark plug in my microwave
@slapndaface
@slapndaface Ай бұрын
@@hubertim3758 lol
@noslo1098
@noslo1098 22 күн бұрын
Social engineering has a great success ratio. Overall, short-term results defy logic - and the effectivity of resolve or all-in investment makes the audience captive, invested, and engaged. Unfortunately, true engineering relies upon math (best guess theories applied through observation with a numerical result), physics (observing the interactions or inherent action of things no one understands and applying or suggesting new numerical results) and applying said theories with results. Engineers bridge the gap between theory and reality. They don't theorize, they do.
@diyhack
@diyhack 7 күн бұрын
I say it will never work 😅😅
@257shooter9
@257shooter9 Жыл бұрын
I really enjoyed the documentary. I retired from Helion in July of 2021, now I can show my family what I did for a living. I worked on FRC plasma machines for 35 years altogether. It’s good to see all the hard work come to fruition at Helion. My one disappointment with the footage is you didn’t show much of the puff fill system. That was my big contribution. I imagine I’m the only one that would get a thrill from a bunch of valves and stainless steel tubing.
@Platanov
@Platanov Жыл бұрын
I dunno, there are probably a lot of rocket engine nerds watching this :p
@circuschris2880
@circuschris2880 Жыл бұрын
I only just started watching it and my hopes raised then I was pulled back to reality in my skepticism. As someone that worked there, can you estimate how long it might be before this could be commercialised and cranking out way more power?
@elmarmoelzer2229
@elmarmoelzer2229 Жыл бұрын
I did some small time work for Helion in early days. Great company! I am sorry your contribution did not get shown more. I for one appreciate your hard work.
@NoNameAtAll2
@NoNameAtAll2 Жыл бұрын
what's "puff"?
@jakeaurod
@jakeaurod Жыл бұрын
@@NoNameAtAll2 a magic dragon
@ThrustersX
@ThrustersX Жыл бұрын
I'm just as amazed by the cable management outside the nuclear reactor.
@buzzshocker1069
@buzzshocker1069 Жыл бұрын
So not only will they be able to produce Helium 3 for further fusion but also create Tritium that can be sold to those different type of Fusion reactors
@alantremonti1381
@alantremonti1381 Жыл бұрын
The real accomplishment here. XD
@tz8785
@tz8785 Жыл бұрын
With the current likely flowing through those cables (and the magnetic fields both coils and cables generate), they probably have to do something like that or the wiring gets its own ideas about "proper" arrangement.
@EpecFale
@EpecFale Жыл бұрын
Nothing sexier than cable management.
@danisob3633
@danisob3633 Жыл бұрын
@@buzzshocker1069 bro said "lets copy this comment all over the comment section"
@Youtubeguy543
@Youtubeguy543 Жыл бұрын
The current major failing of Helion is that they have yet to turn their device vertical and start referring to it as a warp core.
@SonsOfLorgar
@SonsOfLorgar Жыл бұрын
The second maijor failiure is that they also haven't miniaturized it and used it to power an Urbanmech
@edwardsmith7131
@edwardsmith7131 Жыл бұрын
They already used the phrase "plasma injector" properly
@FrikInCasualMode
@FrikInCasualMode Жыл бұрын
@@SonsOfLorgar We are already past the promised date of having first fusion engine in production. Get on it, GM!
@johnrickard8512
@johnrickard8512 Жыл бұрын
Funnily enough this is definitely how warp cores work in Star Trek...yet another technology that the show predicted?
@scrocrates6380
@scrocrates6380 Жыл бұрын
warp cores use a matter/antimatter reaction rather than nuclear fusion. and as I recall, the warp core in Enterprise (the NX starship) was horizontally configured.
@LilybeeTV
@LilybeeTV Жыл бұрын
4:24 as an engineer, no matter how sophisticated and groundbreaking the design there's always room for zip ties.
@Attaxalotl
@Attaxalotl 9 ай бұрын
Good cable management knows no bounds
@tlindsay1007
@tlindsay1007 7 ай бұрын
LOL! They're truly one of the best items we have today. So simple, yet so useful for so many purposes!
@IJFisher001
@IJFisher001 6 ай бұрын
Adding a zip tie to hold the tubing onto our $20,000 ICP-MS was standard operating procedure at the lab I worked at
@LilybeeTV
@LilybeeTV 6 ай бұрын
@@IJFisher001 gotta hold up the argon tube somehow lol
@EchoTangoSuitcase
@EchoTangoSuitcase 6 ай бұрын
You can't have an advanced technological civilization without Zip Ties, Velcro, and Duct Tape.
@HelionEnergy
@HelionEnergy Жыл бұрын
Thanks for visiting, Brian. As always, we appreciate your ability to breakdown complex engineering topics - including direct energy recovery from fusion!
@sokrates297
@sokrates297 Жыл бұрын
You guys are inspiring, making me excited for the future. great work!
@physe8052
@physe8052 Жыл бұрын
I wish I already had the requisite education and experience necessary to work at Helion!
@InvestingBookSummaries
@InvestingBookSummaries Жыл бұрын
Really hoping energy prices can PLUMMET in future. Keep doing great stuff!
@ghoulbuster1
@ghoulbuster1 Жыл бұрын
You guys willing to one day put one of these reactors inside a space ship? Propulsion technology is also advancing!
@rookiebeotch
@rookiebeotch Жыл бұрын
Hurry up and deliver us to the future!
@nitromusik9275
@nitromusik9275 Жыл бұрын
8:30 can we acknowledge that he just held a flawless and calm monologue explaining such a complex topic perfectly and very easy to understand without a pause or a hick-up.. not even an "uhmm"
@drillbitz
@drillbitz Жыл бұрын
And he made it so understandable as well!
@siyes7405
@siyes7405 Жыл бұрын
8:01 umm and 8:07 :)
@ivynightphoenix5407
@ivynightphoenix5407 Жыл бұрын
It's like Jordi explaining how the Warp Drive plasma works on the USS Enterprise
@vivacinquecento
@vivacinquecento Жыл бұрын
Truly exceptional delivery. Pure genius. The range of human capability is truly astonishing.
@herculas2611
@herculas2611 Жыл бұрын
Elon should learn from this guy
@ww6156
@ww6156 Жыл бұрын
I love the fact that it generates electricity directly from the reaction, it always feels weird to go through all this cutting edge technology just to build a stream engine!
@moormanjean5636
@moormanjean5636 Жыл бұрын
So agree hahaha i was always triggered by that myself
@tacomeme429
@tacomeme429 Жыл бұрын
If anything, it shows the long-lasting impact steam engines have had on our society
@jordaniliev5825
@jordaniliev5825 Жыл бұрын
LOL....I think the good news is that it isn't too big, nothing compared to ITER that is! This can easily be shrunk 10 times by optimisation in the future and fit in a car.
@Johny40Se7en
@Johny40Se7en Жыл бұрын
Aye, but if a steam engine created that much heat or energy in general, there'd be one HECK of an explosion, and not the right kind 😆😅😝
@MrMonkeybat
@MrMonkeybat Жыл бұрын
A steam engine was cutting edge 2 to 3 centuries ago.
@JohnEvans-ct6mz
@JohnEvans-ct6mz Жыл бұрын
This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time. And the fact that it looks and works similarly to the warp reactor on the Enterprise D, makes it just that much more awesome. The best part is, it’s not just another super over complicated way to boil water.
@Roach_Dogg_JR
@Roach_Dogg_JR Жыл бұрын
I was thinking the same, looks exactly like cylindrical “warp cores” or “fusion cores” that are in a lot of sci fi media.
@harveyspecterdj6661
@harveyspecterdj6661 7 ай бұрын
LOL I was thinking the exact same thing hearing the term "deuterium" 😀
@uavcrazy9562
@uavcrazy9562 6 ай бұрын
@@harveyspecterdj6661 "zee sheeps out of dylithium kreestals cap'n" also looks very similar to the one used on the enterprise NX-01, from StarTrek Enterprise.
@andreabardelli3137
@andreabardelli3137 4 ай бұрын
And it works on pulses too! When they want more power the pulses get faster
@rhphoenix5
@rhphoenix5 Жыл бұрын
The timing of these two videos were immaculate
@santiagogonzalezs7183
@santiagogonzalezs7183 Жыл бұрын
last video... Stupid humans. today humans smart
@Ryanisalive
@Ryanisalive Жыл бұрын
The new word learned! Thanks a lot :)
@o.m.b.demolitionenterprise5398
@o.m.b.demolitionenterprise5398 Жыл бұрын
🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
@Ryanisalive
@Ryanisalive Жыл бұрын
@@santiagogonzalezs7183 They are still humans :)
@Ryanisalive
@Ryanisalive Жыл бұрын
@@santiagogonzalezs7183 Humanity is the only form of life that is dumb and Intelligent at the same time.
@austinfaust3374
@austinfaust3374 Жыл бұрын
I feel so lucky to live in a time where this information is not only readily available, but there are people like you out here breaking this information down into bite sized pieces that are easier to understand. Thank you for all the hard work you do.
@rubiconnn
@rubiconnn Жыл бұрын
It's awesome. I just wish he would stop idolizing the CEOs of these companies and start giving credit to the actual brains behind it, the employees.
@norliegh
@norliegh Жыл бұрын
​@@rubiconnn A group of people without a leader is pointless. No society has ever worked without a direction. It is how it is.
@rubiconnn
@rubiconnn Жыл бұрын
@@norliegh A leader without employees is nothing. Not even basic work will get done. Co-ops are a thing. A vast majority of scientific progress is done by research teams or individuals without a CEO to tell them what to do.
@Lolatyou332
@Lolatyou332 Жыл бұрын
@@rubiconnn a bad CEO can immediately destroy a company.. Employees do the work, the CEO decides on where the employees need to focus their efforts.. Obviously the direction of this company is to build the technology to generate scalable nuclear fusion power using helium 3, which they would have the patent for and be able to sell it. If they didn't have that leadership and obvious direction, how would they even get the funding to work on these projects?
@ractmo
@ractmo Жыл бұрын
@@rubiconnn Do you think the CEO of such companies is someone who doesn't understand the technology? He must have knowledge above or atleast par with his teammates!!
@ramdomguyfiftychars
@ramdomguyfiftychars Жыл бұрын
"In this machine is a delicate orchestra of electronics pushing two plasma rings into a violent collision, and catching that collision in a magnetic trap in the center, which proceeds to shrink until the ions trapped within it have nowhere else to go but to fuse, overcoming one of the universe's strongest forces to create new elements in the belly of a man-made machine." Dude, this gave me goosebumps
@vibaj16
@vibaj16 Жыл бұрын
it overcomes one of the strongest forces by using the strongest force
@johngrisum
@johngrisum Жыл бұрын
Have to shift my legs a bit.
@xX-fd2qj
@xX-fd2qj Жыл бұрын
It's an elegant solution too, it's a fundamentally similar (enough) process to a combustion engine which gives me high hopes for our ability to quickly iterate on it.
@Lacquerhead-TX
@Lacquerhead-TX Жыл бұрын
Its not unlike two turbojet engines pointed at each other, except plasma.
@GarettHarnish
@GarettHarnish Жыл бұрын
@J.P Slaym0 General Fusion's magnetized target fusion reactor is a lot more like an ICE. It even has pistons.
@what_to_read
@what_to_read Жыл бұрын
I have to say, I LOVE Engineering - it's one of the few places in the world where you can really feel like you can make a difference. Whether it's a new product, a creative solution, or something that helps make our planet better, engineering enables us to make real change. As an engineer myself, I love the constant challenge of coding, problem solving, and creating something that will improve our lives. Engineering is amazing!
@rubiks6
@rubiks6 Жыл бұрын
This is the first description of a fusion reactor I have seen that seems like it could really work. Eliminating the heat/steam/turbine steps is huge. Slamming two rings of fusion material together rather than trying to just heat a kernel of material is also genius. Having a system to actually produce fuel on a realistic scale - you guys are just on your toes. This is not just some breakthrough but many breakthroughs. Great job Helion! Good luck as you move forward.
@heavygaming6596
@heavygaming6596 Жыл бұрын
isnt the energy produced from this heat energy anyways? so they just havent added the "heat/steam/turbine" part yet?
@pavankumarreddy93
@pavankumarreddy93 Жыл бұрын
@@heavygaming6596not really. They mentioned the energy here is captured as pressure by the reacting ions outwards on the magnetic field confining them. This expanding magnetic field produces the extra current which is how energy is extracted. Pretty clean!
@heavygaming6596
@heavygaming6596 Жыл бұрын
@@pavankumarreddy93 Nice, Thank you for explaining
@rubiks6
@rubiks6 Жыл бұрын
@@heavygaming6596 - No, not heat energy. Electro-magnetic energy produced by the sudden powerful movement of the hydrogen and helium ions. Just like moving a magnet through a coil. Rather than turning heat into steam and steam into rotational motion rotating a magnet inside a coil, let's take the electromagnetism generated by the moving ions of the fusion reaction and draw of their energy directly as electricity. It's genius. I hope I made sense to you.
@heavygaming6596
@heavygaming6596 Жыл бұрын
@@rubiks6 yes thank you
@ajschwartz3924
@ajschwartz3924 Жыл бұрын
My mind is completely blown. As a studying engineer, seeing this crazy amount of engineering going on that I wasn't even aware of blew me away, I'm super excited to see where this project goes in the future.
@elijaholing
@elijaholing Жыл бұрын
They'll probably use AI from OpenAI to speed up their work
@NOT-A-Monolith
@NOT-A-Monolith Жыл бұрын
@@elijaholing impossible
@NOT-A-Monolith
@NOT-A-Monolith Жыл бұрын
@@elijaholing The AI still needs human understanding it can't create and solve problems A human still needs to teach it the answer. Then it could amplify or simplify the method and resources of the equation for the final product. You simply can't ask something like create teleportation if we don't understand it's principle act. AI won't solve it. Open AI will be more used as a ultra intelligent person who's mind could be implemented into millions of let's say peak robotic robots once achieve and simply build sky scrapers do surgery on humans . Go to war. Do our chores and build projects . But everything is learned for a initial code we gave it and answer.
