Helion Hits Key Milestone in Fusion Power Quest
The Everett, Washington-based fusion energy startup Helion announced Friday that it has achieved a significant milestone in its pursuit of fusion power. The plasmas inside the company’s Polaris prototype reactor have reached a temperature of 150 million degrees Celsius, bringing them three-quarters of the way toward the target needed to operate a commercial fusion power plant.
“We’re incredibly excited to reach this point,” said David Kirtley, Helion’s co-founder and CEO, in an interview with DailyTech.
Helion’s Polaris reactor is the first fusion company to operate using deuterium-tritium fuel, a mixture of two hydrogen isotopes. Kirtley noted that the fusion power output has significantly increased as expected in the form of heat.
The startup is in a competitive race with other companies aiming to commercialize fusion power, which is seen as a potentially unlimited source of clean energy.
Investors are showing strong interest in fusion technology, with recent funding rounds for various companies. Helion itself raised $425 million last year from investors such as Sam Altman, Mithril, Lightspeed, and SoftBank.
While most fusion startups target the early 2030s to connect to the grid, Helion has a contract with Microsoft to supply electricity starting in 2028 from a larger commercial reactor named Orion, currently under construction.
Helion’s reactor design requires plasmas to reach temperatures about twice as high as other companies’ designs to function effectively.
The company’s unique field-reversed configuration reactor design involves injecting fuel into an hourglass-shaped chamber, accelerating the plasmas with magnets, and compressing them to 150 million degrees Celsius in less than a millisecond.
Unlike other fusion companies, Helion plans to generate electricity directly from the fusion reactions using the reactions’ magnetic field, aiming for greater efficiency.
Helion’s long-term goal is to achieve plasmas reaching 200 million degrees Celsius, which the company believes is the optimal temperature for operating a fusion power plant.
The company is also exploring the use of deuterium-helium-3 fuel, which produces more charged particles and is better suited for their approach of generating electricity directly.
While Helion has made significant progress in refining their reactor circuits to increase electricity recovery, they are also working on developing their own deuterium-helium-3 fuel cycle.
Helion’s innovative approach to fusion power has positioned them as the only startup currently using helium-3 in their fuel, potentially paving the way for others to follow suit.
In addition to their work with Polaris, Helion is constructing the Orion fusion reactor to fulfill their contract with Microsoft, emphasizing their goal of scaling up to larger power plants.
