The Holy Grail of Energy is at your fingertips. In 3 years we will start generating electricity using a fusion reactor – FonTech

A clean and completely safe energy source mimicking the processes taking place in the core of stars could start producing electricity as early as 2024. Polaris will become the world’s first fusion generator to provide zero-emission electricity. The portal drew attention to the topic NewAtlas.

The holy grail of energy

With these bold and truly ambitious plans and claims came the American startup Helion Energy, which won $ 500 million in the “E” series of investment rounds, which according to the portal Crunchbase means that more than $ 577 million has already been invested in the company.

As the portal writes InterestingEngineering, if the company meets all its key goals within the set deadlines, investors have pledged another $ 1.7 billion. All the money will be used to complete the 7th generation prototype Polaris fusion reactor, currently under construction in Everett, Washington.

At a time when many fusion projects are using steam to power turbines, Helion is taking a radically different approach. According to the company, it is much more efficient to use the so-called an electromagnetic approach that induces an electric current through plasma expansion.

The basis of this method is the use of deuterium and helium-3 ions, which collide in the plasma, they fuse, releasing a large amount of energy, which causes the plasma to expand. The expansion itself then causes changes in the magnetic flux and magnetic field generated by the plasma-retaining magnets, and this interaction leads to the generation of electric current. with 95% energy efficiency.

Success is at your fingertips

This startup is not an inexperienced newcomer in the field of mergers. The sixth generation of the prototype fusion reactor called Trenta, which was completed only last year, managed to complete more than 10,000 high-energy pulses during its operation. The reactor ran almost every single day for more than 16 months.

Earlier this year, the Trenta reactor reached a critical milestone, keeping the plasma hotter than 100 million ° C for more than 1 millisecond. In addition, Helion reached another turning point when it created a magnetic field of 10 Tesla.

While the Trenta reactor was able to trigger fusion pulses once every 10 minutes, the new 7th generation reactor called Polaris should be able to trigger a fusion pulse every second, which is a truly remarkable improvement.

According to available information, Helion Energy expects to produce a small amount of clean electricity by 2024, which will be a by-product of fusion reactions. If these ambitious plans succeed, Polaris will become the first fusion reactor in history to do such a thing.

If you wonder why electricity is just a by-product for Helion Energy, know that the main goal of the whole project is to produce helium-3 fuel by breaking down deuterium atoms. Helium-3 is a light and rare helium isotope that makes up only about 0.000137% of helium in nature. Interestingly, helium-3 is one of two stable nuclides that has more protons than neutrons in the nucleus – the other is hydrogen-1.

Helium-3 is also an excellent fusion fuel that is so difficult to produce that some companies propose to collect it on the Moon, where it is found in relatively large quantities.

Ambitious plans

The words of Helion Energy co-founder and CEO David Kirtley, who told the portal that TechCrunch he said he believed they would be able to build a crate-sized fusion reactor, each of which would generate about 50 megawatts – that should be enough to power about 8,200 American households.

Assuming the company does not receive any government incentives and subsidies, 1 MWh of energy production should cost only $ 10, making nuclear fusion one of the cheapest ways to produce energy. Also worth noting is the fact that $ 375 million has been poured into Helion Energy by OpenAi CEO Sam Altman, the portal writes. CNBC.

By comparison, his first investment in Helion was $ 9.5 million. Furthermore, according to Altamn, this is the best “attempt” to get out of the climate crisis, but also one of the best ways to reduce energy costs.