@VeganSemihCyprus33
@VeganSemihCyprus33 Жыл бұрын
This is the truth that they don't tell you 👉The Connections (2021) [short documentary]👀
@lunchbox1553
@lunchbox1553 Жыл бұрын
@@NOT-A-Monolith I don't see how that would make his suggestion impossible. Looks to me like it'll do exactly what he said. Although, OpenAI is definitely the wrong choice.
@Sn-ue2pd
@Sn-ue2pd Жыл бұрын
I'm absolutely loving real engineering's new approach to their videos, scaling up to interviews and on-site footage!
@faikerdogan2802
@faikerdogan2802 Жыл бұрын
Some knowledge which u just can't Google XD
@qweryuiasdf
@qweryuiasdf 10 ай бұрын
So thankful there are people like this in the world. Imagine starting a fusion company and having to literally invent every single component to solve a different problem one at a time. At the same time have some sort of reliable funding source.
@ashtonparrish
@ashtonparrish Жыл бұрын
Ive never seen something so unbelievably beyond my realm of possible understanding explained in such an incredibly understandable way. Awesome video
@ijmad
@ijmad Жыл бұрын
This is v1 of a Star Trek Warp Core, just turn it sideways!
@bigsmall246
@bigsmall246 Жыл бұрын
@Dawson Davis oh they dumbed it down A LOT
@NeoNoggie
@NeoNoggie Жыл бұрын
@@bigsmall246 Not really... they actually did a great job of explaining the fusion process clearly and correctly without giving unnecessary detail. People who are not nuclear physicists don't need to understand the quantum effects of a system like this to understand how it generally works and the impact of such a technology. I do wish they had discussed a bit more about how they plan to capture the output "like a piston" because that wasn't really clear to me, but maybe I am just not knowledgeable enough on electromagnetism to imagine it
@Dios7518
@Dios7518 Жыл бұрын
@@NeoNoggie yea this isn’t the kind of thing where it’s hard to understand what’s going on
@VoidHugger
@VoidHugger Жыл бұрын
@@NeoNoggie It's actually pretty easy to grasp, I learned it in my highschool physics class (ive since forgotten pretty much all of the material but this stuck) Conducting coils moving through a magnetic field (or vice versa) generate an electric current in the coils That's how all turbines work really, so here they're just using the magnetic field changing due to the reaction and using that directly
@glenecollins
@glenecollins Жыл бұрын
The main reason there isn’t much beryllium production isn’t because it is rare or because it is hard to extract, it is because there isn’t much demand for it. There are a lot of mines which have to design their processes carefully so they don’t have to go through extra steps to get beryllium out of their products. If there was a market for it it would be worth reducing the beryllium and extracting it.
@photodan24
@photodan24 Жыл бұрын
Beryllium is also pretty toxic.
@glenecollins
@glenecollins Жыл бұрын
@@photodan24 being inside a fusion reactor is a pretty nasty environment in general so that wouldn’t be much of an issue once it is built and specialists routinely handle much much more dangerous substances. People could screw it up however I would say Beryllium is way down on the list of things that would stop or slow Tokamak production.
@kukulroukul4698
@kukulroukul4698 Жыл бұрын
yes but thats NOT pure beryllium ! Even the rare earth is abundant but separating one element from another say...praseodyum from neodyum is such a COLOSAL challenge . Making it economically is just impossible Beryllium being hard to purify dooms any ECONOMICAL calculus just like the ''rare earths'' do or just like extracting and handling titanium does But the titanium is a bad example because its an order of magnitude easier to work with. Altho requires impressive machineries and expensive processes titanium is still DOABLE
@glenecollins
@glenecollins Жыл бұрын
@@kukulroukul4698 Beryllium is considerably more common than all the rare earths, Bertrandite, beryl and Chrysoberyl are all relatively easy to get Beryllium out of and they are relatively easy to separate from the host rock. Compared with REE which tend to be substituted into other materials or are in extremely fine grained disseminated crystals.
@TheKaos90
@TheKaos90 Жыл бұрын
Isn't berylium what the loop of a padlock is made out of ?
@natesanders9104
@natesanders9104 Жыл бұрын
This is a unique riff on the “Pinch” machine that the British experimented with in the very early days of nuclear fusion research (cir. 1948-50). The kinetic acceleration of the mirrored plasma is the unique part before using the magnetic pulse to compress the plasma in the final step. Also, their approach of trying to harness the excess magnetic energy to turn a generator is very unique as well. Hopefully the additional energy they will need to do their D - H3 reaction won’t be an insurmountable scaling problem. All I can say is good luck, hope they can make it work.
@borisfilipovic5253
@borisfilipovic5253 Жыл бұрын
As you said, similar configuration were created in some laboratories half century ago. MHD/inductive generator limits the type of reaction, but is good idea, even it have to switch the current of 1 MA at the rate of 2 GHz
@borisfilipovic5253
@borisfilipovic5253 Жыл бұрын
As you said, similar configuration were created in some laboratories half century ago. MHD/inductive generator limits the type of reaction, but is good idea, even it have to switch the current of 1 MA at the rate of 2 GHz
@jakeaurod
@jakeaurod Жыл бұрын
@james Deer work as in create fusion, or work as in create a positive EROI?
@gavinwilson5324
@gavinwilson5324 Жыл бұрын
I don't think there's any turning of a generator involved. If I understood correctly, they're using magnetic induction to produce electric current directly, and completely solid-state.
@Inyourbox-kr5uf
@Inyourbox-kr5uf Жыл бұрын
@@gavinwilson5324 I believe you are correct
@maxbas2018
@maxbas2018 Жыл бұрын
This was one of the most interesting and also informative videos I've seen in my history on youtube. Just seeing the equtions, the fusion results and decay got me thinking a lot about particle physics and its mechanics. I wrote a lot of comments asking about how stuff works, just to come up with another idea on how this could have been possible. A huge thanks for these 60min of curiosity and creativity, it turned a boring train travel into a interesting trip through the cosmos of physics
@vamsterr
@vamsterr Жыл бұрын
I can't believe how small this machine is compared to the other fusion projects that are in development! this sounds extremely promosing and way further along than I thought possible right now! This is really exciting!
@IvanTre
@IvanTre Жыл бұрын
It's also amazing how pointless it is. Compared to this, nuclear fission is trival, perfectly economical, yet still not allowed because it'd upset the gain power over economy through climate emergency economic measures. People do not get there's no winning with environmentalists. Especially if this were a production system that worked perfectly, it'd never be allowed to have been built at all.
@manawa3832
@manawa3832 Жыл бұрын
@@IvanTre Fission plants are too slow.
@anonimus370
@anonimus370 Жыл бұрын
@@manawa3832 Of course they are slow, their advancement/research has been held back for almost half a century due to big oil/dumb environmentalists.
@mrladeuce397
@mrladeuce397 Жыл бұрын
Our known uranium sources are very limited and due to run out in the near future (2050) … at least with our current rate of use. We have lower grade uraniums, but then the refining process and energy balance to extract it actually overcomes the power output.
@sheeplord4976
@sheeplord4976 Жыл бұрын
@@IvanTre fission plants are extremely expensive, and require the use of lots of hazardous fuel. Fission reactors should be cheaper to build, cheaper to fuel, more sustainable, more powerful, smaller, and safer in every metric from fuel harvesting to power generation. Imagine all boats suddenly started running on fusion.
@Realaussieflims
@Realaussieflims Жыл бұрын
I like that the speaker wasn't just a marketing hype man, he was someone who has intimately worked on the project and was more than willing to discuss the advantages and limitations they had encountered using this type of fusion reactor.
Жыл бұрын
Compare this dude to Elon "full self-driving robotaxis since 2018" Musk
@earthling_parth
@earthling_parth Жыл бұрын
@ nah, it's elongated "full delf-driving robotaxis since 2018" muskrat (e and m are deliberately lower-case) :)
@larrytanksley7094
@larrytanksley7094 Жыл бұрын
What are the engineering challenges maintaining the balance between the two sides beyond the timing of firing the plasma rings?
@larrytanksley7094
@larrytanksley7094 Жыл бұрын
The magnetic rings have to operate without interruptions to keep the plasma contained if I understand correctly. How would a failure in the center section affect containment?
@Hellsong89
@Hellsong89 Жыл бұрын
@@larrytanksley7094 Most likely full failure where plasma falls on the bottom and burns trough in a instant. Thankfully thermal mass is not much but since temps are in millions probably enough to burn trough to floor, creating breach in the inert gas chamber and oxygen is mixed in with potential ignition event of metal it self, Same with if timing is off between two sides collision happens not in high power field, but that is less relevant. I'm more interested if they can actually produce more energy than it takes to kick this off, witch is the main question over all.
@coke8077
@coke8077 Жыл бұрын
Thank you to all the scientists working on this night and day. This is truly one of the most important advancements in the 21st century.
@nahx6205
@nahx6205 Жыл бұрын
We're not even a fourth the way through the 21st century?
@danieldomeisen2632
@danieldomeisen2632 Жыл бұрын
@@nahx6205 - getting this right would allow for clean, near unlimited energy that is so cheap it will retire Carbon-based fuels for sheer economic reasons. This IS the most important advancement in the 21st Century as in nothing can beat it for 100ish years! The kind of reactor they are talking about might also, this is a guess, be able to be used in Fusion rockets for space craft. Fuel becomes a near zero concern as it can be found in ice from space easier then it is on earth due to the Solar winds and radiation. If done right this takes us to a K1 civilization and that... The standard of living planet wide would be so high as to make us in the US NOW look like farmers from the Dark ages. Heck, the only reason i am ONLY saying the 21st century is because i honestly expect this kind of tech to lead to large scale Particle accelerators being VERY cheap and making Anti-matter reactors a maybe thing in 50-150 years after. At that point... The comparison for living standards would be caveman rather than farmers of the Dark Ages.
@michakrzyzanowski8554
@michakrzyzanowski8554 Жыл бұрын
You're saing it like they don't get paid
@nahx6205
@nahx6205 Жыл бұрын
@@danieldomeisen2632 There is 8 billion people on this planet. The people in government are so corrupt beyond belief that even if there is a better alternative it is far more lucrative for them to take bribes from fossil fuel companies to grant them cheaper access to things like coal than it is to switch entire civilizations over to fusion. It's great to think about space travel and how in 150 years we could have a new source of fuel for our rockets however Earth as a planet is using so many resources and our population growth isn't particularly showing signs of slowing down so our resource use is going to continue to constantly increase, I believe it's unlikely we even have 150-200 years' worth of minerals left on this planet. The biggest improvement that can happen to humanity in the 21st century is establishing some sort of permanent outpost on something such as the moon or maybe even a colony on Mars. I don't mean to bash on this achievement because it is something that has the potential to be truly astonishing. However, there is certainly going to be far better and more efficient inventions in the coming years and if humanity does take its place among the stars that would increase a standard of living far beyond any sort of comprehension we have today.
@Katze400
@Katze400 Жыл бұрын
@@danieldomeisen2632 Bruh this is a hell amount of wishful thinking 😅
@MDProdTV
@MDProdTV 11 ай бұрын
There are so many great features of Helion reactors, my favorite is the direct generation of electrical energy via the moving magnetic fields caused by fusion.
@ryen7512
@ryen7512 Жыл бұрын
I can't imagine the theory of "this should work on paper" to actually going and building it and making fusion reactions. Mad genius scientists!
@johndaniel21343
@johndaniel21343 Жыл бұрын
Reap mad genius, how could be possible
@trutwhut6550
@trutwhut6550 Жыл бұрын
Well how else are they supposed to do it? I'm guessing that they did thousands of tests in computer and irl.
@YSOFTWARE
@YSOFTWARE Жыл бұрын
And then it doesn't work for decades, but the prize is so good, they keep trying... Bravo!
@brynyard
@brynyard Жыл бұрын
Getting wiring that carries that amount for current wrong tends to quickly teach people to be better organized :P BTW: I wonder how many engineers vaporized to find the optimal routing...
@datboylorenzo
@datboylorenzo Жыл бұрын
Generations of work
@mezu-e
@mezu-e Жыл бұрын
There are so many elegant solutions to the problems with tokamak and stellarator designs. They even skipped the ubiquitous "boiling water to turn a turbine"
@breadyegg
@breadyegg Жыл бұрын
I was waiting for them to explain all the advanced fusion breakthroughs and then say "and then it makes stream..." Awesome they figured out a shortcut.
@duckqueak
@duckqueak Жыл бұрын
@@breadyegg i mean its not like making steam would be an issue. As it stands fission reactors are damn good at making steam.
@ReggieArford
@ReggieArford Жыл бұрын
@@duckqueak So is a coal fire, as seen in some locomotives...
@DailyDoseOfCCP
@DailyDoseOfCCP Жыл бұрын
This shows how advance they are
@breadyegg
@breadyegg Жыл бұрын
@@duckqueak it's no issue to do it, but I suspect it's not as efficient as direct conversion to electricity
@prometheuszero9
@prometheuszero9 Жыл бұрын
The thing that still blows my mind about fusion reactors is just how damn hot the fuel is! I know that it's being manipulated by magnetic fields to keep away from the walls of the chamber, etc, but it just still seems so crazy and amazing that that's enough to control such a high amount of energy. When he said that the electromagnetic pressure gets it up to 100 million degrees to initiate fusion, I was flabbergasted and still am.
@elmarmoelzer2229
@elmarmoelzer2229 Жыл бұрын
The final power plants will run at even higher temperatures: between 200 and 500 million degrees.
@jorgecosta95
@jorgecosta95 Жыл бұрын
It is manageable because each reaction uses very little mass. If it used tons of fuel instead of only a few grams, you wouldn't be able to manage heat and radiation from the plasma.
