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Comment by ihnorton | Hacker News Reader

Content-free article, but presumably it is this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_beta_fusion_reactor

This is not the first time they have gone public with this - Charles Chase gave a talk at Google X last year, recorded and publicly-available:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAsRFVbcyUY

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It sounds very similar to the way Helion Energy does it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helion_Energy). Do you know what the major differences are?

Helion here. There are pretty big differences. They did get the high Beta and compact/modular parts right. The primary differences are that Helion operates entirely pulsed with simple non-superconducting magnets. That allows us to go to higher temperatures, cleaner fuels, directly recovery energy, and if everything works as planned should eliminate the wall concerns and need for particle beams.

I do think what they are doing is interesting. If its like the Gas Dynamic Trap or Tandem Mirror it has promise, atleast from the fundamental physics point of view. Researchers in Novosibirsk had encouraging results in the last 5 years. They still have a long road ahead to get to fusion-relevant temperatures, but we are staying tuned to this one.

If you really are Dr. Kirtley let me say you have one of the most, if not the most important job in earth right now. Fusion energy has the potential to stop wars and re-start the space revolution. I wish you the best.

I'm all about the space revolution, but the only way to stop wars is to have one so big there is no one left to wage them. In a way, fusion does have that potential, but I suspect you were going for something more positive.

Of course it will not stop all wars, but it will stop most oil-related wars. You still will have resource-related wars like cultivable land, and fresh water but with the space-revolution soon humanity will have plenty of land and water too.

Well... if fusion energy is abundant, the price of oil will drop rather abruptly. A lot of people in a lot of places, where the population has been expanding, and there is a lot of religious extremism and political instability and modern weapons, will have to find a new way to feed themselves. And someone to blame if they can't. So I'm not that optimistic it will stop any wars.

Aha thanks for the explanation, that does make things clearer. Also a huge thanks to you for being at the forefront of technology. I consider energy research the single most important thing we can do for humanity, and I'm incredibly grateful to see real progress on fusion in my lifetime.

I read the wikipedia link. How do they get the energy out? What are the byproducts? etc...

AFAICT, ²H + ²H produce ³H (which is the burned), H, ³He, and ⁴He, plus some neutrons and gamma rays. The latter must bring the energy out of the chamber, by heating some blanketing. Then it must be the same as with fission reactors.

From the article Flexie posted, for production they're planning to use deuterium-tritium, which produces helium and high-energy neutrons, which breed more tritium from lithium. Like most fusion projects they use deuterium alone for testing.

Electron Disassociation.

Basically you catch electrons flying out of the plasma arc (where fusion is taking place), and ground them back into the plasma (which is positively charged).

Umm its largely theory at this point.

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