Helion Energy, Inc. is an American company in Redmond, Washington developing a magneto-inertial fusion technology for the production of Helium-3 gas and Helium-3 fusion power.[1][2]
Organization
Helion Energy was founded in 2013 by Dr. David Kirtley, Dr. John Slough, Chris Pihl, and Dr. George Votroubek.[3][4] Investors in Helion include Y Combinator, Mithril Capital Management, and Capricorn Investment Group.[5][6] The management team won the 2013 National Cleantech Open Energy Generation competition and awards at the 2014 ARPA-E Future Energy Startup competition,[7] were members of the 2014 Y Combinator program,[8] and were awarded a 2015 ARPA-E ALPHA contract, "Staged Magnetic Compression of FRC Targets to Fusion Conditions".[9]
Technology
The Fusion Engine technology is based on the Inductive Plasmoid Accelerator (IPA) experiments[10][11] performed from 2005 through 2012. This system theoretically operates at 1 Hz, injecting plasma, compressing it to fusion conditions, expanding it, and directly recovering the energy to produce electricity.[12] The IPA experiments claimed 300 km/s velocities, deuterium neutron production, and 2 keV deuterium ion temperatures.[11]
Helium-3 fuel
Helion intends to produce and use a fuel which combines deuterium and helium-3. This mix allows mostly aneutronic fusion, releasing only 5% of its energy in the form of neutrons. The helium is captured and reused, eliminating supply concerns.[7]
The IPA experiments used deuterium-deuterium fusion, which produces a 2.4 MeV neutron per reaction. Helion and MSNW published articles describing a deuterium-tritium implementation which is the easiest to achieve but generate 14 MeV neutrons. Helion has filed a patent[13] for pulsed deuterium-deuterium fusion to produce Helium-3 for use in fusion reactors and medical imaging.
Confinement
This fusion approach uses the magnetic field of a field-reversed configuration (FRC) plasmoid (operated with solid state electronics derived from power switching electronics in wind turbines) to prevent plasma energy losses. An FRC is a magnetized plasma configuration notable for its closed field lines, high Beta and lack of internal penetrations.[7]
Compression
To inject the target plasmoid into the fusion compression chamber two plasmoids are accelerated at high velocity with pulsed magnetic fields and merge into a single target plasmoid at high pressure.[7] Their 2018 experiments achieved plasmas with multi-keV temperatures.[14] Published records show plans to compress fusion plasmas to 12 Tesla.[15]
Energy generation
Energy is captured by direct energy conversion that translates high-energy alpha particles directly into a voltage. This eliminates the need for steam turbines and cooling towers (and the associated energy losses).[7]
Funding
Helion Energy received $7 million in funding from NASA, the United States Department of Energy and the Department of Defense,[16] followed by $1.5 million from the private sector in August 2014, through the seed accelerators Y Combinator and Mithril Capital Management.[17] The company raised a further $10.6 million in July, 2015.
Revenue model
Helion Energy’s strategy is to generate revenue based on a royalty model of electricity produced with projected electricity prices of 40–60 $/MWhr (4 to 6 cents per kwh). Penetration of the new capacity market is estimated at 20% of market growth (2.5%) per annum eventually reaching 50% of new power generation worldwide – $52 B/yr. Gradual displacement of existing supplies enables continued growth to 20% of world electrical generation after 20 years with a net return of over $300 billion.[7]
Criticism
Retired Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory researcher Dr. Daniel Jassby mentioned Helion Energy in a letter included in the American Physical Society newsletter Physics & Society (April, 2019) as being among fusion start-ups allegedly practicing "voodoo fusion" rather than legitimate science, and among other criticisms claimed that Helion Energy had never created D-D fusion neutrons in their experiments.[18] However, the Helion team published peer-reviewed research into its colliding FRC system demonstrating D-D neutron production as early as 2011,[11] and further detailed D-D fusion experiments producing neutrons in an October 2018 report at the United States Department of Energy's ARPA-E's annual ALPHA program meeting.[19]
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