Posted on 05/12/2023 2:35:49 PM PDT by nickcarraway
How complicated can cold fusion be, really?
Fusion upstart Helion Energy has named Microsoft as its first customer, and claims the software giant should be able to use electricity made by mashing together helium atoms from 2028.
Which may come as a surprise to many, given that nuclear fusion – outside of stars and incredibly destructive bombs – remains largely theoretical. The few successes in the field have produced modest net energy gains. The most celebrated recent fusion experiment, revealed by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's National Ignition Facility in late 2022, produced 3.15 megajoules (MJ) of fusion energy output using 2.05 MJ of input – for "a fraction of a second."
Which is a very significant result, but nowhere near what Microsoft needs to run its mighty server fleets.
Helion Energy uses different technology to that employed at Lawrence Livermore. The startup uses a plasma accelerator that heats fuel made of deuterium and helium-3 to over 100 million degrees, in a barbell-shaped accelerator that has fuel at each end. Magnets guide the plasma to the center of the accelerator, where the two globs of fuel meet – producing electricity.
Sounds great, right?
Curb your enthusiasm. Helion is currently running its sixth-gen accelerator – a machine that has cooked up the required plasma, run for an impressive length of time, and demonstrated the viability of the company's approach to fusion.
But Helion is waiting for a seventh-gen machine, due to come online in 2024, to demonstrate net electricity gain. Until that happens it's a lot of hot air.
But at least it's signed a customer willing to buy actual electricity in 2028.
Since humans can't manage fusion, the US puts millions into AI-powered creation Private company set up to oversee UK's prototype fusion reactor Bill Gates' nuclear power plant stalled by Russian fuel holdup America's nuclear fusion 'breakthrough' is super-hot ... yet far from practical Helion makes much of the fact that tech luminaries such as Bill Gates and OpenAI boss Sam Altman are among its backers. At this point it seems apt to remind readers that wealthy techies and venture capitalists are more comfortable with risk than almost any other class of investor.
Note, also, that Helion reckons the plant from which Microsoft is expected to draw power "will target power generation of 50MW." The Register is aware of individual datacenters that consume more energy. And Microsoft has dozens of them.
But hey, you gotta start somewhere.
"We are optimistic that fusion energy can be an important technology to help the world transition to clean energy," starts a canned quote from Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and vice chair. "Helion's announcement supports our own long term clean energy goals and will advance the market to establish a new, efficient method for bringing more clean energy to the grid, faster."
Even if this plan doesn't eventuate on time, techies can still access ColdFusion – Adobe's tool for developing and deploying web apps. ®
Aren’t we running out of helium?
“Aren’t we running out of helium?”
No
The day we run out of Helium, we are in deep trouble.
“Until that happens it’s a lot of hot air.” Pretty much!!
What, are you a transphobe?! It's called shelium now. Or theylium.
Okay. I tried to find a reliable source, plenty of NPR scare articles out there...
It appears we aren’t but it is a finite resource and may become very expensive when there are shortages...
https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/Online/26992/Helium-shortage-has-ended-at-least-for-now
Homonium.
I guess the “in ten more years” prediction has been replaced with, “in five more years”. Looks like we are making progress.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4152291/posts
This is really biggly biggness.
I accidently and improbably crashed their omfg we did it party a few months ago
I always believed I would not ever see this, and if you search this forum and my comments to kevmo.
Anyway I talked to them for a while and can tell you for sure they believe the world has changed and they are at ground zero.
I was thinking 2078 myself.
I hope they succeed!
Wouldn’t matter if it is for fusion.
https://th.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/site/uploads/Publications/Fusion-Helium_supply_20131213.pdf
>How much energy would actually be required, if
helium had to be extracted from the atmosphere? Using
the empirical relation in Ref [14], the energy required to
replace the net loss of 1.6 t per annum (2.2 t less 0.6 t) of
helium per power plant would be about 45 GWh p. a.
This corresponds to only about 1% of its annual output!
With gates involved what could go wrong 🤪🤡
It’s less prevalent than, say, hydrogen, in the atmosphere, and the collection is expensive. But it has a substantial number of industrial uses including with space faring, so they are cooking up ways to produce more.
2 thoughts on this:
1. I expect to have a fusion reactor in my flying car, as both are only 5 years away.
2. Fusion reactors won’t sell well, as you can’t use them to make nuclear weapons on the sly.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.