Helion’s fusion fuel and byproducts: paving the way for commercial fusion energy

Helion will use deuterium and helium-3 as fuels for its fusion power plants. These fuels produce byproducts that can be safely managed, stored, or reused in the process.

D-He-3 maximizes our ability to directly capture electricity, a large advantage when building a fusion system for commercial deployment. Helion has used, or will use, three fuels at some stage in our path to commercialization: deuterium, tritium, and helium-3. In their gaseous forms, each can be heated to plasma conditions and used in a fusion reaction. Helion’s machines inject these fuels as a gas and heat them to plasma conditions. We then use magnets to accelerate, merge, and compress these plasmas until fusion occurs. Depending on the injected fuel mixture, varying results and byproducts occur.

About Helion
Helion is a fusion energy company building the world’s first fusion power plant. Its mission is to fully satisfy the world’s need for clean abundant energy, saving the planet from climate change and improving the well-being of humanity. To keep up with the latest progress, follow Helion’s social media:

[mateusbmedeiros]

Your dependence on Helium-3 is your main hurdle in achieving a reactor capable of properly generating energy in my opinion, so it's good that you guys are doing the most you can to recycle and not waste a single atom.

Good luck.

[mikeybhoutex]

I understand the basics of how Helion's reactors 'work'. I just hope I'm here to see ANY profitable fusion power generation happen before I die. And for some reason Helion's approach also seems more achievable and quicker to achieve the prize than the other approaches being made. I hope I'm right.

[vsiegel]

That seems more honest and open, not obfuscating, than I expected from a companies official public relation video. Good.

[EarthCreature.]

OK.... but what's your progress on

[wes]

That direct electricity is the most attractive part, that's fascinating. That would make it much much cheaper to build a power plant. Turbine halls are huge and need constant attention in most power plants.

[mauradlayouni]

Thank you for this message i was concerned about the neutrons, glad to see your on top of this.

[randxalthor]

Love hearing about the details of how you plan to make this a sustainable endeavor!

[christopherleubner]

You got neutrons, make useful radio isotopes with them. Also if you line the reaction chamber with beryllium you can make more of them, then use that to create tritium from tubes packed with lithium 6 deuteride. Either use as fuel or store the tritium for outer uses. I'm not sure how well direct collision will work for fusion, but you could use the acellerators to drive a pulsed vortex tube z pinch reactor. The neatest part is that once you got a fusion reaction started it should be self sustaining as the reacting plasma will preheat the incoming plasma. Your accelerator tech would be ideal for kick starting the fusion reaction ❤

[Canucklug]

Polaris isn't necessarily delayed as the timeline was intentionally ambitious, very interesting year coming

[pedrosura]

I wish you would have explained the difference between a deuterium deuterium rector vs, the He3 reactor and the difference in output. Its a detail but a very important one.

[EricAllen]

Hope for an update on what's happening RN

[Raymondzhang-therandomventures]

@Helion: Can the byproducts be reused over and over again?

[leonardscm]

You should make it look more like from Fallout.

[chrispompano]

New way to generate 1.21 GigaWatts from the Mr. Fusion into the Flux

[renman]

Cool, but whats the timeline?
Thanks!

[JoeSimonsen]

I'm confused though. THe neutron shield is a wall outside the machine itself. The machine is going to take most of the neutrons though right?

[MajorBreakfast]

3:02 Your monitoring guy looks a bit young ^^‘

Love the video! Cool technology!

[stepheng]

Question for on I thought the plan was to make the Helium 3 in one reactor (ie Deuterium Deuterium reactor) because of the uncontainable Neutron problem which will drastically reduce the lifespan of the reactor and create shielding problems. Then use the helium 3He deuterium 2D in a separate reactor to create the power. Now correct me if I am wrong but 3He / 2D reaction happens just north of 100 million degrees where as D2 / D2 reactions require over 250 million degrees. This means that even though the compressed fuel has multiple 2D atoms in addition to multiple 3He atoms the only fusion that can occur at 150 million or lower is 2d / 3He or 3He / 3He as it is not hot enough for 2D / 2D fusion events. Even if you have 3He / 3He fusion events in the chamber the result will be 4He and two protons and NO Neutrons. Thus eliminating the shielding problem and increasing the lifespan of the reactor. Did I misunderstand what David said in your Helion's approach video?

[puddingfoot]

sounds like they need some seed funding

[blarvinius]

OK, but what's your progress on your next actual REACTOR? This kind of "update" makes you look sus. I am a big fan though. ❤❤