2022.12.18 Fredmas Fusion
Today is the annual remembrance of my Dad's birthday: Fredmas.
It's also the negative 1-month mark for Amy and I getting married. I think he would have really liked her, and there is some complicated deconstruction to do in my head about what I think he might have thought about getting re-married. But maybe I'll save that difficult bit for some other Rant™ and just focus on the happy part about marrying Amy.
Except that today I finally found out the technical details of the Helion fusion reactor, and I'm very busy having my mind blown. I thought tokamak's were pretty cool, and stellarators were amusing, but this pulse fusion technique is genuinely thrilling.
The main elements that blow my mind (in order of mind-blowing-ness):
- direct output of electrical power - bypassing the need to crudely use heat to run something like a turbine
- simplified fuel - use of relatively-common deuterium and helium instead of ultra-rare tritium (or plutonium, ick)
- massively reduced radioactive byproduct - even compared to tokamaks, and removing the need for beryllium layer
- a demonstration reactor to supply output power in 2024