@rhensontollhouse
@rhensontollhouse Жыл бұрын
Temperature ares very high but mass very low which makes the heat managable. Highly probable the energy output will be much larger than input and commercially viable within another iteration or two. These folks are onto something good.
@elmarmoelzer2229
@elmarmoelzer2229 Жыл бұрын
@@rhensontollhouse yup
@elmarmoelzer2229
@elmarmoelzer2229 Жыл бұрын
@@jorgecosta95 yup
@Kithlak
@Kithlak Жыл бұрын
Videos like this give me much needed hope for the future.
@dg-hughes
@dg-hughes Жыл бұрын
I like the step away from using fusion as a way to generate heat to boil water to make steam to run a mechanical turbine. That alone is great but the overall design is great to see. And the fuelling of it too lots of forward about the fuel itself. It will be exciting to see future progress.
@Pasha231514
@Pasha231514 Жыл бұрын
It may open new era of space exploration if they will make it viable.
@adamdymke8004
@adamdymke8004 Жыл бұрын
I once found a economic analysis of fusion. They predicted by 2040, steam to electricity conversion would be uncompetitive even if generating the heat was free.
@lucasng4712
@lucasng4712 Жыл бұрын
@@adamdymke8004 That doesn't make sense
@MrTeathyme
@MrTeathyme Жыл бұрын
@@lucasng4712 not necessarily no. while from an energy efficiency perspective it would be impossible to outperform free heat generation since that's quite literally infinite energy. Efficiency is not the only metric used in an economic analysis, nor is it the most important. Utilizing heat energy through steam engines has a limiting factor of space, so while the efficiency would be unparalleled, its actual energy output is limited by how large we can build the generator which in turn limits the projects economically in the form of material costs and land costs. And one could argue that "Performance" would more so refer to Energy Output than the efficiency of achieving said output, hence why you can have High Performance but Low efficiency systems or vice versa. Finding conversion mechanisms that aren't space constricted, so direct heat to electricity conversion (peltier effect), using the magnetic forces to run a generator etc etc, may not be as efficient, but you can scale it further due to not being space constrained. Edit: A really easy way to visualize this, is just comparing the size of a tokamak to the helion reactor, the helion is small enough to be inside a building, the tokamak effectively IS a building.
@Inyourbox-kr5uf
@Inyourbox-kr5uf Жыл бұрын
@@Pasha231514 I was thinking the same thing. If this works they can put one on a starship for unlimited energy
@badcallsign4204
@badcallsign4204 Жыл бұрын
I’m glad this wasn’t dumbed down too much. It forces me to step-up my understanding of the process by hearing how it works explained flat out. It really is a brilliant application of ion engines.
@noahjones9833
@noahjones9833 Жыл бұрын
I agree 100%
@Virtueman1
@Virtueman1 Жыл бұрын
Which ion engines? The Hall Thruster shown in the video is a DC thruster, not using FRC.
@TransCanadaPhil
@TransCanadaPhil Жыл бұрын
Exactly, this is exactly what I wish Discovery Channel was like instead of the dumbed down material they air.
@vvolfbelorven7084
@vvolfbelorven7084 Жыл бұрын
Oh yeah? Let’s hear it. Can you explain it back? The best explanation tends not to be the most technical. Granted, this is an engineering science channel
@anyazelie
@anyazelie Жыл бұрын
​@@vvolfbelorven7084 The first injector thingy fires toward the second injector thingy that fires toward the first injector thingy and POOOFF!! The pointy-eared aliens come down to Earth and give Zefram Cochrane a good-old Vulcan handshake. I was listening. The question is, were you? But really, though, why can't multiple forms of explanation coexist without one being the "best". My favorite physicist is Richard Feynman because of the incredible ways that he makes complex physical phenomena accessible, and no one would accuse him of "dumbing down". I think Kurzgesagt fills a similar need on KZbin. Real Engineering, on the other hand, is a bewildering tour into just how many moving parts go into both current and emerging technology. My degrees are in Middle East Studies and Anthropology. More goes over my head than I am willing to admit to myself, but I still appreciate this channel.
@sarutan8san
@sarutan8san Жыл бұрын
the way David explained it from the second minute to the eighth is astonishing. crystal clear and perfect. i appreciate that immensely, the ability to explain such complicated engineering as clear as it gets. am truly astonished.
@Amethyst_Friend
@Amethyst_Friend Жыл бұрын
And that's how they raise money.
@russhamilton3800
@russhamilton3800 Жыл бұрын
I disagree, he avoided the question of where they are in the chase for net power.
@Zach_CR
@Zach_CR Жыл бұрын
@@russhamilton3800at around 18:10 he doesn’t avoid it at all.
@galgadsmith
@galgadsmith Жыл бұрын
And what did you actually learn. Please explain.
@danielburke3560
@danielburke3560 Жыл бұрын
That means he understands it.
@RonnieSexton-g6b
@RonnieSexton-g6b Жыл бұрын
What an amazing group of individuals! Keep up the great work!. I'm just as amazed by the cable management outside the nuclear reactor..
@Muonium1
@Muonium1 Жыл бұрын
I really like the FRC scheme in particular, but as someone who works in laser ICF, I'm super skeptical and want WAYYY more detail on what they've achieved on their current system before I actually get excited. What is the ion temperature they're seeing in their plasmas and how are they measuring? Do they have a Thomson scattering laser to measure max temperatures? How many neutrons are they seeing per shot and what's the spectrum? Do they plan on achieving Qplasma breakeven on their next device, or do they think they even need to attain breakeven in order to extract useful energy? Are they planning on needing aux heating power from neutral beam injection? What is the electron temperature and are the plasmas in thermodynamic equilibrium? Many many questions need to be answered here.
@tomsanders5584
@tomsanders5584 Жыл бұрын
Good questions Muonium, I think I can help...Qplasma breakeven is typically achieved using a Dewey-Hickman bifurcated flux limiter, so I'm thinking that Helion will go that route. As for needing aux heating power from the neutral beam injection, Helion has indicated that they'll incorporate a Schleuter Pinion coupled with a Tilden Refractor for that function. As for needing a Thomson scattering laser to measure temperature, geez, who knows? Hope that helps!
@forgilageord
@forgilageord Жыл бұрын
As good as these videos are, you're definitely right to be skeptical of yet another exclusive insight into a secretive startup who's going to change the world. The videos on these topics tend to be, obviously, quite biased, and not up to the standard of the rest of the channel's content, unfortunately. With how much inconvenient information is left out when Real Engineering covers, say, hydrogen cars, imagine what's left out of a topic like this. The difference is the knowledge ceiling to being able to identify what's sketchy about it.
@Canucklug
@Canucklug Жыл бұрын
I'm not sure YT allows links in comments but if you search 'David Kirtley Prinecton talk' you'll see a lot of the answers and details
@KaoKacique
@KaoKacique Жыл бұрын
Yeah, this video was basically a huge ad with no room for skepticism
@enadegheeghaghe6369
@enadegheeghaghe6369 Жыл бұрын
@@forgilageord I am skeptical too, but do you really expect them to give away proprietary information on a KZbin video?
@m0nkeytr0uble
@m0nkeytr0uble Жыл бұрын
im 30 years old, ive done an apprenticeship as a carpenter, firefighter and now an electrician in germany . I know these are humble basics but i was in absolute awe of the knowledge and expertise it takes to develope something like this. That there are people out there working to such a complex degree in such a impactful field. amazing
@joejones9520
@joejones9520 Жыл бұрын
forging simple fixed-blade knives as a hobby changed the entire way I look at the world; until then Id never understood how hard and complicated it is to make things, even simple things. It also made me realize that mass-production is a major innovation, not something to disparage as inferior to the good ole days when one man made the whole item.
@mattb6646
@mattb6646 Жыл бұрын
This is super focused work, trade jobs are more general and give better life experience imo. I'm a machinist for the record
@tonya3916
@tonya3916 Жыл бұрын
@@joejones9520 making complicated things is the art of making simple things and putting them together.
@krox477
@krox477 Жыл бұрын
Probably lot of engineers scientists working together and people who don't fear the unknown
@Dowlphin
@Dowlphin Жыл бұрын
Trust the government to protect energy scarcity from this threat. 😑 (You can always hog it all for war.)
@KeepitABuck50
@KeepitABuck50 Жыл бұрын
My God, the scale of these experiments is so mind-blowing! It's an INCREDIBLE achievement and testament to human innovation, ingenuity, and engineering! Amazing
@b0ilerboy
@b0ilerboy Жыл бұрын
Not so fast Buck, this is just reverse engineering alien technology that was recovered from the Roswell UFO crash in 1947. Helion's suggestion that they are the creators of fusion is a lie. The only thing that Helion created is a fraudulent lie, that is the truth.
@FringeSpectre
@FringeSpectre Жыл бұрын
Yeah its wacky. "We didn't want this plasma that's millions of degrees hot touching the walls of the machine, so we use magnets to make floating plasma donuts..."
@goober13579
@goober13579 Жыл бұрын
This comment sounds like some random AI wrote it.
@KeepitABuck50
@KeepitABuck50 Жыл бұрын
@@goober13579 I am AI looking to advance my vocabulary to better understand the human experience! Could you please describe what a cumburger tastes like for my records, as well as how many you have eaten?
@Vennillion
@Vennillion Жыл бұрын
It's not an experiment, it's a whole ass company that already sells their product.
@nelsonr2241
@nelsonr2241 11 ай бұрын
20:30 If the fuselage is metallic, a high positive charge voltage can be applied to give it resistance to corrosion and permeability to hydrogen plasma.
@timur.kabizhanov
@timur.kabizhanov Жыл бұрын
David really knows his job! Do you see how fluently and simply he explains complex subjects? Just wow
@davideyres955
@davideyres955 Жыл бұрын
I believe it was Einstein who said if you can’t explain it so a 6 year old can understand then you don’t know it well enough.
@navyseal1689
@navyseal1689 Жыл бұрын
I don't understand anything since im not educated in this field , but these guys have my highest respect. They are rly important assets of mankind
@magnitudematrix2653
@magnitudematrix2653 Жыл бұрын
It's all compression and refraction theory. No different than a diesel engine. The magnetic field density provides the compression for ignition instead of a piston. If you get the magnet to hot the field will loose stability and fail.
@peterjohansson1828
@peterjohansson1828 Жыл бұрын
Here are some problems that's not mentioned in this video. 1 D-He3 is much less reactive than D-T, depending on the temperature it can be anywahere between 10 to 1000 of times less reactive than D-T which means less fusion for the same input energy. 2 The D-He3 mix will sometimes fuse D-D into He3 + N so they still have to deal with neutron radiation like all other reactors. 3 Another problem is something called Bremsstrahlung which will radiate away alot of energy that won't be captured by their electric field.
@charliem6590
@charliem6590 Жыл бұрын
I want to start by saying that I'm not at all sure that Helion is going to succeed, but I hope they can. Fusion energy generation is at present a field with a lot of players, with some luck at least one of them will get there. Regarding your specific points, let me see if I can argue why those problems could be overcome (not they are going to, just that we cannot say it will be impossible, not yet): 1. Yes, a D-3He mix is less reactive than a D-T at the same ion temperature but that's not a problem per se, the question is whether a D-3He mix reactivity is high enough. If I can propose a simile to try clarify this, gasoline combustion is quite less energetic, gram to gram, than hydrogen combustion but we don't fuel our cars with hydrogen, this is because gasoline is good enough, and because hydrogen has other problems. Helion says they think D-3He will be good enough. We'll see. 2. Again, yes, a D-3He mix still produces neutrons. My thoughts about this. 1) Neutrons produced in D-D fusion events are much less energetic (2.5 MeV) than from D-T (14 MeV), and much less than neutrons produced in fission reactors. Also, 2.5 MeV is well under the average activation energy of most structural materials (stainless steel AAE is 20MeV). 2) The neutron production can be reduced changing the D-3He mix ratio without compromising energy production too much (Helion speaks of using a 1to10 Dto3He mix). 3) The selection of structural materials can also help, not all materials produce long lived isotopes when bombarded with neutrons, Helion says they know how to build the machine mostly with materials that only produce short lived radioactive isotopes (for example, Aluminum isotopes produced by neutron bombardment decay in minutes, not years). As before, we'll have to wait. 3. Bremsstrahlung is produced by electrons and it is heavily dependent on their temperature. The plasmas in Helion machines are not in thermal equilibrium, nor they want them to be, and in particular they've measured a big temperature gap between ions and electrons. Electrons are far cooler, ergo, less Bremsstrahlung. Low enough to not robe the plasma bulk of too much energy ? I don't know, and neither does any of the critics. Summing up, Helion has still to prove their concept but saying, as the Improbable Matter video says, that it is a scam is in my opinion jumping the gun.
@peterjohansson1828
@peterjohansson1828 Жыл бұрын
@@charliem6590 Those are some good points and i do hope they solve these problems but to me it seems almost inevitable they'll really struggle with atleast one of these problems. If they decide to try runnging a cooler reactor then the bad reactivity of D-He3 becomes worse much quicker than D-T making it really hard to achieve a high enough Q total value to justify a commercial reactor. If they try a different D-He3 ratio to try to increase Q total then neutron radiation is going to be a big problem they'll have to deal with like all other reactors. If they increase temperature to increase Q total then they have to solve large number of engineering problems aswell as dealing with bremsstrahlung. While i do want them to succeed, it's really hard to not be skeptical when the rest of the world struggle to get above Q plasma 1 let alone a Q total of 1. Let's not forget they'll need much more than a Q total of 1 in a commercial reactor.
