- 3231 - FUSION - to generate electricity? When fusion is technologically mature enough to be used industrially, it will open up an unprecedented scenario where an extensive supply of clean, safe and sustainable energy can finally be guaranteed.
------------------ 3231 - FUSION - to generate electricity?
- US company named “Helion Energy” announced that its sixth fusion generator prototype has exceeded 100 million degrees Celsius. The prototype, called “Trenta“, has undergone a 16-month series of reliability and durability tests on key components of the fusion process.
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- The Sun uses fusion to generate all of its energy. Fusion is combining light atoms like hydrogen into heavier atoms like helium with some leftover radiation that turns water into steam to turn generators and send electricity our way.
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- Fission is different. In order to release power it starts out with a heavy atom like uranium and splits it into smaller atoms with the release of energy including dangerous radiation that make it difficult to manufacture electricity.
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- Fusion is “cleaner” but it takes tremendous heat and pressure to allow fusion to occur.
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- 100,000,000 degrees is the temperature a commercial reactor would operate at. The durability tests are confirming the reliability of the ‘Tentra system‘ to do this. These achievements allow the company to proceed with development of its unique “pulsed-fusion, ignition-free” generating system.
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- The key to Helion’s approach is to directly convert fusion energy into electricity, which means that we don’t require “ignition” and can produce net electricity at much lower net energy values. The system uses “pulsed fusion’ rather than “pressure fusion’ like the Sun. This keeps the fusion device small and allows for flexible electricity production. It is using deuterium and helium-3 (D-³He) as fuel.
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- There is a growing expectation that fusion might become a viable option for the production of abundant, clean, and reliable electricity in our future.
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- One of the key obstacles for many fusion power proposals is that using them will require upgrades to the existing power grid. Helion claims it is side-stepping this issue.
Helion’s fusion electricity generators are compact, use small amounts of fuel, and can run 24/7.
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- Therefore, one of the key benefits of Helion’s power facilities is that they can directly plug into existing transmission infrastructure and replace current fossil-fuel-based power generation without significant investment in additional infrastructure.
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- A new grid-level transmission infrastructure is a requirement of large-scale, gigawatt-class power associated with other traditional fusion approaches.
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- Fusion aims to provide an abundant and reliable basic energy solution to meet the world’s growing energy needs. Climate change is one of the world’s most challenging and pressing challenges, and new energy technologies are needed to answer the climate crisis.
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- The climate crisis needs a breakthrough and renewables can no longer be the primary source of energy production. As energy needs become more widespread, fusion can provide an abundant and reliable basic energy solution.
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- Fusion is an abundant source of zero-carbon baseload power, but unlike fission, fusion cannot produce a runaway chain reaction. If something goes wrong, fusion simply stops. Fusion also does not produce any long-term waste and cannot be weaponized.
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- Trenta prototype has merged and compressed “high-Beta field reversed configuration deuterium plasmas” under fusion conditions, achieving 9 keV total plasma temperature (over 100 million degrees Celsius) in bulk with operation above 8 keV ion temperature and 1 keV electron temperature. (keV = kilo, 1,000 electron volts)
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- In 2018 its 5th generation prototype produced magnetic fields of 7 Tesla and reached ion temperature of 2 keV at high density.
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- The system is composed of magnets that accelerate two reactors to 1 million mph from opposite ends of the 40-foot accelerator. Then they collide the plasma in the center. The plasma collides in the center of the system and is compressed by a magnetic field until they reach fusion temperatures are reached.
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- At these high temperatures, the deuterium and helium-3 ions move quickly, overcoming the forces that repel one another, allowing the ions to combine, or fuse. This releases energy, and the plasma expands, pushing back on the magnetic field. The change in field induces current and thus electricity to power electrical loads.
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- The reactor confines plasma on to closed magnetic field lines in the form of a self-stable torus. Together with the “spherical” they are considered part of the compact toroid class of fusion devices.
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- The self-contained plasma can be accelerated and super-heated to 100 M°C+. The high Beta enables direct electricity recapture and require no particle beams, lasers, superconductors, or antimatter.
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- A series of analyses by X-ray spectroscopy, 1,550 nanometer interferometry, optical emission measurements and neutron diagnostics confirmed the extensive and repeatable operation of Trenta under thermonuclear fusion conditions.
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- These generators are compact and can produce 50 MegaWatts of power in a 20,000 square foot space. Additionally, the fusion fuel is found abundantly in water. Earth’s oceans contain enough fusion fuel to power the planet for billions of years without impacting the environment.
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- One glass of Helion’s fusion fuel will generate enough electricity to power a home for 865 years. Helion-generated baseload electricity is projected to be cost-competitive with fossil fuels from day one without factoring in subsidies or economies of scale.
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- Helion’s pulsed-magnetic approach to fusion are the high-power semiconductor switches that enable efficient and rapid energy input into the fusion reaction. Modern gigahertz-class fiber optic triggering, monitoring, and field programmable gate array processing allow the reliable, synchronous, and efficient operation of Helion’s fusion system.
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- Advanced computing solutions also make it possible to use highly complex mathematical models to describe the physics of plasma and simulate its behavior.
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- When fusion is technologically mature enough to be used industrially, it will open up an unprecedented scenario where an extensive supply of clean, safe and sustainable energy can finally be guaranteed.
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- July 24, 2021 FUSION - to generate electricity? 3231
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