Via New Atlas: Radical hydrogen-boron reactor leapfrogs current nuclear fusion tech by Loz Blain
Australian company HB11 says it's well on the way to nuclear fusion energy generation without the radioactive fuels or super-high temperatures/kuligssen/Depositphotos
"We are sidestepping all of the scientific challenges that have held fusion energy back for more than half a century," says the director of an Australian company that claims its hydrogen-boron fusion technology is already working a billion times better than expected.
HB11 Energy is a spin-out company that originated at the
University of New South Wales, and it announced today a swag of patents
through Japan, China and the USA protecting its unique approach to
fusion energy generation.
Fusion, of course, is the long-awaited clean, safe theoretical
solution to humanity's energy needs. It's how the Sun itself makes the
vast amounts of energy that have powered life on our planet up until
now. Where nuclear fission – the splitting of atoms to release energy –
has proven incredibly powerful but insanely destructive when things go
wrong, fusion promises reliable, safe, low cost, green energy generation
with no chance of radioactive meltdown.
It's just always been 20
years away from being 20 years away. A number of multi-billion dollar
projects are pushing slowly forward, from the Max Planck Institute's insanely complex Wendelstein 7-X stellerator to the 35-nation ITER Tokamak
project, and most rely on a deuterium-tritium thermonuclear fusion
approach that requires the creation of ludicrously hot temperatures,
much hotter than the surface of the Sun, at up to 15 million degrees
Celsius (27 million degrees Fahrenheit). This is where HB11's tech takes
a sharp left turn.
The results of decades of research by Emeritus
Professor Heinrich Hora, HB11's approach to fusion does away with rare,
radioactive and difficult fuels like tritium altogether – as well as
those incredibly high temperatures. Instead, it uses plentiful hydrogen
and boron B-11, employing the precise application of some very special
lasers to start the fusion reaction.
Here's how HB11 describes its
"deceptively simple" approach: the design is "a largely empty metal
sphere, where a modestly sized HB11 fuel pellet is held in the center,
with apertures on different sides for the two lasers. One laser
establishes the magnetic containment field for the plasma and the second
laser triggers the ‘avalanche’ fusion chain reaction. The alpha
particles generated by the reaction would create an electrical flow that
can be channeled almost directly into an existing power grid with no
need for a heat exchanger or steam turbine generator."...
Full story: https://newatlas.com/energy/hb11-hydrogen-boron-fusion-clean-energy/
