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Helion's fuel mix produces just 6% of its energy as neutron radiation, and if you harvest it you'll lose a third of that. As long as you have enough net energy, collecting that 4% might not make financial sense.

With fuel costs insignificant, your cost per kWh is mainly capital cost. Let's say it's all capital just to keep it simple. I don't know how much the input energy will be but if your choice is between, say, generating net energy of 50MW without a turbine or 54MW with a turbine, then you would skip the turbine if it adds more than 8% to the capital cost. I suspect Helion has done this calculation in detail.




It does seem to hinge on the cost of fuel, I have some doubts about whether they can secure a fuel supply so cheap as to skip out on that extra 4 MW, even after factoring in the cost of a small steam turbine installation.


Deuterium costs several thousand dollars/kilogram. But even though it is just one part in several thousand of the hydrogen in water, there's enough deuterium in your morning shower to provide all your energy needs for a year.[1] Cost of deuterium is definitely insignificant.

Helion's other fuel is helium-3 which they'll make themselves by fusing deuterium. So the helium-3 cost will directly depend on the capital cost of the reactor producing it.

(This may be the same reactor, both generating electricity and breeding He3. Or they may use dedicated He3 breeders, and minimize the D-D reactions in the generators.)

[1] https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/01/nuclear-fusion/




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