- www.iter.org/sci/MakingitWork ITER page mentions that 80% of energy goes out on neutrons and that capturing this is a major challenge[ref]
- 2024 DARPA announcement: x.com/DARPA/status/1819112110988657075
We're requesting info & ideas for fundamental breakthroughs to enable high-power, direct conversion from nuclear energy into electricity by converting reactor neutrons to alphas or betas for voltaics.
The Soviet Union's Deadly Abandoned Nuclear Generators by Andy Mcloone
. Source. - youtu.be/NT8-b5YEyjo?t=1435 epic orphan source recovery video
Most promising approaches as of 2020:
Why Private Billions Are Flowing Into Fusion by Bloomberg (2022)
Source. - Joint European Torus
- General Fusion: compress with liquid metal. Intends to demo in JET site.
- Helion Energy: direct fusion to electricity conversion without steam, direct from magnetic field movements
- First Light: shoot microscopic objct at a target to crush it so much that fusion happens
Once again, relies on superconductivity to reach insane magnetic fields. Superconductivity is just so important.
Ciro Santilli saw a good presentation about it once circa 2020, it seems that the main difficulty of the time was turbulence messing things up. They have some nice simulations with cross section pictures e.g. at: www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/937941.
