[HN Gopher] Avalanche Energy - Fusion power you can hold in your...
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Avalanche Energy - Fusion power you can hold in your hands
Author : nynx
Score : 36 points
Date : 2022-04-14 18:31 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.avalanche.energy)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.avalanche.energy)
| otikik wrote:
| This is something I have been wished it existed since Back to the
| Future's Mr Fusion. I don't think it's possible to build it. My
| understanding (as a layman) is that you either need energies
| which melt all solid matter, or you either need impossibly high
| precision, to a point where you can play snooker with individual
| atoms. But that level of control also requires high energy, and
| you are back to square one
| fizzyfizz wrote:
| I'm sure it's a coincidence that their graphics make it look like
| the "arc reactor" from the Iron Man movies.
| ecpottinger wrote:
| All I can say, if they have a working system, just make power and
| sell the power.
|
| Seems every time something like this comes up they can`t produce
| power and sell it for money, but they want you to invest money in
| them. If they are anything why not just self-invest.
| 908087 wrote:
| zokier wrote:
| I dug into the background, and found this article:
| https://www.geekwire.com/2022/blue-origin-vets-unveil-startu...
|
| The punchline is
|
| > The startup has raised a $5 million seed round, secured a
| Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) International Patent, and
| recently emerged from stealth mode. _A few weeks ago, Langtry and
| Riordan generated their first neutrons via fusion._
|
| But there is also nugget of information that gives some hint on
| the technology:
|
| > While researching the field, Langtry came across a graduate
| thesis from a Lockheed Martin researcher named Tom McGuire. It
| included open source code for simulations for an electrostatic
| fusion reactor. The idea became the seed for Avalanche Energy's
| technology.
|
| Notably Lockheed Martin themselves have also made noises about
| fusion power:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8486335
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20484100
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8458371 (there should be
| another thread for this article that I can't find?)
|
| This is both good and bad thing; on one hand, the concept might
| not be completely bogus if LM has been researching it too. But on
| the other hand, if LM with their billions together with McGuire
| who seems like a pretty smart fellow haven't figured how to make
| it work, then this startup is having quite an uphill battle ahead
| of them.
| hcarvalhoalves wrote:
| Isn't that the definition of venture capital, though? Throwing
| only $5 million on an area like fusion power w/ _huge_ upside
| should be cheap.
| josaka wrote:
| I think this might be the PCT application in question (same
| name as the founder, and about fusion):
| https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO20...
| Discusses an "orbital confinement fusion reaction."
|
| (They might be overstating things with "secured a Patent
| Cooperation Treaty (PCT) International Patent." No such thing
| as a PCT _patent_. PCT 's are just notice under a set of
| treaties that you might file an application in any of the 193
| WIPO member states. No one ever has asserted a "PCT Patent."
| That said, PCT applications are examined, but the result is
| only advisory and countries often reach a different result when
| the examine the national phase filings.)
| wrycoder wrote:
| This is a nice website, with a useful comparison of fusion
| technologies, pro and con, including their own. I didn't see any
| red flags.
|
| There must be papers and parents somewhere.
| colechristensen wrote:
| The red flag is that it is quite implausible that anything like
| this will be successful any century soon.
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| Thats a bold statement, a lot can happen in a century.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Fascinating! Wonder what the major differentiator between this
| and say the Nuclear Battery proposal is for commercial users.
| Easier use for space (partially saying this because the founding
| team seems to be Blue Origin)?
| blamazon wrote:
| As another datapoint, their careers page is advertising an
| opening for a "Fusion Space Systems Architect":
|
| https://www.avalanche.energy/careers.html
| blamazon wrote:
| If you'd like to try building a Nuclear Fusor at home, rejoice,
| for Makezine has instructions for you! It probably will consume
| more energy than you can recoup from it, however.