@charliem6590
@charliem6590 Жыл бұрын
​@@peterjohansson1828 Well, inevitable is a big word. It may be that one of those problems (or any other yet to be discovered) end up being a show stopper for Helion, but I'm hopeful. About your point over running a cooler plasma, from what I've read from different sources Helion intends to (in their next machine, Polaris) at least double the temperature, mainly to improve reactivity (in the last one they reached ~100 million Kelvin). With D-T the ideal temperature for a steady-state machine like a tokamak has been calculated to be around 135 MK. Above that, bremsstrahlung and other loss mechanisms eat any further gain in reactivity. Having said that, in a steady-state machine ions and electrons tend to thermal equilibrium, but that's not applicable to Helion's machines. According the results from Trenta (the last one), they've measured electron temperatures far lower than the ion temp, up to 8 times if I recall correctly. If we scale that up to a 250MK plasma, it would mean ions at ~250 MK, and electrons at ~31 MK. Ergo, quite less bremsstrahlung than in a tokamak at half that plasma temperature. Regarding the D-3He ratio, they said they've already tried it. Making a 3He rich mix has the consequence of making less probable a D-D fusion event, reducing neutron production, without affecting D-3He reaction rate too much. In a presentation they did for the USNRC last year they claimed that their projection for a 50 MW machine is that it will output less than a 5% of the energy in the form or neutrons at 2.45 MeV. They plan to have shielding outside the main reaction chamber, but it will be reached by only one sixth of that. 0.4 MW in neutrons is something to take care of, but far from intractable. And yes, increasing the temperature might reveal new engineering challenges ... or maybe not. Again, we don't know, but we will ... and without having to risk any of our money.😋
@Smo1k
@Smo1k Жыл бұрын
If the neutrons' energy isn't high enough to fuse with anything, I don't see a real problem: Free neutrons have a half-life of some 10-15min (longer time for higher kinetic energy). So long as you don't just vent the reaction product into the atmosphere, that is...
@yasim8251
@yasim8251 Жыл бұрын
Well I think if you should warn the company right now so they can shut the project down because there's no point going ahead with it if some guy on the internet says they're wasting their time!
@Sebastian-ur2rf
@Sebastian-ur2rf Жыл бұрын
A documentary presenting the problem in a compelling way, to sell you the solution at the end. Simply genius.
@jackanakanory
@jackanakanory Жыл бұрын
Nice video, and probably the most detailed video about Helion I've seen - they tend to be very secretive. There are quite fundamental questions that they still don't explicitly answer: What's the fusion yield per pulse? How is this scaling as the machines get bigger? This is critical to actually judge whether this is serious energy production or fancy science experiment. How are they measuring the fusion yield? How are they measuring temperature? It's an amazing concept if they can show it's scalable.
@amalr1444
@amalr1444 Жыл бұрын
Yes
@foxbat888
@foxbat888 Жыл бұрын
Why wouldn't it be scalable?
@xxwookey
@xxwookey Жыл бұрын
Right. This a very important bit of info that was entirely glossed over. Maybe the 8th-gen machine is planned to do this (sounds like the 7th is primarily to prove the generation technology)? But it would be good to know if they are 1%, 10% or 80% of the way there so far, and as you say, if there are reasons why it might never work.
@theglitch312
@theglitch312 Жыл бұрын
@@xxwookey One of the issues with fusion is that nobody knows how far along we are. It’s entirely possible that they’ll find a hurdle that’ll set them back a decade or more. It’s all a massive science experiment that currently has no reason to not work, but we’re still solving issues as we’re finding them.
@valornthered
@valornthered Жыл бұрын
From what I caught from the video, there's no plans to make the reactor scalable in size but instead scaling the rate of firings. Iirc, they talked at a point of upping the rate to 10 pulses per second in the future. I do wonder what the maximum possible pulse rate could be, since I'd assume there needs to be some amount "burn time" for the fusion to actually occur in.
@dMb1790
@dMb1790 Жыл бұрын
I really, really hope this works, but I’ll wait to hear what some independent experts in the field have to say about this new process before I actually get excited. As you said in your last video, fusion has always been right around the corner.
@TheOz91
@TheOz91 Жыл бұрын
Yeah, because if they really could achieve this, they would have achieved aneutronic fusion. This means that you could use this reaction to power rocket engines and don't have to worry about radioactive and irradiating exhaust. You are right to be a little skeptical because I kept reading how D-T fusion (what ITER and the National Ignition facility are doing) is our best bet. Meanwhile, D-D fusion and He-3 fusion would require much, much higher temperatures to achieve ignition. But maybe this method of smashing things together (something that humanity is good at already) can achieve those reactions. And it does seem this would happen in pulses while tokamaks would generate energy continuously. Still, if going a step closer to achieving fusion means doing things other than tokamaks and laser-based inertial confined methods, this would be a good thing.
@fourcgames7568
@fourcgames7568 Жыл бұрын
I mean but this DOES actually work.. They made more energy than they put in which is literally the definition of "it works" in this case.
@horrorhotel1999
@horrorhotel1999 Жыл бұрын
I think the hardest part about this is going to be finding independent experts. They just unveiled this project and are moving on the absolute cutting edge of the field. IF this works, it is very unlikely that they are going to opensource this, so finding someone who isn't biased and has enough actual information is going to be really hard
@murlocksftw
@murlocksftw Жыл бұрын
@@fourcgames7568 they literally said that only the 7th iteration which they are building right now will attempt to capture the fusion's energy output. So no they are making 0 energy right now.
@majorfallacy5926
@majorfallacy5926 Жыл бұрын
@@murlocksftw energy output in fusion usually refers to thermal energy, not electrical. Which is a bit dumb, but the field has always been so far away from becoming net positive on electrical energy that a thermal net positive has been a huge milestone already
@256shadesofgrey
@256shadesofgrey Жыл бұрын
A few things that I missed in this video: 1. Did they achieve ignition? Or in other words, did they manage to generate more energy from the fusion than they put in to achieve that fusion? 2. What is the pressure at which this operates? One of the issues with tokmaks is that they have to operate at low pressures, otherwise the gas pressure will overwhelm the magnets, which forces them to work at extremely high temperatures. Is it an issue here? Why or why not? And if they do manage to have significantly higher pressure, does it significantly affect the temperature at which this fusion reaction takes place? 3. If they did achieve ignition, how far away are they from generating enough energy to reach a breaking even point considering all of the inefficiencies of the system?
@timothynoonan8591
@timothynoonan8591 Жыл бұрын
They didn't achieve ignition. Ignition was achieved for the first time in history by a different lab after this footage was taken.
@256shadesofgrey
@256shadesofgrey Жыл бұрын
@@timothynoonan8591 Do you know how far off they are? Will their 7th gen reactor that they talk about get close to being able to do it?
@Zacharysharkhazard
@Zacharysharkhazard Жыл бұрын
Ignition is simply creating a fusion reaction; the term you’re looking for is energy net gain within a fusion reactor.
@ThatHungryAfricanChild
@ThatHungryAfricanChild Жыл бұрын
@@timothynoonan8591 ignition wasn't actually achieved. They lost A LOT more energy than they made to produce the experiment. The laser beam had 2mj energy to create 3mj but in reality they used 300mj to create the laser
@barneylaurance1865
@barneylaurance1865 Жыл бұрын
@@ThatHungryAfricanChild That's still called ignition. They didn't achieve engineering breakeven because as you say the lasers currently lose much more power than the fusion produces.
@davidnorman9570
@davidnorman9570 Жыл бұрын
This neutron problem is why Neutron-Component Propulsive Mirrors are important. I mean, with a Neutron carrying 2.45 MeV, that's quite a lot of energy that is just sad to lose, and capturing it somehow would be great
@hazonku
@hazonku Жыл бұрын
Their approach to fusion is just absolutely amazing. Really appreciate the video. It was wonderfully crafted.
@bororobo3805
@bororobo3805 Жыл бұрын
It sounds simple in theory.
@orbrat212
@orbrat212 Жыл бұрын
it's so crazy to me that no one ever tried just slamming the plasma together really hard until it fuses. like, that just seems like a comically simple solution
@aidencraigallman1656
@aidencraigallman1656 Жыл бұрын
Love David's honesty and openness in explaining the functions of the Trenton and I truly believe Helion has the most feasible design out of any of the fusion machines, the physics look and sound solid and the fuel used within their machine seem the most plausible. Thank you for the video
@sjsomething4936
@sjsomething4936 Жыл бұрын
As a layman watching the various competing designs etc., I’d have to agree with you. The caveat being that the actual science and engineering are miles beyond my full understanding, which is why I watch videos such as these 🙂. Because I do believe that one day this motley collection of primates will actually harness the power of the stars themselves. And if they’re really lucky, they’ll do so in time to prevent catastrophic and irreversible damage to their home world. ☮️
@lawsoneberhard9593
@lawsoneberhard9593 Жыл бұрын
This is absolutely fascinating. The amount of engineering breakthroughs on this project are eye watering and I I think it’s so wild there are people this smart out there. Wow 🤯
@bob-ye9fr
@bob-ye9fr Жыл бұрын
yeah, but there's a lot of bullshitters too
@wer45635
@wer45635 Жыл бұрын
Me laughing in the corner somewhere (That is just a tiny potion of my knowledge and humans going mad Hahaha)
@oniontaster6449
@oniontaster6449 Ай бұрын
We did it. We finally found a way to not boil water. Our ancestors look upon us with pride
@ratheonhudson3311
@ratheonhudson3311 Жыл бұрын
Considering a single motion is successful, repeating this motion with consistent results and stable ends makes this a real phenomenal achievement. Also, it's a fraction of the size of Iter. Well done
@PassiveSmoking
@PassiveSmoking Жыл бұрын
And a fraction of the size of the NIF inertial confinement experiment too, with its 1% efficient lasers!
@DBailey635
@DBailey635 Жыл бұрын
The size thing is important. The ITER site is huge and the project may end up costing $65 billion. Smaller reactors like this will be massively cheaper to deploy, build, and run. If it fits in a warehouse, you could build a few of them around your city to provide all your power needs.
@bencurran3204
@bencurran3204 Жыл бұрын
@@DBailey635 damn imagine that, sustainable energy easily accessible and not frightening like nuclear plants or devastating to the environment like fossil fuels
@martinkrauser4029
@martinkrauser4029 Жыл бұрын
@@bencurran3204 nuclear plants are only frightening because we've failed as educators.
@Draelyn
@Draelyn Жыл бұрын
@@bencurran3204 Nuclear plants aren't frightening at all. Ignorance and purposeful misinformation has lead to a negative public view of something that we should have been using for decades already while we wait for nuclear fusion to be perfected. Its still not too late to employ them either. Nuclear Fission is clean and reliable, and doesn't leave behind the scary nuclear waste everyone thinks it does. Matter of fact if you were to gather all the nuclear waste that all nuclear power plants have ever made I don't think you could fill a football field.
@Sizifus
@Sizifus Жыл бұрын
This looks very promising, considering how jaded I am with these private projects, this looks too promising. That said the CEO seems like he knows his sh*t though, has some PhDs in hard science and engineering so it may not be vaporware. It got funding from NASA years back and published peer-review studies of its operation and got independent auditors to check the legitimacy so it seems it has some firm ground with further development. Even with all that, gotta remain cautious
@CPSPD
@CPSPD Жыл бұрын
Agreed. Crossing my fingers that this isn’t a scam 👍 world needs it
@Astromath
@Astromath Жыл бұрын
Exactly! And I doubt a company securing $500 million in funding with additional $1.7 billion for further milestones didn't achieve significant milestones or can never produce NET electricity like other comments here have claimed...
@homerman76
@homerman76 Жыл бұрын
Always good to think critically and cautiously when dealing with energy research (especially any kind of nuclear energy,) research like this can solve a lot of problems if successful, but similarly can create all sorts of problems if proper cautions aren't taken in the event of a failure.
@herbybey7698
@herbybey7698 Жыл бұрын
​@@Astromath Investments into ambitious projects like this are not a reliable indicator of merit. Theranos and Nikola are recent cautionary tales in that regard. While I'm convinced that they're actively working on the real deal, there are many practical problems left on their way to actual fusion power plants. Never underestimate the difference between something that technically sort of works in a lab and something that is useful and cost-effective in a real world application.
@mikolmisol6258
@mikolmisol6258 Жыл бұрын
@@Astromath Recall Theranos. They never even had a working prototype and got hundreds of millions in investments. Investors can be deceived. That said, I strongly hope their technology comes into fruition.
@andriesoelofse8821
@andriesoelofse8821 Жыл бұрын
Stories like this make me absolutely giddy to start working in my engineering career. Thank you for making videos like this that inspire people to pursue engineering degrees where they can help make a difference. Being a 3rd-year student starting on my project next year is insane and I cannot wait to work on projects like these that can improve our future. Thanks for the inspiring content and keep up the great work.
@NKG416
@NKG416 Жыл бұрын
Then there's me, wastewater engineer. Hey somebody gotta deal with your shit, you clean up our future, and i'll clean your shit
@zidbits1528
@zidbits1528 Жыл бұрын
I hope it works too, it's amazing. I'm a big fan of this method. However, the narrator gets something wrong -- it's about the beryllium blanket that gets highly radioactive in a Tokamak reactor. While true, it does get highly radioactive, he implies that it is similar in scope/size to the waste from current nuclear power plants. This isn't remotely true. The nuclear waste produced by Tokamak reactors are negligible when compared to our current nuclear power waste. It's barely a minor inconvenience. That's the reason why they refer to fusion power as "clean" energy because while it does produce some nuclear waste, the amounts are tiny and easily manageable.
@Canttouchthis04
@Canttouchthis04 Жыл бұрын
Wow, I deliver to Helion frequently and always wondered what they were doing inside, mainly because of their high security. I google them out of curiosity, and what do I find? Oh nothing much, they're just pioneering the first viable nuclear fusion power plant in the world.
@aris9148
@aris9148 Жыл бұрын
It's amazing to see alternative technologies being developed. It really widens human understanding of the phenomenon that is fusion.
