AI Designed Hybrid Fusion Fission Reactor!

Trained generative neural network systems are shaking the world. While they have limitations, their ability to hold multiple precepts in "mind" and the fact that they are not limited by the same biases that all humans have, make them very useful when studying or creatively evaluating a complicated system or subject. The world needs better fission reactors, and working fusion reactors, if we are to protect our future and help our children reach the stars. Today the Terran Space Academy evaluates an idea that started with AI, and may end up powering Starships all over the solar system.

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Extra Credit:
"Chernobyl" by Craig Mason

[nautica]

I would recommend Improbable Matter's video about Helion, he has nuclear fusion experience, and brings up interesting points including that their fusion temperatures just aren't high enough for the pressures and fuel mix they're using: 100 million °K isn't enough for energy gaining deut-trit fusion, and they'd need the order of 300 million °K instead.

[scottthomas]

The Hirsch-Farnsworth fusor! It's been around for a while, and a simple one can be built at saw one about 15 years ago at a college demonstration..I think the point of the demo was they got all their parts locally.
At my last job, they had tritium illuminated emergency exit lights. Didn't have to be wired, and had a ten year or so life.
I hope that fusion power plant works!
Another top tier video!

[jamesowens]

I love your explorations of many types of technologies and how they can open up the solar system to humanity! I'm a big fan of Molten Salt Reactors, though my favorite is the Molten Chloride Fast Reactor, which doesn't need flouride salt or beryllium to operate. It has additional advantages of being able to process some existing waste products as fuel. Terrapower is working on a pilot plant with Southern Company. Elysium Industries has a similar design as well, but they don't seem to be as well funded.

On to fusion, there were several concepts out there for using antiproton beams to catalyze fission, which would in turn create fusion. The one I recall best had a pellet of frozen deuterium covered in a shell of uranium, encased in a shell of lead. The antiproton would cause fission of the uranium, the lead would help direct the reaction inward, which would fuse the deuterium.

Your idea is interesting as it's nearly the opposite, using the fusion as the neutron source to start fission in an MSR (or MCFR as I mentioned). The advantage being that the efficiency of the fusion could be low and still be useful in this case. Pretty cool concept overall. Thanks for presenting this idea, and as always, for making us excited about the possibilities!

[jtjames]

Bonus footage!

Yes, I know some of these words.

[infinitech_industries]

very nice video. the idea of fission-fusion hybrid reactors is nowhere near new, and even before it in the late 70s early 80s there was the idea of using a spallation particle accelerator to generate neutrons to sustain a reactor. a big thing you missed in this video is that external neutron-driven reactors don't make economic or logistical sense unless they utilize subcritical nuclear material, a reactor of either critical mass or ability to self sustain is far more efficient if just left to burn fuel on its own, as it requires no external power input such as sustaining a fusion reactor or a spallation particle accelerator. the idea of a fission-fusion hybrid reactor comes from the idea that, though a fusion reactor may not be able to break even on its own yet, using nuclear material as a gain medium could make it efficient enough to create net energy gain. there's a problem with this, all the most efficient current fusion reactors operate in a pulsed scheme, tokamaks are only capable of pulsing on once or twice per day for a few seconds, the inertial confinement laser fusion used by NIF can only pulse once every few days, and even the best stellarators can only sustain themselves for about 20 minutes per day. there is however, a solution to this. beam target fusion! though not in its current form. beam target fusion involves using an electric current to accelerate a beam of ions into a metal target with fuel dissolved into it. industry standard beam target fusors involve a long cylindrical vacuum chamber filled with deuterium gas, at one end of the cylinder is the cathode, made of typically some type of steel or graphite, and at the other end of the cylinder is a titanium wafer with either deuterium or tritium absorbed into it (making it titanium deuteride, or tritide) when a voltage of 10KeV or higher (usually around 80KeV) is applied, ambient deuterons from the chamber are accelerated into the metal titanium target, which causes fusion, and a beam of neutrons. importantly, it can generate a constant flow of neutrons, which is ideal and efficient for breeding and reacting nuclear materials. my personal design of a beam target fusor (i call the beam target torus for reasons that will become evident) involves essentially stretching the reactor design axially around the target, creating a torus shaped chamber, and adding toroidal field coils not dissimilar to a tokamak, this causes an efficiency increase of approximately 18%, but that still isn't enough to make it viable for fission-fusion hybrid systems, so instead of titanium for the anode target, we need to replace it with a material which can store hydrogen at far higher densities. i looked into palladium but that was both far too expensive to scale up, and still not efficient enough. here lies the key to making beam target fusion viable: Vanadium! its common knowledge that at room temperature and pressure palladium is the best metal at absorbing hydrogen, capable of storing 2 hydrogen atoms per palladium atom, meaning it can store approximately 900x its own volume in hydrogen. but that is just at room temperature and pressure. at very specifically 7 Bars of pressure and 400 Celsius, Vanadium is capable of accepting 6 hydrogen atoms per vanadium atom! and when cooled to room temp and pressure it stays absorbed within the metal at that ratio! this innovation gives an increase in efficiency of approximately 32%, with these efficiency increases (reaching a maximum of around 70% but realistically more like 50% to 60%) it should be far more viable to make a fission-fusion hybrid reactor, especially since not only is the fusor now around 40% more efficient, but the high efficiency slow burn of beam target fusion creating a constant dull stream of neutrons rather than large pulses, makes the breed and burn process substantially more efficient! i'm still in the "on paper" design phase for now, making sure to calculate out everything to get the highest efficiencies, but given time a prototype will be constructed (assuming i can acquire the correct permits and funding and such). this reactor design surprisingly looks to be more efficient at smaller scales, like "fit in the trunk of a car" scales. Ad Astra Pro Terra!