|
| https://makezine.com/projects/nuclear-fusor/
|
| " _Time Required: >16 Hours Difficulty: Hard_"
| belter wrote:
| Warnings:
|
| "Glass vacuum chambers can implode. Do not operate the vacuum
| system without safety goggles. Reminder: High voltage and
| current can injure or kill. Fusors may generate harmful
| radiation. Do not attempt to build or operate this fusor unless
| you understand the risks and are capable of safely using high
| voltage and vacuum equipment. Do not run this device at more
| than 12kV rectifier input."
| kemiller wrote:
| This website is full of "we want to" and "we plan to" statements.
| Something like this would of course be extraordinarily useful but
| it smacks of free energy scams.
| bentona wrote:
| Any clue what one of these might cost?
| xwdv wrote:
| I think most I'd probably pay is somewhere between $2-3k
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Let's pretend this is real and a magic box that sits in a
| corner and outputs 5 kW of power (with ignorable fuel cost),
| and lasts 10 years.
|
| First of all, they can simply put it in a corner and sell the
| power. Wholesale generation prices vary but around 5 ct/kWh
| is a good approximation. That would be 25 cents per hour,
| $6/day, ~2.2k per year. They could probably sell it for at
| least $20k.
|
| But this can _replace_ grid power. So now they can sell it at
| least for the price of a solar + battery setup, plus coolness
| factor surcharge, plus the fact that you can rely on it year-
| round unlike solar, so you don 't need a grid connection at
| all. Another application where they can probably make at
| least $20k but probably more from each unit.
|
| Now, let's go further. Electric cars. You'd probably need
| multiple units and a small battery for peak power demand, but
| let's ask this way... how much _extra_ do you think people
| would pay for a truck that magically refuels itself, for
| free? I 'd totally see two of those being a $50-100k upgrade
| for electric cars. Or a truck that doesn't need batteries
| _and_ powers your house when parked.
|
| That's just the absolute no-brainer mass market applications.
| Now imagine anything that is remote or has other difficulties
| in getting power. Cell towers, scientific or military
| outposts, spaceships...
| djrogers wrote:
| That's patently ridiculous. A device that can put out a
| steady 5kw at nearly zero cost generates >15k worth of
| electric bill offset annually in California. That would make
| it worth at least 15k*MTBF...
|
| It's be less elsewhere, but there's nowhere that this amount
| of electricity would be worth so little that $2k makes any
| sense.
|
| That said, this smells like total Theranos level baloney, so
| it'll never happen.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| The vapourware product or the whole scam-ish company?
| ycombigator wrote:
| Press 'X' to doubt.
| learndeeply wrote:
| This seems obviously fake, since there's no proof. Can someone
| steelman a good argument for why this could be feasible?
|
| Also, if you had achieved true fusion (more energy emitted than
| put in), wouldn't the more profitable thing to do is replace
| power plants? Why does it need to be portable?
| colechristensen wrote:
| If you actually had a fusion device that could be carried
| around in a suitcase, you wouldn't need to make claims about
| it, you could just show it.
|
| It's like the monthly new cure for cancer. It's not even a
| "scam", just yawn. Show me some produced energy or even output
| anywhere close to input. If you had that you'd change the world
| and wouldn't need to sell it.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I mean, a fool and his money are soon parted. This is so
| obviously either an outright scam or just otherwise not what it
| claims to be.
|
| If you could _truly_ get "fusion power you can hold in your
| hand", that has even a decent amount of power output above
| input, you would basically solve 95% of the problems of
| humanity. In that case, I'd expect something a little more
| momentous than a brochureware website.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Can it be embedded into someone's chest?
|
| Asking for a friend...
| greesil wrote:
| As usual, extraordinary claims require... well, proof.
|
| Edit: I really hope this startup snake oil shit doesn't come to
| fusion power. Maybe they'll have an NFT too.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Taking bets on the crypto angle. Reminds me of this project,
| https://arrowair.com/, which is about some sort of open source
| VTOL aircraft, and the first thing they built was ... something
| on Ethereum.
