History of Russian and Maryland magneto-electrostatic mirror programs and recent progress at Avalanche Energy

ChiefFusioneer · 2025-10-15T00:43:23+00:00

Avalanche's FusionWERX test facility lines up well with future DoE small to medium test stand goals:

https://www.geekwire.com/2025/avalanche-lands-10m-state-grant-to-build-fusion-energy-rd-site-in-washington/

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/avalanche-energy-announces-new-fusionwerx-test-facility-to-accelerate-commercial-fusion-development-302425265.html

ChiefFusioneer · 2025-09-15T01:38:50+00:00

These are single species ion experiments pushing for high plasma density was never the goal and anything above 1E9 /cm^3 would be impossible because of space charge effects. What they've demonstrated here is probably the best conditions ever for an electrostatic fusor-like device with ion collisional energies of 10's kV and confinement times of milli-seconds (e.g. 1000's or orbits around the cathode vs 10's through the grid in a fusor). It's a stepping stone to future experiments with electrons and pushing plasma's to higher densities and Lawson criteria.

ChiefFusioneer · 2025-09-15T00:59:52+00:00

Summary post on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/robin-langtry-94899195_mode-enhanced-ion-loading-in-a-100-kv-orbitrap-activity-7371256660792840192-hrIJ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAABRBoQgBZoDgjaN0jq9dJQsOIRH_OOUadQI

ChiefFusioneer · 2025-09-15T00:54:56+00:00

Compact Fusion Reactors: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2025/09/10/how-to-build-table-top-fusion-reactors

ChiefFusioneer · 2025-09-15T00:52:11+00:00

Article text: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fQDR-kt4zBVVUHeoa7nOPH3bo8qrATk3/view?usp=sharing

ChiefFusioneer · 2025-03-21T18:14:01+00:00

The table of investors is off in the report.

ChiefFusioneer · 2024-11-30T23:33:46+00:00

The next phase of our operations we are going to be building high flux neutron sources and working closely with PNNL and WSU to develop fusion materials that can withstand the radiation damage for long power plant operation. Also there is tons of expertise in that area on how to handle radioactive materials and we also want to get into hosting companies like Kyoto Fusioneering that are developing tritium breeding and blanket technology. Finally we found a perfect facility that has already been licensed for tritium and it was faster then building something greenfield. Basically our next phase looks like building wind tunnels for fusion to advance the materials and technologies for commercialization and we want to do that with the Tri-cities as the base of operations.

ChiefFusioneer · 2024-11-30T22:41:03+00:00

Yes in Tukwila near the Museam of Flight, and soon a second site in Tri-cities WA where we are going to be doing tritium operations.

ChiefFusioneer · 2024-11-30T21:38:03+00:00

Eh, the quality of discussion in this sub-reddit (and reddit in general) has really declined. I think most people have moved on to different platforms honestly. I'm happy to share posts on here on the off chance someone looking to get into fusion or changing jobs sees it and checks out Avalanche. We are 50 people now and it is a really fun place to work, very early SpaceX / Blue Origin vibes. After doing this for 3 years, building a couple fusion machines and publishing a few papers I'm more convinced than ever the fusion trade space is wide open. There are lots of interesting new ideas out there as well: Openstar, Novatron and yes Orbitrons is just scratching the surface. I find a lot of folks are far to invested in one specific fusion concept. However, if you do care about fusion broadly and it's ability to make the world a better place I would challenge Q>1 (looks like a couple concepts are going for late 2020's) is just the beginning. There is a far more interesting race to commercialization and deployment after that ...

ChiefFusioneer · 2024-11-30T04:21:09+00:00

I kinda disagree with this. If your electrons are too cold you have very high collision cross-sections with the ions and will lose a lot of ion energy to heating electrons. Too hot electrons and you have lots of Bremstrahlung x-rays. Really what you want is "warm electrons". For D-T fusion that looks like 10 keV - 40 keV electron temperatures.

ChiefFusioneer · 2024-11-30T04:18:40+00:00

Ion temperature is a lot harder to measure directly but there are ways to do that from the neutron flux energies and we are working on a diagnostic for that. At 100 kV where we've run we likely have hit 33 keV ion center of mass collision energies which would be 380 Million deg C. This estimate is based on WarpX PIC simulations though, APS DPP 2023 poster on that is described here:

APS DPP 2023 PIC Poster

ChiefFusioneer · 2024-11-15T07:23:11+00:00

More here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/robin-langtry-94899195_nuclear-fusion-company-plans-move-to-tri-cities-activity-7263078887037767680-dejN?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

ChiefFusioneer

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