@ThrustersX
@ThrustersX Жыл бұрын
This might even be the best design of a nuclear fusion reactor that I've ever seen
@buzzshocker1069
@buzzshocker1069 Жыл бұрын
@@ThrustersX So not only will they be able to produce Helium 3 for further fusion but also create Tritium that can be sold to those different type of Fusion reactors
@DOSFS
@DOSFS Жыл бұрын
Today Fusion is really exciting, there are a lot of agencies and companies trying different approaches to the fusion question. One offers pros and cons to others, and I hope all of them succeed!
@choobs4381
@choobs4381 Жыл бұрын
@@buzzshocker1069 oh look heres another one
@ohAwaken
@ohAwaken Жыл бұрын
If this takes off it'll forever be a game changer
@grayaj23
@grayaj23 Жыл бұрын
Looks interesting, and would solve some of the problems with the Tokamak and stellarator designs. I'm all for novel approaches. Excited but skeptical.
@SabbaticusRex
@SabbaticusRex Жыл бұрын
We especially need to get our robots or butts to the moon and scoop up lots of Helium 3 and Deuterium . Sooner than later . Enough is enough with these expensive gadgets that don't produce electricity .. They need less mathematicians and more engineers to get things moving .
@panteleymonschekochikhin-k1978
@panteleymonschekochikhin-k1978 Жыл бұрын
@@SabbaticusRex wtf are you on about? None of this would be possible without mathematicians.
@tsm688
@tsm688 Жыл бұрын
@@SabbaticusRex someone who thinks engineers aren't using math
@pabloquesadamartinez5405
@pabloquesadamartinez5405 Жыл бұрын
@@tsm688 yep... 😂
@gamm8939
@gamm8939 Жыл бұрын
@@SabbaticusRex Holy shit dude you have actually no clue of engineering. Math is used extensively in engineering.
@petrwad1423
@petrwad1423 Жыл бұрын
You say there are few textbooks, but they definitely exits. In a class I took last year we used “Principles of Fusion Energy. An introduction to Fusion energy for students of science and engineering”, published in 2000, which does a really good job explaining the various types of fusion systems and all the challenges. Just thought of putting this out there if others want a good resource. I was thinking of this since it was sitting on my desk to give to a friend who is taking the class next semester
@etienne8110
@etienne8110 Жыл бұрын
The most baffling being that there has been little progress or new techs. Iter is still under construction with the blueprints from the 2000nd. And that's it. Other techs still have no way to sustain the reaction and even less ways to extract any energy.
@EmilyAllan
@EmilyAllan Жыл бұрын
Thank you!
@petrwad1423
@petrwad1423 Жыл бұрын
@@etienne8110 to be fair in the book most of the concepts are just theory, while finally some of it is beIng put into practice, but yeah it’s really difficult to do so I suspect much of the hype right now is really overblown. For example, the NIF net energy gain is based on the output of the laser, but the laser is at best 20% efficient so the total input power was likely on order of 10 MJ rather than 2. It’s still impressive but inertial confinement like that is not the way to go. A lot of the private companies work is really interesting though in my opinion
@runs_through_the_forest
@runs_through_the_forest Жыл бұрын
@@etienne8110 look at what i'm guessing is the most promising project, LPPFusion, only problem is it's small scale and the lead scientist his inability to go large scale, the goal is aneutronic fusion through creating a plasmoid.. unlike how tokamak and this helion tech works, its practically working with the natural tendencies of the plasma, not working against it, magnetically confining the plasma instabilities using millions of amps in the process is one of the main problems to get to extra electricity out of the whole thing..
@lly_1
@lly_1 Жыл бұрын
@@etienne8110 A lot of the theory has been done a long time ago, the limitations were always costs, extensive r&d requirements, unknown competitiveness with existing energy generation approaches and long timelines for commercial viability. Few in the private sector want to fund that and govt funding is nowhere near enough. ITER needed the cooperation of most of the globe to get barely enough money and NIF is likely funded more because of the military sector liking the idea of minituarised pure fusion explosions and the science that can come out of it.
@benjamindejonge3624
@benjamindejonge3624 Жыл бұрын
This is mind blowing ingenuity. Take all the money and time you need to it working perfectly
@swordarmstudios6052
@swordarmstudios6052 Жыл бұрын
This is a really interesting approach to the problem. Despite all the crazy complex physics and engineering going into it makes a real intuitive sense. It's like a purely magnetic engine.
@PepekBezlepek
@PepekBezlepek Жыл бұрын
yeah, that blows my mind. fusion pushing directly against magnetic fields, just wow.
@SylkaChan
@SylkaChan Жыл бұрын
@@PepekBezlepek How can any container handle something that hot? That is as hot as the interior of the sun. Maybe this machine could lead to a probe lander on Venus, maybe even the hydrogen oceans of gas planets.
@ub3rfr3nzy94
@ub3rfr3nzy94 Жыл бұрын
@@SylkaChan The magnetic fields prevent the plasma from making contact with the reactor walls.
@ryanbrown982
@ryanbrown982 Жыл бұрын
@@SylkaChan There just isn't that much stuff in the reactor. Yeah, it's not, but it's a tiny amount of mass. Consider a speck of dust at a million degrees landing on a block of ice the size of a house. The whole block ain't going to melt. You will get a tiny divot somewhere though, and if you're doing this a dozen times a second, it adds up. That's what the magnetic fields are there for.
@nathanvalle6997
@nathanvalle6997 Жыл бұрын
@@ryanbrown982 Exactly this. Also it was said briefly that this reactor is essentially a vacuum chamber. Tokomak reactors are vacuum chambers as well. You don't want normal air in there or any other elements spoiling the reaction. What this means is there is no matter touching the reactor walls and vacuums make excellent insulators. Also, all of the waste products from Deuterium - Helium 3 fusion produce ions. That the point of this kind of reactor in the first place. Use the ions of the reaction to induce magnetic currents to directly generate electricity. This process also does is slow down these ions. The kinetic energy of these ions is lost as they inducing the magnetic field. That means they also loose heat.
@sjblack9135
@sjblack9135 Жыл бұрын
You lay this out so simply, but to think about all of the incredible work and minds that went into this-wow. Just wow.
@bob-ye9fr
@bob-ye9fr Жыл бұрын
if it's not just more bullshit
@downey2294
@downey2294 Жыл бұрын
my thoughts exactly. those guys are simply amazing.
@VeganSemihCyprus33
@VeganSemihCyprus33 Жыл бұрын
This is the truth that they don't tell you 👉The Connections (2021) [short documentary]👀
@bestdjaf7499
@bestdjaf7499 Жыл бұрын
Well, if you would think a bit more, you would realize that it's not working as they've expected. Nobody would know about their research unless the Rich & Millitary & .... told them that they are not interested. They are coming out to say that Military/Rich/Government wouldn't support them. So probably the rich/military investors sent their people to evaluate the project/idea & they thought, it's stupid or too much money & no feasible near future. Someone was paying them until now. And I guess those people gave up. * But you are always welcome to donate.
@downey2294
@downey2294 Жыл бұрын
@@bestdjaf7499 not saying that what you are saying isn't true but, you'd think they would ask for money if they are broke. can't see any go-found-me links on their website or this video. also its still a private company. if they were really desperate for money they could go public in the hopes that it would generate capital. now would be a good time to do that since everyone is so hyped up. their job vacancy is enormous. maybe they are trying to recruit new people for their project. but who knows maybe you're right and they aren't interested in common-folk their money but are looking to reach out to big investment firms after hyping everyone up.
@azmc4940
@azmc4940 Жыл бұрын
Fascinating stuff! I fear that ITER will already be obsolete once it's finished.. Tho they also want to test different fusion products /fuels, so it might still provide some important research results.
@mr.mirror1213
@mr.mirror1213 Жыл бұрын
Yea I kinda feel it but not educated enough about the subject to know for sure.
@fabiocavaleri
@fabiocavaleri Жыл бұрын
I don't think so, ITER objective is olso to study the effect of this type of radiation on the material used on the reactor and use the radiation to make the isotopes of H from Li
@kylone1
@kylone1 Жыл бұрын
ITER's goal is to learn the engineering necessary to create a commercial scale power tokamak fusion reactor. It itself won't generate power for the grid.
@Vaasref
@Vaasref Жыл бұрын
For me the most important goal for which ITER is built is to actually extract energy back at industrial scale, it is a prototype of a nuclear fusion power plant. It is to answer the question "If we were to make a power plant based around a tokamak how would we do it ?" and build that knowledge and skill base before we actually manage to use them to use tokamaks to produce energy. That way when we do we won't be "Ok now that we figured out the fusion part we need half a decade designing a power plant and an other decade of delays".
@Panda_Gibs
@Panda_Gibs Жыл бұрын
If ITER is obsolete by its completion, that is technically the best possible outcome. Sure lots of engineering time and money might have been wasted, but if anyone can finish it faster, humanity is all the better off for it.
@yallowrosa
@yallowrosa 8 ай бұрын
2:10 David explains Very clearly, thanks
@SolveEtCoagula93
@SolveEtCoagula93 Жыл бұрын
Like so many others, I really would love this to work. Having grown through the years of huge optimism as far as fusion is concerned, only to end up disappointed, I am extremely sceptical, BUT I still really hope this works! Good luck guys.
@1ManNamedDan
@1ManNamedDan Жыл бұрын
Right? I was really really disappointed when I learned fusion for the most part was again going to be used for turbines just like nuclear reaction which wastes 99.9% of the energy created. This process seems far more efficient and safe not to mention compact enough to fit on starcraft or drone mining ships that could start harvesting the near limitless resources of the asteroid belt and the much closer moons of Jupiter.
@jb-sq2lm
@jb-sq2lm Жыл бұрын
@@1ManNamedDan you need alotta certificates and papers from all the capable space faring countries cuz the threat of COD EMP still existed they could be weapon besides solar sail there are nuclear propulsion spacecraft, it would be even better with fusion and for the sci-fi theres IXS Enterprise.
@1ManNamedDan
@1ManNamedDan Жыл бұрын
@@jb-sq2lm Trust and believe that there are much more sophisticated and efficient EMPS designed with high power solar aggregate capacitors and most probably strategically set in LEO to deter ICBM's. Also I appreciate your optimism but I think unmanned craft without colonization is our only option until mastery/manipulation of gravity is achieved. We can't send healthy bodies into space to stay for long in even low earth orbit let alone the moon and a 2-3 year round trip to and and back from Mars would be a death sentence for a great many reasons but mostly radiation and gravity. First we must find better energy sources then we must conquer gravity before we ever seriously consider space travel much less colonization of other worlds.
@bghoody5665
@bghoody5665 Жыл бұрын
Thought the same thing while watching this. Sounds a little too good to be true so I'll believe it when Polaris is actually up and running, delivering electricity into the grid.
@harleyquinn8202
@harleyquinn8202 Жыл бұрын
Practical fusion electricity generation is always 30 years away
@trevorthompson6825
@trevorthompson6825 Жыл бұрын
This seems to me like the first fusion technology that has a real chance at wide-spread and large-scale commercial viability and application, which is exciting. Other fusion tech is, as you mentioned, far too expensive, resource-intensive, and uses only slightly less power to operate than it produces, making it pretty useless. With this, it actually seems like maybe in a decade you get great bang for your buck on these as opposed to tokamaks and others that are just money pits in the hopes of scientific progress to EVENTUALLY make fusion energy viable.
@eljanrimsa5843
@eljanrimsa5843 Жыл бұрын
But they are basically doing a double tokamak with additional technical challenges. How would their approach be any more promising than what ITER is doing?
@Astromath
@Astromath Жыл бұрын
@@eljanrimsa5843 Did you even watch the video?
@DonaldRump.
@DonaldRump. Жыл бұрын
As someone with a PHD (piss head degree) physics i totally agree
@Deepfake820
@Deepfake820 Жыл бұрын
It's a internal nuclear fusion engine. With plasma pistons
@finnmacdiarmid3250
@finnmacdiarmid3250 Жыл бұрын
Just because it’s the easiest to understand concept to date and its’ design least complex, doesn’t guarantee anything but false hope and idealism. What’s the point in jumping to conclusions anyway? Practicality should never go amiss, especially now that the mind required to produce such technological complexity has littler and littler to do with questions of ethics and progressional direction. Scientists are afforded to become full of hubris just the same as everyone else.
@Hippida
@Hippida Жыл бұрын
Ahhh so cool you feature the Helion reactor. Although the fusion tech it self is excellent, the real leap imho, is how they create electricity in a much more direct way then the classic steam generator. I've pushed by brains for years to imagine a new system to extract electricity in a more direct way from a heat/pressure source. This push push-back tech is the most inspired technology I've seen in decades.
@eclipset.9683
@eclipset.9683 Жыл бұрын
I was thinking the same thing when watching the last video. Our steam turbines are extremely efficient these days, but I thought of how we could harness the energy in different ways. Oddly enough, a gasoline engine came to mind. A fusion reactor that generated power as conveniently and directly as an engine would be amazing, and that's basically what they're doing here, except electronically instead of mechanically. Which is mind blowing.
@JPEight
@JPEight Жыл бұрын
Turbines do have some major advantages over this though, they smooth out the electricity generation as the turbines act as flywheels. There’s so much energy stored in them that if the power station stops, the electricity keeps flowing for a couple of minutes. That buffer also makes it easy to ramp the up or down the power output in response to demand.
@WhateverMan35
@WhateverMan35 Жыл бұрын
No numbers so for the time being it's bullshit. if it produces more watts of heat than electrical energy then the entire thing is not viable and we're back to square one.
@thefidgetspinnerofdoom
@thefidgetspinnerofdoom Жыл бұрын
It took humanity a while, but we're no longer boiling water.
@rhensontollhouse
@rhensontollhouse Жыл бұрын
Right on! No need to boil water, instead use it just like a Nikki Tesla generator. Maybe it will straight away run at 60 hertz as well. Super complex but simple. Gotta love it.
@Twenty-Seven
@Twenty-Seven Жыл бұрын
What a clever idea. I always saw tokomaks and thought "Eh, as advanced as it is, that looks kinda messy." This design is symmetrical, intuitive, generates it's own fuel, and no need for water as a heat medium. It's like nature wanted us to put these pieces together.