| bashmelek wrote:
| On the other hand, that gives me the idea to pitch clean cold
| fusion energy to power quantum computing that generates a
| quantum encrypted infinite denominational new currency based on
| NFTs.
| MikeDelta wrote:
| The solution to all our problems! Where can I invest?
| phire wrote:
| Assuming this isn't an outright scam; I notice they make no
| claims about input power.
|
| They claim 5KW of electrical power out, but make no mention of
| how much power went in, or how much waste heat it generated.
| ISL wrote:
| Beyond the fact that novel fusion technologies tend to fail
| badly: A fusion system you can hold in your hands is something
| that will generally expose you to a whole lot of neutrons.
| maxrmk wrote:
| I recently met someone who works here, and I'm extremely
| skeptical of it. My impression was that it wasn't an outright
| scam (they have at least a few real employees), but that they
| were wildly out of their depth.
|
| The founders are ex-blue origin mechanical engineers, and I think
| they've fallen into the classic engineers trap of thinking that
| problems out of their areas of domain expertise are "simple". The
| real kicker for me was that they had only just hired their first
| physicist after working on the project for several months.
|
| Obviously I'm potentially falling into the same trap -- I don't
| work on fusion, and it's easy to be a skeptic. But that was my
| impression.
| blamazon wrote:
| I worked at a company like this (chasing novel high efficiency
| small-scale energy production) for a while and it was a lot of
| fun. Just my friends and I working very hard to build something
| impossible with other people's money. Countless hours in the
| lab failing over and over again, but learning at a tremendous
| pace and feeling like we were getting closer than anyone else
| would believe. There was much stress as our nutjob CEO
| portrayed increasingly fanciful mistruths to a revolving door
| of investors.
|
| I wish the folks at Avalanche Energy the best, even if I think
| their business proposition is... dubious.
| [deleted]
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Is this a variant of
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_electrostatic_confine...
|
| ?
| wrycoder wrote:
| Yes, I would say it is.
| HstryrsrBttn wrote:
| folli wrote:
| This website is incredibly sparse on information. Location:
| Seattle, no address. Zero info about the team, any affiliations,
| scientific advisory board. No references to papers, nor patents.
|
| Even Theranos is more convincing than this.
| causi wrote:
| Unfortunately "being utter horseshit" is not a flaggable
| offense.
| infogulch wrote:
| No information about what it is or how they build it or how
| it's different from the thousands of other teams trying to do
| fusion right now.
|
| But they have a flashy website!
| rmbyrro wrote:
| In fact, Theranos could come be back to the market with a 2.0
| machine. And they would still be more convincing than this.
| pr07ecH70r wrote:
| I wouldn't call them a scam, but a far fetched utopian dreamers.
| No one (with his sane mind) would put money w/o an MVP (minimum
| viable product in the startup jargon). It looks fancy, site looks
| futuristic. I love Iron Man btw. But that is that.
| hobscoop wrote:
| It sounds like they're trying to build a device with a
| distribution of ions in velocity space which is very far from the
| equilibrium Gaussian-type distribution ('Maxwellian'). This is
| difficult because there will be about a million collisions for
| every fusion reaction that happens, and collisions tend to
| redistribute velocities toward the equilibrium. Collisions
| between unlike particles (different species of ions, or ions vs
| electrons) will also cause diffusion in physical space. This
| could cause ions to leave the chamber much more quickly.
| pmdulaney wrote:
| Hey, no fair -- you sound like you actually know what you're
| talking about...
| ISL wrote:
| This is the key observation that isn't obvious about fusion.
| The capture cross-section is smaller than the scattering cross-
| section, so essentially any beam design is doomed to fail.
|
| I'm an experimental physicist who recently looked hard at
| jumping into the fusion game. My approximate conclusion is that
| anything that doesn't involve some form of adiabatically heated
| plasma is extremely unlikely to work.
|
| Fusion is an efficiency and engineering problem: how can you
| ensure that each particle gets enough energetic collisions to
| have a prayer of fusing before it loses energy?
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