A new fusion process?

With all the news about fusion these days I had to include a thread about it.  I have two links to different articles, one generally positive and one a bit negative.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/07/19/google-chevron-invest-in-fusion-startup-tae-technologies.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02022-1

The first article outlines a billion dollar program funded by Chevron and Google.  The plan is for something called Proton-Boron(11) fusion which if successful would fuse simple hydrogen with Boron (atomic weight 11, 80% of all boron) which would yield up 3 simple helium atoms and a whole lot of energy.  More importantly, this process is aneutronic, meaning that the process does not irradiate everything around it with high-speed neutrons as the much simpler D-T fusion does.  Even better, the helium is so hot it is in the form of a high energy plasma that can be “tapped” to make electricity directly!  This would be a pretty amazing feat.  If successful, this would be the cleanest electrical production ever achieved.

But then there is the downside.  The second article details how the recent, most successful fusion experiment ever, even after spending over $3 billion has closed up shop because of lack of progress.

The thought of actually producing fusion energy is amazing, I just hope it isn’t perpetually 30 years away.

Eric

It sounds fantastic and if it works will be very helpful.

Well we have one working example...