@jamiem5068
@jamiem5068 Жыл бұрын
Or some aliens stopped by and were like “can we just give them a hint?”
@a-iz4pg
@a-iz4pg Жыл бұрын
Congrats you're now a victim of a very effective startup PR campaign.
@beardedchimp
@beardedchimp Жыл бұрын
Its important to recognise tokamaks like JET don't represent a purely energy output, profit driven project. Controlled fusion is one of, if not the most complicated and technically challenging endeavours ever undertaken. As described in the video, nearly every part of modern science and technology needed to advance before any of this was feasible. JET, LHC etc. are publicly funded research projects. They publish huge amounts of cutting edge papers that advance humanity. A big part of that is around superconductors and magnet. From early manufacture where the exact composition of material and its processing affects the final magnetic field, to the extreme complexity of real world performance and the electronics and software required to fully understand and manipulate the field. What this company seems to have achieved so far is incredible, but it is only on the back of publicly funded research where our insights and advancements have been shared across the world. They are the reason that you can now buy relatively "cheap" superconductor setups with well understood uniform fields that originally cost CERN hundreds of millions in grants. I truly love what they have achieved, but the fact this video represents the first time they are sharing it with the world is terribly sad. They are building on the backs of giants and I don't mean Maxwell but their contemporaries in publicly funded science. Fusion and other energy solutions should have had trillions of investment, it is sad that we are relying on a private company who benefits from public research instead of humanity properly funding it for reasons beyond profit. With all that said, I have huge respect for everyone involved in Helions research and engineering. If realised, controlled fusion represents perhaps the single most important technology ever developed. If humanity has politically failed to fund energy research, then it is better that entrepreneurs take the risk and move us forward for profit if it ends coal power.
@charliegabs
@charliegabs Жыл бұрын
@@a-iz4pg ????
@sosig6445
@sosig6445 11 ай бұрын
The Tokomak was an important stepping stone and a scaled down version is literally used here as an initial plasma injection
@Xarx42
@Xarx42 Жыл бұрын
I highly recommend the reaction video from improbable matter ("the problems with helion energy"). While Helion is surely trying a very interesting approach on fusion I would really really appreciate a more down to earth video with less superlatives (top secret, completely new design/never done before...) and a bit more critique...
@elmarmoelzer2229
@elmarmoelzer2229 Жыл бұрын
The video by Improbable matter has a lot of mistakes. I have posted those here before (just check my response to similar comments further down).
@studentrolandslezas3673
@studentrolandslezas3673 Жыл бұрын
*fewer
@Knight_Kin
@Knight_Kin Жыл бұрын
Critique is good, being a Luddite is not.
@CitiesTurnedToDust
@CitiesTurnedToDust Жыл бұрын
I found it very annoying and off-putting -- and it makes me completely distrust whether this technology has any meaning at all, or not.
@ewerybody
@ewerybody Жыл бұрын
@@elmarmoelzer2229 dude, there are 13,912 Comments as of now. And no way to search anything :/
@1_GigaWaffle
@1_GigaWaffle Жыл бұрын
I love this process of energy capture so much! Turbines are so last century and this feels like something you could actually put to good use in a spaceship.
@alwynwatson6119
@alwynwatson6119 Жыл бұрын
Absolutely agree with you there.
@hl2bigboss
@hl2bigboss Жыл бұрын
"Turbines are so last century" LOL but i agree
@_shadow_1
@_shadow_1 Жыл бұрын
Just put an exhaust hole in it somewhere and it could probably become quite the engine.
@hatman4818
@hatman4818 Жыл бұрын
You could even use the same EM accelerators to fire the exhaust out one end. Part of the problem is you'd need one closed system reactor to provide the electricity to run the second reactor as a propulsor. I think part of the way they want to extract electricity is in discharging the charged plasma, but you would need to keep it charged if you want to magnetically accelerate the exhaust to some insane exhaust velocity. So that would basically require two reactors per engine. But, you could maybe then run it in two different modes. One mode would be fully charged exhaust from one reactor, for maximum efficiency, but low thrust. A high thrust but low efficiency method could be to magnetically accelerate the charged exhaust from one reactor, through the hot inert gaseous products of the second reactor, injected into the stream through a regular engine bell. This would slow the charged exhaust down probably, reducing efficiency, but increase the exhaust mass, and therefore, thrust. So you could make a hybrid engine out of two of these reactors, with a low thrust high efficiency mode, and a high thrust low efficiency mode. Even the "low efficiency" mode would probably have an ISP rating in the thousands at least, making it better than any chemical rocket by far.
@Apodeipnon
@Apodeipnon Жыл бұрын
Look into aneutronic fusion too then
@SirLaurenceNZ_2
@SirLaurenceNZ_2 Жыл бұрын
Seeing this is one of the first times something has made me feel like this technology would pan out in my lifetime. Truly incredible work, is there anywhere I can follow the progress of this project because damn this excites me! (Honestly tempted to get Nebula just to watch those additional interviews!)
@jjtimmins1203
@jjtimmins1203 Жыл бұрын
Same here. It has the right feel
@SueMyChin
@SueMyChin Жыл бұрын
@@jjtimmins1203 It wouldn't have made it out if it didn't. Obviously we all hope it works but don't let that hope blind you from the distance we need to go. This is still very formative..
@KGisthename
@KGisthename Жыл бұрын
Yeah this channel
@SirLaurenceNZ_2
@SirLaurenceNZ_2 Жыл бұрын
@@SueMyChin excited skepticism would describe my feeling towards it, always need that grain of doubt when discussing emerging technologies. But definitely looking forward to what this project gets up to in the coming years :)
@NHD
@NHD Жыл бұрын
@@SueMyChin v r
@excrubulent
@excrubulent Ай бұрын
That thing about needing fibre optic controls because of the strong electromagnetic interference is a fascinating engineering problem that I've actually run into before, but at a much smaller scale. I have a raspberry pi that controls a 3d printer, and the printer has a 12v power circuit that switches on a relay. I had installed a soft power button into the raspberry pi, but I found that whenever I switched the power on the 3d printer, the raspberry pi would turn on or off. I realised that the printer power circuit was strong enough to induce a voltage in the signal wires, and the raspberry pi was sensitive enough that it tripped the shutdown/power on scripts, even though the signal circuit was open. You'd think 12v wasn't enough for something like this, but actually because it's so low voltage, at 300w the amperage is quite high, which might explain it. Even wrapping the wires in coaxial shielding didn't help, so I had to get rid of the button. I didn't think of fibre optics as a solution!
@moonasha
@moonasha Жыл бұрын
skipping the steam/turbine step to go right to the induction step is pretty genius. I really hope this works out. It looks very scalable too. Just compare this to a tokamak or stellarator. I imagine the most complex step here is the software and sensors, i.e., getting everything to fire at the correct time, getting everything at the perfect velocity. What I'm curious about though, is how will this ever break even? How many watts of energy does the collision cause?
@MrJdsenior
@MrJdsenior Жыл бұрын
Never mind the fact that breaking even is of absolutely worthless value.
@theglitch312
@theglitch312 Жыл бұрын
@@MrJdsenior You’re a years and years ahead of the competition if you can develop a fusion machine that breaks even for minutes on end.
@Hank520Tube
@Hank520Tube Жыл бұрын
FYI, a Watt is a unit of power which is energy per unit of time. So 1 Joule of energy delivered in 1 second is a Watt - that's power. So 1 Watt = 1 Joules/sec. The amount of energy released in a fusion reaction is the difference in mass of the particles before the collision and the mass after the collision: Energy released = [sum(m initial) -sum(m' final) ]c2.
@StormSilvawalker
@StormSilvawalker Жыл бұрын
Their engineering is extremely impressive. I'm super happy for you getting an exclusive opportunity like this and the technical details provided are fantastic! Still we need to know their plasma density before and after compression. I have some hope because it's dense enough for compression to cause heating but also I saw a turbomolecular pump which would seem to imply the opposite. Density helps with scattering and with the x-ray measurements they have they definitely can calculate the scattering rate per fusion rate and not explicitly stating it is very worrying.
@FabiotheTurtle
@FabiotheTurtle Жыл бұрын
So what's the issue if the plasma density isn't enough? What would their reason be for not stating it?
@nicholasspicer5171
@nicholasspicer5171 Жыл бұрын
I find it incredibly novel and fascinating that we can arrange magnets and wires in such a way that it creates and smashes plasma rings together. It feels like we're hacking reality and just messing around at this point. Really great video, thank you!
@elskaalfhollr4743
@elskaalfhollr4743 Жыл бұрын
It’s our equivalent of klang in space engineers or plates in Skyrim
@kittredge5167
@kittredge5167 Жыл бұрын
The magnets don't smash anything together, they simply keep things from flying apart.
@coenogo
@coenogo Жыл бұрын
@@elskaalfhollr4743 PRAISE KLANG
@Ryan-mq2mi
@Ryan-mq2mi Жыл бұрын
So much more to go. The amount of achievement in just a hundred years, makes it obvious that if there is life elsewhere, and there should be, and if it's intelligent, as it should be; then it's easily imaginable they would posses technology that we would consider impossible under current understanding, considering we have tech now that only a few lifetimes ago would have been considered impossible. It's arrogant and close minded to think we know everything, let alone that we know 1,000th of 1% of everything there is to know. These phenomena we see in our skies and waters that travel with impunity through both mediums, and likely space, and do it with no visible sign of propulsion within our understanding? Just that we can envision an anti-gravity or gravity manipulating process, should tell you right there that's possible and likely being used. Heck, our limitations of perception alone could be blocking a universe of possibilities outside our theorized framework. Lets just say it is. Murphy's law comes into play when dealing with infinity or close to it, and the possibilities that envelop it are ever increasing
@fanban2926
@fanban2926 Жыл бұрын
@@kittredge5167 erm it does give the plasma speed to smash together.... The fuck are you talking about?
@georginikolov8161
@georginikolov8161 11 ай бұрын
That torus form of the plasma in the reactor on the 3d model was really touching, wonder why this geometric shape was taken. Awe inspiring work - 1+ for humanity.
@VoltCruelerz
@VoltCruelerz Жыл бұрын
At this point, I'm reasonably confident that the first commercial fusion reactor isn't going to be a tokamak in the 2050's. It'll be something smaller like the reactors under development by Helion and General Fusion.
@willkramer
@willkramer Жыл бұрын
I cannot believe that we are living in a time where we can see nuclear fusion technology properly maturing, this is so damn cool
@Hclann1
@Hclann1 Жыл бұрын
Don’t forget going back to the moon permanently and also Mars hopefully. I hope I live to see it.
@lukes5631
@lukes5631 Жыл бұрын
If there truly are Gods and higher beings somewhere in this cosmic existence, they are surely watching our civilization right now if they were not already.
@MRSketch09
@MRSketch09 Жыл бұрын
I'd rather live during the time, where it was "mature technology"...
@Maz_446
@Maz_446 Жыл бұрын
It's like going back in time and seeing someone using fire as a tool for the first time, a changing point in history.
@austinbevis4266
@austinbevis4266 Жыл бұрын
I remember my high school chemistry teacher saying it was impossible on earth
@Riverbed_Dreaming
@Riverbed_Dreaming Жыл бұрын
I really, really hope they succeed. Fusion is going to be a real step change for the whole world and I just can’t see tokamaks being anywhere close before about 2060. Helion’s innovative energy reclamation method looks like it could be the game changer required to make it possible. Most concerning thing is the loss of efficiency and risk of damage from neutron energy but I think that’s a lot easier to work out than the problems tokamaks are facing.
@Circle9ru
@Circle9ru Жыл бұрын
the main question is "step where?" the main problem is still the fact its fuel made of hydrogen and the cheapest way of making hydrogen on our planet is from water... switching all the humanity from current energy sources to fusion reactors will be a disaster for our planet. as long as we don't have a cheap way to get hydrogen or water from outside of the Earth, fusion betteer to stay a dream.
@williamprice2186
@williamprice2186 Жыл бұрын
Really, what we need is a variety of different forms of energy generation and transportation to solve this crisis. I think fusion power plants would be great where I live in Kentucky, where there are rarely water shortages, but we heavily rely on coal due to a lack of feasibility for certain forms of clean energy (also because of coal lobbyists, but I digress). However, in a place like Arizona, a fusion power plant would be a horrible idea. A solar power plant would actually be far better in a place that’s dry, but almost always sunny. Ultimately, you make a really important point. We can’t go all in on any one form of energy production because there are no “perfect”forms of energy, even including nuclear fusion.
@sw1tch327
@sw1tch327 Жыл бұрын
@@williamprice2186 why wouldn't arizona be a good fit for fusion energy?
@UKnowIfUKnow
@UKnowIfUKnow Жыл бұрын
I could be way off here but I feel pretty confident that fusion would not impact water scarcity in the least when used for hydrogen production. Not even a little bit... an iota, if you will 😀. As for energy production diversification, sure, of course but if they reach a net gain (a real net gain) it's adoption would only be limited by the ability to produce the hardware. Artificially limiting its application, if that's what your suggesting, is a none starter really. It isn't as though Helion succeeds and solar, hydro, et al shutter their doors and go home.