[kevinhambsch]

13.252 km/sec is awesome and would be great for thrusting and steering as part of a Plasma Magnetic Sail and Magnetoshell aerobraking system. Depending on position relative to the ecliptic velocities of 400 to 800 km/sec can be attained with the PM Sail.

[medennis]

Hay Doc. While this weeks presentation didn’t come close to eerking me as did last weeks (which is why I have commented). I’m rather disappointed in these incredibly smart people. He didn’t dive very far into why the choice of Mo/Tung as a barrier material was made, but consulting with any two year radiology school would have given them answers as to why it’s not a good choice. The second leading cause of X-ray tube failure is “tube arc” caused by the build up of Mo/Tung deposits on the glass envelope. The electron cloud from the cathode bypasses the Mo/Tung anode striking the deposits causing an over-current condition and zero photon (X-ray) production. This is an old X-ray tube problem (and we’ll established), and now I’m really curious to know if the Helion team considered it. Second, because of the Mo/Tung choice (in a high energy electron environment) they are dealing with a liability we in Radiology consider an asset. Brem (or breaking) radiation. As mentioned in the presentation, it’s a serious and unnecessary byproduct that requires additional engineering and assets just to control the consequence. AI could assist in so many areas (if trained on the appropriate data of course) to advance the technology at a mind warping pace.

But as I mull things over in my dust-bin empty head, I always condense it down a single variable; RTSC. In all these energy production scenarios, energy out is not the problem it’s energy in. Let’s set AI on the holy grail of material science problems of room temp super conductors.

[revmsj]

My money has been on Helion for fusion since I first heard of them. Solid state fusion powered electricity excitation?? That’s exactly what the future was supposed to taste like!!! Also it would seem to me that Helion’s reactor as is minus the wall at the end could potentially make a hell of a fusion propulsion system with the potential side effect of excess electricity production to power the remaining spacecraft systems…

Anyway, as far as fission goes, my money has always been on thorium molten salt reactors. I can’t remember the project way back in the 50s or 60s lead by that one dude, but it seems it was hugely successful, yet suffered as some sort of political collateral damage if I’m not mistaken. Anyway, I see nothing but positives and post scarcity with either of these exciting and inspirational projects! This is the shit I get out of bed and face the day for!👍🏾

[stevenyee]

Helion has a lot potential and applications. A fusion/fission hybrid propulsion engine lifting Starship is great but won’t’ there be neutron radiation issues unless there is shielding around the Starship?

[stcredzero]

The melting passive safety plug for a molten salt thorium wouldn't work in microgravity. How could we have passive safety for such a reactor in microgravity?

[vts]

The math seems wrong on ISP/Velocity. Shouldn't it be 1, 300, 000 m/s roughly if ISP is 130, 000?

[thegungadfly]

Looks a lot like the Dust Reactor, which also was theorized as a fission thruster.

[pazsion]

Wait… so it’s other peoples videos and interviews but independent original 3D animation?

[beachbum]

If you have a working fusion reactor, why would you use that to bootstrap a fission reactor? Seems like unneeded mass. Suppose you did go for Neutronic Fusion reactor, the problem you fundamentally have is that the neutrons destroy the reactor. Combining it with a salt reactor doesn't change that. Can you explain what I am missing here?

[timkimball]

Somebody build that plasma rocket idea!

[nielsandersen]

I think that you confused “radioactive” with “biohazard” 😂

[patrickselby]

Is the chamber pressurized? If not would it be more efficient if was?

[chammockutube]

When you say LWR’s use 250 tons of fuel to produce 1GW of electrical power and MSRs, only use 1 ton of fuel to produce 1GW, I am confused. Do you mean the takes that much mass of fuel to produce 1 gigawatt-hour of electricity?

[stevenyee]

Why aren’t the control rods magnetically latched so it will drop into the fuel rods when power is lost as in the Fukushima disaster? It was stupid of them to place the backup generators in the basement which is next to the ocean. What could go wrong?

[kenhelmers]

How would id function in a dynamic environment?