Radical hydrogen-boron reactor leapfrogs current nuclear fusion tech

[GenesisNemesis]

https://newatlas.com/energy/hb11-hydroge...an-energy/

"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.

Anyone with more physics knowledge than me who can comment?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Not holding my breath.

[GenesisNemesis]

Not holding my breath.

However this is a different method than the other type of fusion that's currently being researched.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Not holding my breath.

However this is a different method than the other type of fusion that's currently being researched.

I was sitting at the hot dog stand at Sasebo Naval Station reading the Stars and Stripes when the news of table-top fusion broke on the front page. This was some time early in the '80s.

[Alan V]

https://newatlas.com/energy/hb11-hydroge...an-energy/

"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.

Anyone with more physics knowledge than me who can comment?

I wish I did understand the physics, but the idea is a new one.  From your article:

HB11's Managing Director Dr. Warren McKenzie clarifies over the phone: "A lot of laser fusion experiments are using the lasers to heat things up to crazy temperatures – we're not. We're using the laser to massively accelerate the hydrogen through the boron sample. You could say we're using the hydrogen as a dart, and hoping to hit a boron , and if we hit one, we can start a fusion reaction. That's the essence of it. If you've got a scientific appreciation of temperature, it's essentially the speed of atoms moving around. Creating fusion using temperature is essentially randomly moving atoms around, and hoping they'll hit one another, our approach is much more precise."

"The hydrogen/boron fusion creates a couple of helium atoms," he continues. "They're naked heliums, they don't have electrons, so they have a positive charge. We just have to collect that charge. Essentially, the lack of electrons is a product of the reaction and it directly creates the current."

If fusion ever worked, it could solve much of our climate change problem all by itself. But the timing has to be right, and we can't just wait for it at this point.

[brewerb]

I only understand the Rick and Morty versions of physics.

[Dānu]

I only understand the Rick and Morty versions of physics.

Well, you're at least one step ahead of me in the game.

[Minimalist]

Trump will impose sanctions.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Trump will impose sanctions.

T.rump would charge for sunshine, then go bankrupt.

[Fireball]

Looks like most of the tech is there. I'll have to go look up what Boron and Hydrogen fuse into; perhaps their byproduct is radioactive, I don't know. I think though that they are a bit premature, when they say that the energy yield is a billion times greater than expected. That means that they don't have a handle on the theory.

OK, the product is 3 Helium atoms, which are stable.

[TheGentlemanBastard]

When someone, anyone, can maintain a fusion reaction for longer than a few milliseconds I'll take notice, and outside speculative fiction, no one has. Until then it's just more speculative fiction.

[Dancefortwo]

I only understand the Rick and Morty versions of physics.

Well, you're at least one step ahead of me in the game.

You mean one leapfrog ahead in the game. 

[Thumpalumpacus]

When someone, anyone, can maintain a fusion reaction for longer than a few milliseconds I'll take notice, and outside speculative fiction, no one has. Until then it's just more speculative fiction.

Ya gotta start somewhere.

[airportkid]

HB11's Managing Director Dr. Warren McKenzie clarifies over the phone " ... You could say we're using the hydrogen as a dart, and hoping to hit a boron ... if we hit one, we can start a fusion reaction. That's the essence.  Creating fusion using temperature is randomly moving atoms around, hoping they'll hit one another ... our approach is much more precise ..."

When the "expert" isn't even aware of the contradiction he makes in adjacent sentences he either has no meaningful comprehension himself of what he's describing, or he's hoping to make a hit is some other sense of the word "hit" more closely associated with common carny than with uncommon science.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...132354.htm

[TheGentlemanBastard]

When someone, anyone, can maintain a fusion reaction for longer than a few milliseconds I'll take notice, and outside speculative fiction, no one has. Until then it's just more speculative fiction.

Ya gotta start somewhere.

Indeed, but I've heard a lot of hype about fusion power over the last 30 or 40 years and it remains nothing but hype. I hope someone makes the breakthrough that will enable fusion (or some other tech) as a viable replacement for fossil fuels, but I remain skeptical.

[Thumpalumpacus]

When someone, anyone, can maintain a fusion reaction for longer than a few milliseconds I'll take notice, and outside speculative fiction, no one has. Until then it's just more speculative fiction.

Ya gotta start somewhere.

Indeed, but I've heard a lot of hype about fusion power over the last 30 or 40 years and it remains nothing but hype. I hope someone makes the breakthrough that will enable fusion (or some other tech) as a viable replacement for fossil fuels, but I remain skeptical.

Of course. I remember the cold-fusion debacle of 1989; it still stands as a good warning against sloppy or crooked research.

That doesn't mean the line of research shouldn't be pursued, it just means that we should be wary of wishful thinking.

[Paleophyte]

https://newatlas.com/energy/hb11-hydroge...an-energy/

"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.

Anyone with more physics knowledge than me who can comment?

Not a lot of actual information to go on there. I'd want to know what their return rate was and how long they could sustain the reaction. It's worrisome that both of those tidbits are absent from the article.

The National Ignition Facility broke the 100% return barrier a few years back demonstrating that you can, in principle, get more energy out of a fusion reactor than you put in. Unfortunately you can't sustain the reaction for more than a microsecond or so and nobody's been able to scale it up to commercial sizes yet.

Hydrogen-Boron fusion isn't exactly new. It's the holy grail of fusion power because it produces 3 alpha particles and almost no neutrons. Almost all other fusion fuels produce a lot of very fast neutrons that can be very difficult to deal with. The problem is that Hydrogen-Boron fusion needs energies orders of magnitude higher than Deuterium-Tritium fusion, so not many people pursue it as a viable fuel.

I'll be more enthusiastic when they come out with some solid details and a few other folks repeat their results.

[Paleophyte]

This bit from HB11's homepage is a red flag:

Since 2005, there have been several measurements of HB11 fusion reactions ignited by CPA lasers validating Hora’s prediction from the 1960’s. These results alone put the HB11 reaction ahead of most other fusion technology companies who are yet to demonstrate any reactions.

That's just plain wrong and it's fundamentally wrong. If you're the sort of crazy SOB who doesn't mind a few Roentgen in your workshop then you can join the elite group of hobbyists who make their own tabletop fusors. It takes vastly more power than it produces, but your DIY fusion reactor will fuse deuterium atoms in the comfort of your own home. So saying that the other folks can't even get their atoms to fuse is wrong in a way that suggests that whoever wrote it was much better at PR than physics.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm afraid this isn't true. I'm also afraid it is.