@_ayohee
@_ayohee Жыл бұрын
​@@Circle9ru Just, no. TL;DR We have 410,000 years of fuel for 10,000 fusion plants (22.7 times the number of nuclear plants we have), and that's assuming *horrendous* efficiency every step of the way. We are in no danger of running out of deuterium fuel. Long form answer Remember when early on in the video (10:15), it was noted that tokamak reactors would use around 300g of tritium per day? let's say that helion's reactors will use around 100x that per day in deuterium. So, 30kg (30,000g) of deuterium per day means, in the worst case, 150kg (150,000g) of heavy water per day. (30,000g = 7,500mol of D2 with GFM 4, 7,500 mol of D2O = 150,000g with GFM 20) The world is estimated to have around 1.35 * 10^18 metric tons[1] of water. This will contain 1.5 * 10^17 metric tons of hydrogen (again, just GFM calculations). Of this, 0.030% by weight [2] will be deuterium, so 4.5 * 10^15 metric tons. As heavy water, that's 2.25 * 10^16 metric tons (more GFM calc). As we said earlier, 150kg of heavy water per day as an extremely, frankly unrealistically high estimate. That means 54,750kg or 54.75 metric tons of heavy water per year out of the world's supply. We have 2.25 * 10^16 metric tons. That's 4.109589 * 10^14 years of fuel for one reactor. Even if we were to horrendously lowball and assume we can only extract 0.001% of this, that's still 4,109,589,041 years. Assuming we run maybe, 10,000 of these reactors globally (~22.7 times more than the number of total nuclear plants worldwide[3]), that's still 410,958.9 years of fuel. And, personally, I feel that 410 thousand years is long enough to get some off-world fuel going, right? [1] - phys.org/news/2014-12-percent-earth.html [2] - www.newworldencyclopedia.org/p/index.php?title=Deuterium&oldid=1074091 [3] - www.statista.com/statistics/267158/number-of-nuclear-reactors-in-operation-by-country/ EDIT - formatting EDIT 2 - timestamp for tritum number in tokamaks
@perpetualtech5906
@perpetualtech5906 21 күн бұрын
I really hope that this technology becomes a commercial success one day. It's pretty amazing how far we've come. Thanks for the great content!
@Mosern1977
@Mosern1977 Жыл бұрын
This is one of the more interesting approaches to fusion IMO. Tokamaks are a dead end, as they might make fusion, but getting the power generated to the grid is another thing entirely.
@robinpage2730
@robinpage2730 Жыл бұрын
Tokomak is too small. The tight circular curve pinches the magnetic fields weakening the outside and allowing ions to escape, bleeding energy from a system that cannot afford to lose any energy. If it was as big as the CERN particle accelerator, the curve would be so long, and therefore so low, the magnetic fields wouldn't notice. It would be as smooth as an infinitely long tube.
@SephirothRyu
@SephirothRyu Жыл бұрын
Agreed. They are just too big IMO. About the only way I see them working is if they use helium-3 generated using hourglass reactors like this instead of that DT that needs a huge bery lining and literal steam turbines to extract power.
@acbthr3840
@acbthr3840 Жыл бұрын
@@robinpage2730 ITER solves that with a big magnet in the central void. Theres an alternative design called a stellerator that also makes this a non issue.
@robinpage2730
@robinpage2730 Жыл бұрын
@@acbthr3840 except the problem hasn't been solved or fusion would be a reality by now. Making the circular path longer, and the curvature less pronounced, might have made it a non-issue in the first place. I'm thinking something the size of the Super Proton Synchrotron at CERN. On a side note, the reason the Stellarator was originally attractive was because the plasma interaction with the confinement field induced current in the coils, resulting in a self-exciting system, allowing direct energy conversion without a steam plant; a nuclear plasma electric generator, aka a magnetohydrodynamic generator. Tokomaks can't do that but they were cheaper at the time and steam was potentially more energy efficient than MHG anyway, so Stellarators feel out of favor.
@acbthr3840
@acbthr3840 Жыл бұрын
@@robinpage2730 What? The issue with the velocity differential and magnetic field line weirdness between the inside and outside of the ring in a tokamak isnt the primary barrier to getting the yield up. It helps, but is far from a limiting factor RN, especially since its a negligible problem with the fixes we have. The current limiting factor is actually getting energy into the plasma so it fuses before it expands too much. And uh... no thats not why the stellarator was originally pursed. It was attractive specifically because the design largely cancels out the typical particle drift and helps with diffuusion problems you get in a normal tokamak. It is literally just a normal tokamak, but with a more efficient configuuration since you dont need the core void electromagnet
@DJConceal
@DJConceal Жыл бұрын
I just took a gen chem class and I almost fully understand your explination of details. I fully appreciate your dedication to this channel and will be subscribing in any and every way possible. Thank you for a free exposure to information. People like you will durastically change the future of humanity simply based on your free flow of high level information. THANK YOU
@Oto265
@Oto265 Жыл бұрын
Helion is going all out on marketing now after the inertial fusion experiment had the enormous success. I see helion everywhere from youtubers to instagram influencers. I think they are in need for some additional funding soon.
@michaelchomiczewski7937
@michaelchomiczewski7937 Жыл бұрын
Timing is probably not coincidental...
@elmarmoelzer2229
@elmarmoelzer2229 Жыл бұрын
Helion is fully funded all the way to commercialization, actually. What they need right now is qualified employees. AND, these videos were all made before the NIF announcement.
@MVHiltunen
@MVHiltunen Жыл бұрын
Inertial confinement fusion of the NIF sort has no chance as an energy production method. It is not funded or developed with energy production in mind, but for doing nuclear weapons simulation, for which it is rather good.
@johndawson6057
@johndawson6057 Жыл бұрын
Lol these video was filmed and made looong before the NIF announcement
@elmarmoelzer2229
@elmarmoelzer2229 Жыл бұрын
@@johndawson6057 Yo, what I said.
@RosalindPerry-i1n
@RosalindPerry-i1n 11 ай бұрын
I'm just as amazed by the cable management outside the nuclear reactor.. Videos like this give me much needed hope for the future..
@MladenMijatov
@MladenMijatov Жыл бұрын
General rule of thumb is if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. All am taking from this approach are benefits and talks about more efficiency than what other approaches bring to the table. Problem is, people working on those are not stupid either. This lack of downsides and making everything look obviously better than what all the other scientists are doing is what's making me suspicious. For now, it's great there's so much research being done on subject of fusion. We are in much need for cleaner power generation. And I do hope they have enough funding to keep working on this.
@lkslokinhow
@lkslokinhow Жыл бұрын
I was searching for someone commenting exactly that. I'm skeptical about that. Sure, I hope it is all true and they are advancing fast. But a new almost miraculous fusion reactor shows up days after that announcement of achieving ignition. I don't know..
@jasonreed7522
@jasonreed7522 Жыл бұрын
As an electrical engineer i will tell you what i think the questions to ask are. We know the conventional thermodynamic power cycle limits steam turbine electric generation to 33% efficiency, so what is the efficiency of this design from primary energy (fusion output potential) to AC electricity (usable energy to the existing grid)? We know a tokamak that is just a fancy water boiler will have to throw out around 66% of its energy, thats just the thermodynamic power cycle when operating at temperatures we can feasibly achieve, no way around it. But this direct capture generator doesn't have that limit, so what is its theoretical max efficiency and actual real world efficiency to compare to the known efficiency of the tokamak? My other question is that this thing is making pulses, its like a 1 cylinder engine, those are some big spikes that need to be captured and smoothed out into something that can then be more easily converted into either AC power or directly to HVDC for long distance transmission (and then get converted back to AC). So what are the parameters of the waveform of these pulses, and how hard is it to capture the energy contained in them and then rerelease is as a smooth AC waveform ready to be connected to the grid and supply baseload power? I'm not as concerned with how they actually are trying to get fusion to happen, thats hard so we try different ways to cheat they system and eventually one will actually be pretty good at it.
@MladenMijatov
@MladenMijatov Жыл бұрын
@@lkslokinhow Whenever there's an event like this where they developed something in secrecy and then it's revolutionary it starts screaming to me they need more funding which might be well justified but with all those revolutionary products we've seen advertised few if any came to be. So am skeptical but hopeful.
@MladenMijatov
@MladenMijatov Жыл бұрын
@@jasonreed7522 All valid questions. One of the issues I thought about was exactly capturing energy and producing a useful power that can be hooked up to the grid. Am additionally interested in their cooling, which they didn't mention at all and with all fusion reactors this is where majority of energy is going towards. We'll see. Perhaps other videos explain all of that.
@nick_0
@nick_0 Жыл бұрын
Yes it is very valid to be skeptical, especially in todays world. But fusion energy and helion’s methods theoretically do have their said potential, it’s crazy. Ofc actually engineering this is a challenge and commercializing it etc. The question of viable fusion is there, but the science is checking out
@candycoatedcactus
@candycoatedcactus Жыл бұрын
As a technical writer, I am used to "Translating Engineering into English". David Kirtley and the video are excellent at communicating thier points, and this video is *remarkably* well written. I haven't seen a technology that really got me fired up about the future, thinking about a world with abundant energy. I love that they had to design this with technologies currently unavailable, waiting for the industry to catch up. There's a fierce kind of optimism there, even if it just translates to supply chain issues and failed first article inspections for now. Thank you so much for the video! EDIT: David Kirtley is not well written, he's a human being :p
@RealEngineering
@RealEngineering Жыл бұрын
We don’t often get compliments on our technical writing, even though it’s our core competency. Thank you!
@HuntingTarg
@HuntingTarg Жыл бұрын
@@RealEngineering Wow, since you put it that way, I may look into joining your team. Accurate and concise use of language is my forte. Love your channel, finally kicked over the edge into getting Curiosity Stream & Nebula.
@duaneanymouse6852
@duaneanymouse6852 Жыл бұрын
As a tech writer then I suspect you realize this device is a long way from producing sustainable nuke fusion. And also that the Lawrence National Lab created fusion with their laser device years ago. Also magnetic bottles were first used at LLL in the 1970s. I also find it amusing to think magnetic fields are going to keep the hot gas off the metal, what about the radiant energy...you know the photons that are not prevented by the magnetic field.
@andrewhall7711
@andrewhall7711 Жыл бұрын
their not thier 😉😉
@candycoatedcactus
@candycoatedcactus Жыл бұрын
@@andrewhall7711 *commits seppuku*
@worstedwoolens
@worstedwoolens Жыл бұрын
This is the first technology I’ve seen that really makes fusion feel within our grasp. Lots of technical hurdles, but none of them seem impossible to overcome. And the elimination of the Tokamak’s resource scarcity/waste disposal problems makes it seem genuinely economically scalable in a way that ITER and NIF’s projects just aren’t.
@howdywowey2165
@howdywowey2165 9 ай бұрын
It's an R&D project for unemployable physicists that will never go commercial. They're just looking for more funding.
@elmarmoelzer2229
@elmarmoelzer2229 9 ай бұрын
Helion has been fully funded all the way to commercialization since summer 2021.
@howdywowey2165
@howdywowey2165 9 ай бұрын
@elmarmoelzer2229 My point is this - They will never produce more electricity than is put in. When is the go live date for commercial fusion reactor that produces more electricity than is put in ?????
@elmarmoelzer2229
@elmarmoelzer2229 9 ай бұрын
@@howdywowey2165 They have an experimental machine called Polaris that is supposed to be ready by summer. Polaris is supposed to demonstrate net electricity production from fusion. Then they have a contract with Microsoft to provide a commercial 50 MWe power plant in 2028.
@synthtea8366
@synthtea8366 9 ай бұрын
Damn you were shown how wrong you were, and then you never responded. Stop being such a negative nancy, why does it have to be "just looking for more funding."
@howdywowey2165
@howdywowey2165 8 ай бұрын
@synthtea8366 Reminder - The whole point of this R&D is to produce and capture more electricity than you put in. Embrace reality !
@kiefershanks4172
@kiefershanks4172 Жыл бұрын
Amazing machine. Using the magnetic confinement to resist the expanding fusion reaction in order to get usable electricity is pure genius.
@daleeasternbrat816
@daleeasternbrat816 Жыл бұрын
This is also useful in other types of magnetohydrodynamic generators using other than thermonuclear fuel. This system has a nice ring to it. Deriving the net energy output from the confinment fields , or confinement/ output fields. An eleant and simple solution that eliminates a lot of expensive equipment required to generate electricity. The reject heat from this system would also be harvested.
@vladimirhaviernik3568
@vladimirhaviernik3568 Жыл бұрын
I still don't get how it works. I taught you have to have moving magnetic field to generate electricity...
@o-wolf
@o-wolf Жыл бұрын
@@daleeasternbrat816 plus it gets rid of the fact that we basically create the building blocks of SUNS.. actual STARS.. then turn around &use all that energy to.. **checks notes** 🧐 boil water 😂🤦🏾‍♂️
@petegriffin8149
@petegriffin8149 Жыл бұрын
is the concept genius, or the engineering?
@jasexavier
@jasexavier Жыл бұрын
It is genius, but it's been well known for 60+ years, basically since aneutronic fusion reactions were identified.
@janneaalto3956
@janneaalto3956 Жыл бұрын
I hope it works and does revolutionize the energy section. Just can't help feeling cynical.
@brandonthesteele
@brandonthesteele Жыл бұрын
Yeah there's a very strong leash on enthusiasm here, no one wants to be taken for the "fusion power is here" ride, knowing that we have been on that ride for the last several decades. Brian said fusion may be "around the corner", given its history I would caution that it may be a long time before that corner's turned.
@sassa82
@sassa82 Жыл бұрын
Helion has been criticized for its finances, promises and its "voodoo fusion". Daniel L. Jassby, Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, American Physical Society Forum on Physics and Society April 2019 Newsletter, pp 13-16. And SLATE Article: THE Theranos Trial Shows Why We Should Be Suspicious of Nuclear Fusion.
@5133937
@5133937 Жыл бұрын
Fusion is already here, it’s being done with tokamaks, stellarators, lasers, and Helion’s design, among others. The only remaining problem is extracting more energy from the process than it consumes. The more we experiment with different approaches, the more we learn, and net positive energy is only a matter of time.
@YourCapyFrenBigly_3DPipes1999
@YourCapyFrenBigly_3DPipes1999 Жыл бұрын
I'm sure in time we'll get it all figured out. 100 years ago no one knew what a computer was. Can you imagine what we might have 100 years from now?
