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Field-reversed configuration companies like Helion & TAE aim to pull electricity directly from the fusion plasma itself using electromagnetic induction,skipping the steam turbine step entirely. Closer to harvesting energy from a controlled star than conventional power generation.

20,737 views • 2 months ago •via X (Twitter)

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Helion energy is building what will be the world’s first commercial fusion power plant, scheduled to be finished in 3 years. Great interview by Lex Fridman with David Kirtley (CEO of Helion). Most power plants are heat engines. You burn fuel or run fission, boil water, spin a turbine, and get about 35% electricity while the rest leaves as waste heat. Helion flips the flow. The fusion reaction makes charged particles that push back on a magnetic field tied to a capacitor bank, so you get direct electricity instead of a steam loop. That path can reach about 85% efficiency from fusion energy to electrical output, which means less conversion gear and tighter control over power delivery. 🧪 How the machine works A giant capacitor bank drives coils that both accelerate and squeeze plasma. Two plasmas, deuterium plus helium‑3, are launched from opposite sides and collide in the center. By rapidly reversing the magnetic field in about 1 microsecond, the plasma self-organizes into a field‑reversed configuration that traps itself. Then the machine compresses it hard. Fusion happens, new charged particles appear, and their pressure pushes the magnetic field so the system dumps energy back into the capacitors. It is pulsed, up to 100Hz in tests, so each shot is a clean measure of input versus recovered electricity. 🛡️ Safety and waste There is no chain reaction. The device only holds about 1 second of fuel at any time, so stopping the drive stops fusion. X‑rays and some neutrons exist during operation, so you use shielding and standard controls, similar to particle‑accelerator facilities. When the pulse stops, the radiation source stops. 🖥️ Why data centers care The output is high‑voltage DC sitting on capacitors. You can invert to AC for the grid, or route DC with fewer conversions into rectifier buses for racks. That cuts losses and simplifies backup. The company is targeting 2028 for a first grid-tied plant for a large buyer, which lines up with growing AI power needs. 🧩 What is still hard Helium‑3 is scarce on Earth, so you must produce it or source it. This fuel also likes higher temperatures, roughly 200M-300M degrees, so the pulsed magnets and power electronics must be very fast and very tough. Stability is managed by giving the plasma enough “spin” and length so it behaves like a fast top that stays upright, plus thousands of synchronized switches that fire with microsecond timing. If this architecture keeps showing pulse gain and high‑efficiency recovery, you get a compact generator that skips steam, feeds a capacitor, and delivers clean power in the exact format modern compute wants.

Rohan Paul

63,912 views • 8 months ago

Taming the Edge: How lithium could help us control #fusion plasmas. This video captures the first flashes of lithium being injected into the #plasma of our ST40 tokamak, marking the start of our exploration into its effects. Why lithium? In fusion research, we aim for H-mode, a high-performance state with improved plasma confinement. Future fusion power plants are expected to operate in this mode. But H-mode brings a challenge: ELMs (Edge Localised Modes) are bursts of energy at the plasma edge, similar to mini solar flares. These can reduce plasma temperature and damage the divertor with intense heat and particles. Pioneering work by PPPL and others has shown that lithium can suppress ELMs and increase energy confinement time, leading to higher temperatures. On ST40, we’re currently injecting lithium powder during plasma shots to explore its effects. As part of our upcoming ST40 LEAPS upgrade – in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and Department for Energy Security and Net Zero – we’ll go further, coating plasma-facing components with solid lithium using the ‘lithium evaporation’ technique. We’ll be experimentally testing several mechanisms. One key focus is how lithium absorbs hydrogen isotopes and reduces their recycling back into the plasma, lowering the density at the plasma edge, leading to a more stable edge pressure gradient. We’re starting to understand more about lithium’s effect on plasma performance, and early results show lithium isn't getting into the plasma core, which is good news for avoiding diluting the fusion fuel in future plants. The physics is complex, and we’re still learning. But each step brings us closer to fusion energy. By incorporating lithium into ST40, the world’s highest field spherical tokamak, we’re advancing our understanding of this critical enabling technology. #Fusion #FusionEnergy #Innovation #Limitless #EnergyTransition

Tokamak Energy

66,652 views • 1 year ago

Researchers at Tokamak Energy have captured for the first time a real-time, high-speed video of plasma behaviour inside their ST40 spherical tokamak, tracking visible green and red light emissions as the fusion process occurs. This visual insight comes via a camera operating at thousands of frames per second, offering unprecedented detail of how the plasma evolves, interacts with the surrounding lithium blanket and outer regions, and ultimately radiates energy. The imaging enables scientists to observe how the ultra-hot core transitions outward into cooler zones, how magnetic confinement shapes the plasma behaviour, and how impurities or outer-region interactions influence the process. By giving a ‘star-in-a-donut’ view of fusion in action, this breakthrough adds a new diagnostic tool to the development of fusion energy, helping engineers refine the magnetic confinement, optimise plasma stability and better understand the heat and light flows at play. It was slowed down by 100x. All this was for 0.3s A tokamak is one of the most advanced devices ever created to achieve controlled nuclear fusion, the same process that powers the Sun. Its goal is simple in principle but incredibly challenging in practice: heat a gas until it becomes plasma, raise that plasma to over 100 million degrees, and confine it long enough for hydrogen nuclei to fuse and release energy. Because no material container can survive such temperatures, a tokamak uses powerful magnetic fields to hold and shape the plasma like an invisible cage. The device has a distinctive doughnut-shaped (toroidal) chamber surrounded by magnetic coils. When the machine is switched on, electric currents and external magnets work together to create helical magnetic fields that trap the plasma and keep it away from the walls. As the plasma spirals around these magnetic lines, it heats up dramatically. Additional heating comes from methods like radio-frequency waves and neutral-beam injection, pushing the plasma toward the extreme temperatures needed for fusion. Inside this tightly controlled environment, hydrogen isotopes such as deuterium and tritium can collide and fuse, releasing fast neutrons and a burst of energy. The goal of tokamak research is to reach a point where the fusion reactions produce more energy than the system consumes, a milestone known as “net energy gain.” Modern machines like ITER, JET, and Tokamak Energy’s ST40 are bringing this vision closer, using advanced diagnostics, superconducting magnets, and increasingly stable plasma control. 👉

Erika 

162,540 views • 9 months ago