Reply To: NIMBY FUD

[asymmetric_implosion]

Zapkitty: Don’t you need enough length for a compressor section and heat transfer length to extract the heat from the helium to a less expensive medium? I can’t speak for LPP but I would want enough helium primary loop length to get outside the radiation shield area so the secondary loop could use coolants with better thermal properties that might normally suffer activation.

We cool our anode with water presently. The volume of water to cool the anode is small but the water lines and cooling region are more than 20X what is used in the anode. Is Helium going to cool the vacuum chamber and cathode as well? That is more volume to be considered. Your math is on the extremely low end. If converted to standard cubic meter the total FF demand to get started by your math is 37% of the 1996 demand I listed earlier. Granted that today’s demand is larger, bringing up FF systems could be a huge dent in our helium stores. You also neglect that even a recycled system has losses. Perhaps the FF systems can produce enough to helium to keep up with loss but that adds another complication as you need to either store the helium or process it on site.

Mechanik: I was thinking of indium. My bad. 🙁