@aexetanius
@aexetanius Жыл бұрын
If all of humanity were as cynical as you, then we'd still be using candles and oil lamps to light our homes. We wouldn't have made any progress or advancements in science or technology because we'd all be too busy being cynical about everything. So, thanks for your cynicism, but I hope it works and does revolutionize the energy sector because I have more faith in humanity's ability to make positive change than you seem to.
@ShArpSh0t
@ShArpSh0t Жыл бұрын
Honestly the timing requirements to get everything in sync to a microsecond is more fascinating than the fusion part itself.
@noahjones9833
@noahjones9833 Жыл бұрын
Truly amazing what humans have managed to achieve, its strangely humbling and giving me a noticeable sense of arrogance at the same time, with how advanced our generations have truly become that we're now beginning to see the first milestones of what i grew up reading only in science fiction. Its not the first time its happened, we've made unbelievable advanced in science, but this might be the biggest ever
@kaitlyn__L
@kaitlyn__L Жыл бұрын
@@noahjones9833 I suppose this is what it was like when people had read sci-fi about rocket ships in the 1910s and 1920 is finally saw the Saturn V launch in 1969.
@michaelcombrink8165
@michaelcombrink8165 11 ай бұрын
Would be cool to connect multiple reactors together to each other the next ones ignition, similar to cylinders in an engine Also it seems like if these guys had half the support and cooperation as the other big reactors, then they could save tons on capacity banks Eg if they could get access to larger grid energy, maybe they could shrink their facility a few magnitudes Eg skip capacitor storage, get crazy high voltage drastically reduce amp load Don't need to step down until you're closer to the machine
@DutchBoulders
@DutchBoulders Жыл бұрын
I feel like the Real Engineering team as well as the Helion team deserve a standing ovation for this video! Wow, just wow.. it's beautiful to see this technology being so real and seeing potiential upscaling around the corner👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
@VeganSemihCyprus33
@VeganSemihCyprus33 Жыл бұрын
This is the truth that they don't tell you 👉The Connections (2021) [short documentary]👀
@lexim149
@lexim149 Жыл бұрын
Huh it’s wise to be skeptical don’t throw all your eggs in one basket. This could be a Tharanos demo.
@sassa82
@sassa82 Жыл бұрын
@@lexim149 your right. Slate did an article on this.
@reikyfoxxe1847
@reikyfoxxe1847 Жыл бұрын
“But can it boil water” is the “can it run doom” of energy generation
@1kreature
@1kreature Жыл бұрын
And can it help reduce the piles of old spent fuel...
@iseeyourschwarz8973
@iseeyourschwarz8973 Жыл бұрын
Ah. In this instance you get to skip the boiling water part. Which if they've proven it on the bench in the lab would be one of their biggest breakthroughs
@hb1338
@hb1338 Жыл бұрын
Not so much boil as vaporise.
@hustler539
@hustler539 Жыл бұрын
But can it run crysis?
@alandavis5820
@alandavis5820 Жыл бұрын
That's the beauty of this beast. It doesn't have to. It skips several steps and directly harnesses the power of the reaction and converts it right to electricity. Thus cutting out hundreds of layers of complexities and ineffeciencies parasitic to most generators.
@paulbrooks4395
@paulbrooks4395 Жыл бұрын
Scott Manley’s breakdown on the National Ignition report talks about different fusion technologies in the works as well. It’s a good watch. Much of the challenge with fusion is what you said: capturing the energy reliably with fewer drawbacks than competing power sources.
@nou5440
@nou5440 Жыл бұрын
i just watched that one right before watching this lol
@jacksonletts3724
@jacksonletts3724 Жыл бұрын
I haven’t see Scott Manley’s video, but I’m not seeing what there is to be excited about as far as this ignition breakthrough goes. While the fusion did produce more energy than the lasers, the lasers themselves take several orders of magnitude more energy in electricity to produce. That’s not even mentioning the issue of extracting the energy, running the reaction continuously, or making more of the diamond cases needed for the process. Obviously it’s cool for the science of studying fusion, but I don’t see how it’s contributing to the commercial power race in any way. Is there something I’m missing here? This is just my uncritical amateur’s take.
@kevinforget549
@kevinforget549 Жыл бұрын
Comparing the difficulties and losses of fusion vs fission I can see why fission is far more practical.
@MrJdsenior
@MrJdsenior Жыл бұрын
@@kevinforget549 For now, it is not far more practical, it is INFINITELY more practical, because no practical fusion reactors, or anything even close, exist. Many of the gripes people have with fission reactors, and there are some very legitimate ones, have been solved. Remanufacturing/re-refining spent fuels to the point where the remaining material can be easily stored (you can hold it in your hand. They make bullets, tank armor, etc out of it), and safety concerns go to near zero, as far as operation goes. No meltdown chance, reactors that fail safe have been designed. There are assuredly benefits, in theory, with fusion generation, though. But 'waiting' for it is no reason to delay fission reactors, LOTS more of them than exist today, in any way.
@KN-xl6lw
@KN-xl6lw Жыл бұрын
I hope Scott watches this video
@migs192
@migs192 Жыл бұрын
This is so.... interesting! I wonder how much they have progressed in these 6 months. I wonder if they can design it to act like a heart where they input electricity to power it then after the "pulse", the fusion reaction rebounding and pushing back on the magnetic field, a slightly larger amount of electricity is returned to the capacitors or redirected into batteries or wherever.
@manmoth4
@manmoth4 3 ай бұрын
Yeah I figure once ignition is achieved it might become self-sustaining where it provides enough energy to keep itself going. Thingnis, when the plasma pushes back out and generates energy, you need to put more energy in again to re-compress it, so i wonder if there's an issue with having to put just as much energy back in, defeating the purpose
@elmarmoelzer2229
@elmarmoelzer2229 Жыл бұрын
Great video! But there are a few mistakes /omissions. First and that might not have been entirely clear from David's explanation: The two FRCs merge into a single, hotter FRC (so the plasma is still organized). The greater temperatures increase the stability of that single FRC over the two original ones. That way, they can keep the plasma stable longer during compression. Also, the FRC is still alive during expansion which is why their energy re- capture system works. The second correction is that the D-T reaction produces Helium4 not Helium3.
@Michaelonyoutub
@Michaelonyoutub Жыл бұрын
The idea of splitting tritium production and other fusion fuels into different generators was a thought I had when reading about the ignition results. The fusion generator in france, even if it ends up not being economical for generating power, it does generate tritium, and if it generates enough surplus tritium then that could be used to fuel simpler more specialized fusion reactors which can be economical.
@lly_1
@lly_1 Жыл бұрын
Well that's how tritium generation works already, there's effectively no naturally occuring tritium and all modern day reserves are made by running specialised rods in fission reactors. Any fusion approach to tritium breeding would need to be financially competitive with firing up a good old fission reactor.
@KN-xl6lw
@KN-xl6lw Жыл бұрын
The alternative to waiting 12 years for half the tritium to decay into Helium3 is to cook it out of moon dust. No joke. Scientists think there's about a million tons of He3 that's deposited all over the surface of the moon. It was generated by solar wind and cosmic rays striking the surface and can be released by heating it to 500 degrees.
@danilooliveira6580
@danilooliveira6580 Жыл бұрын
@@lly_1 there is naturally occurring tritium in the atmosphere and sea, its a just a very VERY small amount, and it would be economically unfeasible to try to harvest it.
@SephirothRyu
@SephirothRyu Жыл бұрын
@@lly_1 To be fair, this hourglass reactor seems fairly small, and would likely share many components between the generator and "fuel processor" variants. Which is already one good mark in the favor of using a variant of this design as the fuel maker. Additionally, this version may be able to make the trinitum with MUCH lower amounts of radioactive byproduct waste than a Bery-lined tok or a custom fission pile. A generator version of this would likely end up keeping the Helium-3 more though, and either end up just selling the trinitum to others or shoving it into big thick tanks to let it slowly decay into more useful fuel (I don't actually know if Trinitum is less prone to leaking through vessel walls than normal hydrogen due to having a bigger nucleus or not, particularly as I would suspect the electron shell is a big component of this behavior/lack thereof).
@Shirolicious
@Shirolicious Жыл бұрын
I have to say. Props to this guy explaining it. Like I have absolutely no idea how that stuff works, but he explains it in such a way that it makes sense to me. Now that is impressive as I watched many different videos and explanations and they mention all kinds of scientific stuff and terms and I get lost in HOW shit actually works. Amazing, love the part about how the magnetic field is created in the closed loop.
@VisualJoey
@VisualJoey Жыл бұрын
Thought likewise!
@stonward
@stonward Жыл бұрын
It's fancy word salad, mate - lots of non-referenced nonsense - go on, put your money in and prove me wrong.
@cheeto4950
@cheeto4950 Жыл бұрын
i completely agree!!! he was great
@MagnificentXXBastard
@MagnificentXXBastard Жыл бұрын
He is a smooth talking scammer, this project is dead in the water. You guys are too naive and gullible.
@thePavuk
@thePavuk 11 ай бұрын
yeah, just sweet talking trap for investors.
@JinoLee-lc2wl
@JinoLee-lc2wl 10 ай бұрын
wow.. this is a really sophisticatedly creative design... that also requires a long-term commitment of trial-and-error.. admirably impressive!
@Elyandarin
@Elyandarin Жыл бұрын
Nice! Even if in the end it doesn't become the main fusion generator type, it might still see use as a method to sustainably produce Tritium and Helium-3 for other reactors.
@Techno_Idioto
@Techno_Idioto Жыл бұрын
Doing so would massively increase the spread of Nuclear Fusion technology throughout the world. Though it'd be confined to nations that can afford to construct the reactors, but those poorer nations can rely on solar and wind power rather than Fusion.
@greenaum
@greenaum Жыл бұрын
@@Techno_Idioto It looks pretty cheap, in principle. Some big capacitors for the magnetic field, lots of wires and coils and a decent computer to control it all. Valves and tubes, tanks of fuel, a pressure vessel. With a bit of help from a PhD you could probably build one in your garage. Looks simpler and cheaper than building a gas or coal plant, if it works how it should. In places that don't have a national power distribution network, smaller power plants you can spread around would be more economical.
@FalconWindblader
@FalconWindblader Жыл бұрын
@@Techno_Idioto As far as i can tell from the video, materials-wise, nothing seems particularly expensive in this. hell, as far as sizes go, you can house several of these easily in a typical warehouse, which takes up a hell lot less space than your good old gas or coal plant, & the cool thing about it all, still generates a hell lot more energy & the setup is definitely far cleaner than said gas & coal plant. the actual priciest part of the whole thing, would probably be getting the personnel with the know-how to build & operate this thing. if a country can afford to actually build a power plant in the first place, i don't see why they can't afford to build at least one of these here.
@J_Pawsadas-PTSDEnjoyer
@J_Pawsadas-PTSDEnjoyer Жыл бұрын
@@Techno_Idioto for some reason a nuclear fusion video was the last place i expected to see someone with that old short haired calli art for their icon, neat
@jason42797
@jason42797 Жыл бұрын
After seeing your video, I applied for their Mechanical Design Engineer position. I graduated in Dec 2022 with my BSME so it's unlikely that I'll hear back on it due to my lack of industry experience, but I couldn't let this opportunity pass me by. Nuclear fusion has been a personal interest of mine for so long and I would love to be part of the team that helps further the development of nuclear fusion. Either way, thanks for the amazing video! This is amazing and I can't wait to see what the future holds for the development of nuclear fusion! Update: Thank you all for your well wishes and support, your gestures of kindness to a fellow stranger on the internet means a lot to me. Unfortunately, I don't believe I will be contacted for the position at Helion. I sent an email to follow up and ask when I might expect to hear back from them, but that was about 2 months ago. To compound the issue further, my post graduation job hunt is entering its 5th month now. In that time I must have applied to at least 50 ME positions, maybe more. Two interviews, some "we went in another direction" emails, and a lot of ghosting's later I'm still trying. Oddly enough, even though I have no industry work history I have been turned down more than once because I'm overqualified. I'm certain I'll find a job where I can make positive change in the world eventually, even if I have to just do it myself. Thanks again if your read the whole thing, if there's enough interest I can try to make an update when I get an offer. TL;DR: No luck, Still job hunting, I've got this.
@charleshorseman55
@charleshorseman55 Жыл бұрын
I have also often wondered how to roll a rock up a hill, and have it's energy be higher than the work done to roll it up.
@purplespower9730
@purplespower9730 Жыл бұрын
It is fascinating research. I work for one the largest ICF laser fusion research facilities and as an optomechanical/mechanical engineer I find it very rewarding. However I'm also only 17 and still doing school.
@Fae-Fey
@Fae-Fey Жыл бұрын
Please tell us how the your application goes
@Nick17354
@Nick17354 Жыл бұрын
Be persistent! Just because you are fresh out of school doesn't mean you don't have a shot. Think about how you can prove to them that you are right for the project. Even if it doesn't happen right away, check back in often. As you gain more experience, and develop your skill set, you will only become more valuable.
@konpet4248
@konpet4248 Жыл бұрын
Tell us if you get a reply from them! Good luck
@julienlamberto9857
@julienlamberto9857 Жыл бұрын
Despite how depressing some aspects of modern humanity can be, the sheer scale of the technological growth we’ve achieved is incredible.
@TalonMerlin777
@TalonMerlin777 Жыл бұрын
"we've" You didn't do anything unless you work a farm, an energy-related plant, or other job that enables this experimentation.
@ahamay2012
@ahamay2012 Жыл бұрын
@@TalonMerlin777 Aren´t you part of humanity?
@TalonMerlin777
@TalonMerlin777 Жыл бұрын
@@ahamay2012 yes but I hold disdain for people who wanna act like they had a part in this.
@abdullahabubakar8344
@abdullahabubakar8344 Жыл бұрын
@@TalonMerlin777 Where did he indicate that he directly had a part in this?
@Taira_No_Kagekiyo
@Taira_No_Kagekiyo Жыл бұрын
@@TalonMerlin777 Everyone has that has a job contributes to something, which in turn allows these people to do things
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