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This topic is offered for NewMars members who might wish to provide links to updates on developments related to the Helion Fusion initiative.
This opening link reports on plans to build a plant in a town in Washington State.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … ticle_link
The power from the plant will be given to Microsoft at first. I assume this must be a consequence of funding provided by Microsoft.
it seems to me that is a reasonable arrangement.
If the first plant succeeds, it can be replicated at far lower cost.
Microsoft would be an investor in the enterprise.
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Post #3: Google search for how Helion would work.
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I asked Google how the Helion fusion apparatus would work:
Search Labs | AI Overview
Helion Energy's fusion power plant uses a series of magnets to heat and compress hydrogen and helium gas into plasma, which then fuses to create energy. The plant then captures and converts this energy into electricity.How it works
Inject gas: A small amount of hydrogen and helium gas is injected into a long tube of magnetic coils at each end.Heat: The gas is heated until the atoms lose their electrons, creating plasma.
Accelerate: Magnets accelerate the plasma to over 1 million miles per hour.
Collide: The plasma collides in the center of the device.
Compress: The plasma is compressed by additional magnetic fields to over 100 million degrees Celsius.
Fuse: The helium and hydrogen fuse, releasing energy.
Recover electricity: The plasma expands, pushing back on the magnetic field. This change in magnetic field induces an electric current that is captured as electricity.
Helion's approach is different from other fusion power concepts because it:
Uses a pulsed, non-ignition fusion systemRecovers electricity directly
Uses deuterium and helium-3 as fuel
This startup says its first fusion plant is five years away ...May 10, 2023 — The company's device is a six–by-40-foot barbell-shaped “plasma accelerator.” It uses powerful magnets to heat a gas m...
MIT Technology Review
Helion | Technology
* Helion's fusion technology. Helion's fusion generator raises fusion fuel to temperatures greater than 100 million degrees Celsi...Helion
Companies say they're closing in on nuclear fusion as ... - NPR
Dec 4, 2023 — Helion was founded in 2013 with a single goal — to put fusion power on the grid. As we walk through the company's manuf...Technology. This system is intended to operate at 1 Hz, injecting plasma, compressing it to fusion conditions, expanding it, and recovering the energy to produce electricity. The pulsed-fusion system that is used is theoretically able to run 24/7 for electricity production.
Helion Energy - Wikipedia
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Helion_Energy
That line about the 1 Hz cycle time is ** really ** interesting to me. It would make a great clock for Spaniard's Scientific Time measuring system.
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The article at the link below reports on plans to build a plant to provide power for a Microsoft data center in 2028.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/heli … 33451.html
Helion Energy starts construction on nuclear fusion plant to power Microsoft data centers
Stephen Nellis
Wed, July 30, 2025 at 8:08 AM EDT
2 min readHelion Energy's engineers test turbo pumps, in Everett, Washington
By Stephen NellisSAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Helion Energy, a startup backed by OpenAI's Sam Altman and SoftBank's venture capital arm, has started construction on a site for a planned nuclear fusion power plant that will supply power to Microsoft data centers by 2028, the company said on Wednesday.
The site in Malaga, Washington, is in the center of the state along the Columbia River, where Helion hopes to take advantage of grid infrastructure in place for the nearby Rock Island Dam hydroelectric plant.
The startup still has to secure final permits from Washington's government but said the work puts it on track to sell power to Microsoft under a deal it struck in 2023.
Fusion generates electricity by ramming atoms into each other, releasing energy without emitting significant greenhouse gases or creating large amounts of long-lasting radioactive waste. But despite billions of dollars of investment, scientists and engineers still have not figured out a way to reliably generate more energy with fusion than it takes to create and sustain the reaction.
Helion is still working on how to do that with its current prototype, called Polaris, which is housed in Everett, Washington, where it plans to build components for the machine to be built at Malaga, called Orion.
Orion will connect to Washington's primary power delivery networks, David Kirtley, Helion’s co-founder and CEO, told Reuters.
"We'll actually be able to connect to the exact same grid just upstream of the Microsoft data centers," Kirtley said.
Microsoft has for years said that nuclear energy should be part of a mix of carbon-free energy sources and has also signed power purchase agreements for conventional fission-based nuclear power. Fusion is a longer-term bet, said Melanie Nakagawa, Microsoft's chief sustainability officer.
"Over the last three, four years, you've been seeing from across the fusion space different types of milestones being met by other companies and peers, Helion included," Nakagawa told Reuters. "There's a lot of optimism that this could be the moment that fusion actually comes forward within this decade, or near in this decade."
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
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