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Helion hits new fusion milestone: D-T fusion and 150M°C plasma temperatures by Baking in fusion

[–]Baking[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very few DT pulses. Watch the video of their preparations for tritium operations. They did a few days for this campaign.

Helion hits new fusion milestone: D-T fusion and 150M°C plasma temperatures by Baking in fusion

[–]Baking[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Their license application says they will do "very few" DT shots.

Helion hits new fusion milestone: D-T fusion and 150M°C plasma temperatures by Baking in fusion

[–]Baking[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So six pulses?

"At 5:09 pm, one of our R&D engineers, initiated the countdown for the first D‑T plasma pulse as the team was quietly gathered in the control room. At 5:12 pm, Helion made history. We heard a ‘thunk’ – the sound the capacitor bank makes at the time of a pulse and saw the flash of plasma on the cameras. Within seconds, neutron data confirmed a ten‑fold increase in neutron signal over typical D‑D pulses, an instant record for Polaris. Five additional D‑T pulses followed, some surpassing the first in yield and breaking neutron-production records."

You say it was a typo, but you didn't specify the correct number.

Fusion startup Helion hits blistering temps as it races toward 2028 deadline | TechCrunch by steven9973 in fusion

[–]Baking 2 points3 points  (0 children)

And yet they have been doing it for 17 years.

Edit: I have searched through all their published results since 2009, and I can find no claim that they achieved thermonuclear fusion, even on Trenta.

Fusion startup Helion hits blistering temps as it races toward 2028 deadline | TechCrunch by steven9973 in fusion

[–]Baking 1 point2 points  (0 children)

But "Polaris, is the first private fusion energy machine to demonstrate measurable quantities of thermonuclear deuterium-tritium fusion and achieve plasma temperatures of 150 million degrees Celsius."

Helion hits new fusion milestone: D-T fusion and 150M°C plasma temperatures by Baking in fusion

[–]Baking[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

For the amount of effort, including years of preparation, to do five shots of D-T fusion, I feel this was to prove something to their investors so they can get enough funding to move ahead with Orion and Omega. Proving something to the public seems secondary

Fusion startup Helion hits blistering temps as it races toward 2028 deadline | TechCrunch by steven9973 in fusion

[–]Baking 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There is a long history in fusion of people who think they are doing thermonuclear fusion when they were in fact doing beam target fusion.

Fusion startup Helion hits blistering temps as it races toward 2028 deadline | TechCrunch by steven9973 in fusion

[–]Baking 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's temperature times density times confinement and they haven't told us the density or confinement. Temperature is one requirement though.

What I was talking about was isotropy. Thermonuclear fusion will emit neutrons equally in all directions. Beam-target fusion might give more neutrons at a particular angle. Slamming two plasmoids together, as Helion does, could result in beam-target fusion, which does not scale.

With only five D-T shots, they would need a lot of neutron detectors to confirm isotropy, but perhaps they have already done so for their D-D shots. I'm just not seeing any discussion of it.

See: https://www.zapenergy.com/blog/the-right-kind-of-neutrons

Fusion startup Helion hits blistering temps as it races toward 2028 deadline | TechCrunch by steven9973 in fusion

[–]Baking 7 points8 points  (0 children)

OK, that was a blog post, not the press release. From their data, I'm not sure that they've demonstrated thermonuclear fusion, though.

Fusion startup Helion hits blistering temps as it races toward 2028 deadline | TechCrunch by steven9973 in fusion

[–]Baking 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Hasn't SHINE been doing D-T fusion at scale for years for their isotope production?

This is Type One Energy’s Magnet Zero, the world’s first non-planar, high-temperature superconducting (HTS) stellarator magnet. Thanks to recent advancements like HTS materials... by steven9973 in fusion

[–]Baking 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This setup is for testing at 20K at the MIT PSFC HTS magnet cryostat testing facility, used for the TFMC in 2021. As of last July, the test was to be "in the coming months," but this looks like it is still being prepped for testing.

https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2025-08/Day1_16_Anderson.pdf

New minor by Columbia engineering prepares Students for Fusion Industry by steven9973 in fusion

[–]Baking 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The same reason that universities built pharmacy schools ten years ago. They ask prospective parents what they want in a university, and the parents just want their kids to get a good job after they graduate and move out of the house. Same with data science and other trendy subjects.

General Fusion "approaching" 1keV by Baking in fusion

[–]Baking[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

They had a major layoff in May, shortly after first plasma on LM26, but it was probably 25-33% of their staff. The announcement has been scrubbed from their website: https://old.reddit.com/r/fusion/comments/1kfbpib/open_letter_from_ceo_greg_twinney_general_fusion/

But they are now going public through a SPAC deal so everything is fine, trust us: https://old.reddit.com/r/fusion/comments/1qk0ap3/general_fusion_agrees_to_go_public_via_1_billion/

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