I have posted about Helion Energy in the past. Helion is a company located in the Seattle, WA area. They are researching nuclear fusion. Recently they sent out a press release that said that they were breaking ground on a new facility intended to be a critical center for testing and research into practical nuclear fusion for energy generation. They say that they hope to lay the groundwork for the development of a commercially viable nuclear fusion power plant.
There is no guarantee that Helion or one of the other companies or institutions involved in fusion research will be able to achieve stable nuclear fusion that can be scaled up for commercially viable fusion power generation. If commercial fusion can be developed, it will radically transform our world.
There are a variety of different possible routes to nuclear fusion and many companies have spung up to explore them. The challenge of commercial nuclear fusion is so complex and difficult that it may turn out to be impossible. The researchers are trying to duplicate the extreme temperatures and pressures in the center of the Sun. The conditions there are necessary to cause lighter elements to fuse into larger elements and release huge amounts of energy. One of the benefits of nuclear fusion is that it does not release any carbon dioxide as it operates. The most popular designs for fusion reactors today are donut-shaped reactors called tokamaks. There is also a twisted donut design called a stellarator that is being studied.
Helion is researching fusion power technology with its own patented plasma accelerator. This device consumes helium-3 and deuterium fuels. These gases are heated to extreme temperatures in order to create a plasma. Then the plasma is magnetically confined into what the company refers to as a field reversed configuration (FRC). Two of these FRCs are generated on either side of the device. Finally, magnets are used to slam the two FRCs together at the speed of a million miles per hour. This generates an extremely energetic collision.
Powerful magnets further compress the FRCs and the reaction is subjected to greater heat until it reaches one hundred and eighty million degrees Fahrenheit. This forces the helium-3 and deuterium to fuse, creating an expanding cloud of plasma that forces the magnetic field outwards, inducing a current that is harvested by the device to generate clean, carbon-free electricity. As Helion pursues a commercially viable model of their device, they have passed a few critical milestones since the company was founded in 2013. It has successfully demonstrated the ability to recover energy from its fusion system with ninety five percent efficiency, generating a self-sustaining production cycle with helium-3 fuel. More recently, Helion has achieved plasma temperatures of one hundred and eighty million degrees Fahrenheit with the sixth prototype of their device which they call Trenta.
The ultimate goal of fusion research is to create a system that generates more energy than is needed to operate it. This will be one of the primary objectives at the new facility being built in Everett, Washington. As many as one hundred and fifty new jobs will be created. David Kirtley is the CEO and Founder of Helion Energy. He said, “At this facility, Helion will close in on its goal of breaking the fusion barrier and pushing the world towards the end of the fossil fuel era.”