Eurofusion January 16th 2018
Fusion research benefits from its variety of labs and approaches. Not all of the ideas and concepts belong to EUROfusion or publicly funded research. Private companies, even far beyond European borders, are also trying to bring fusion energy to life. In this series, Fusion in Europe introduces different approaches and provides an outline indicating what is hidden behind catchyclaims designed to attract the attention of investors. This time, we introduce Helion Energy.
Helion Inc. is a spin-off of MSNW LLC, a company that is developing space propulsion technologies, including fusion plasma thrusters based on the Helion concepts. Helion uses Magnetised Target Fusion. Their “Fusion Engine” is similar to a diesel engine with electromagnets replacing the pistons. It is based on Field Reversed Configuration (FRC), created by an initial axial magnetic field rapidly reversed by a purely toroidal Theta Pinch current, diamagnetically balancing the plasma pressure gradient. Twin plasma guns fire opposing FRCs to coalesce in a central burn chamber. Here the deuterium-helium3 plasmoid is rapidly magnetically compressed. It fuses and the expanding particle energy is directly converted to electricity by reacting on the magnetic field, pulsing at up to 10Hz.3. Opinion
FRCs have been under investigation since the 1960s but they did not achieve high performance plasmas. They have some asymmetric instabilities and the full effects of the fusion products are unknown. The plasma confinement time is about 50% of the ~1ms pulse length. Reactor efficiency thus requires an unusually high plasma density and temperature.Directly converting the energy of all the fast ions is problematical, especially since electromagnetic radiation and fast ion losses will decrease the useful power output by approximately 30%.The fuel is also a challenge: a 70MWth reactor burns approximately three kilograms of 3He pa. Helion would need about 25kg of tritium stock (equal to the world’s civil stock today) to create just half its 3He fuel by decay. Helion’s plans to demonstrate a 50 MWe power plant in about three years from now must also cover developing the Direct Energy Conversion.
Name Helion Energy Inc.
Tagline The future of energy
Management Dr. David Kirtley (Chief Executive Officer)
Dr. John Slough (Chief Science Officer)
Chris Pihl (Chief Technology Officer)
Dr. George Votroubek (Principal Scientist)
Funding Mithril, Y combinator, Capricon investment group
Headquarters Redmond, WA, US: The University of Washington hosts the basic scientific research
Established 2013