Astral Codex Ten

Helion

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Helion

Article

Helion is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between June 17, 2022 and July 10, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as “Helion is the most serious of the previous generation of fusion startups”; “Helion is also notable because they’ve gotten more private funding”; “After SPARC, Type One Energy, Renaissance Fusion, and one of Tokamak Energy, Marvel, or Helion”. It most often appears alongside The Future of Fusion Energy, Alcator C-Mod, Apollo Program.

Metadata

  • Category: Organizations
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: June 17, 2022
  • Last seen: July 10, 2022

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Your Book Review: The Future Of Fusion Energy
June 17, 2022 · Original source
Marvel gets fusion by 2035 (30%). Honorable Mention: Helion Helion is the most serious of the previous generation of fusion startups that I dismissed above. They are using an entirely different strategy from the rest of the fusion community. It is closer to Magnetic Confinement Fusion, but it does occur in discrete shots. There isn't anything obviously wrong with it, but they can't build on the progress of Figure 3. Instead, they're working on their own experimental program. They're on their 6th prototype, Trenta. It is a small experiment which can do 1 shot every 10 minutes. Their next experiment, Polaris, should be a medium experiment which can do 1 shot/second. They claim that it will get fusion by 2024. One good thing about Helion is that they have a more efficient way of directly converting the energy in the plasma into electricity. One bad thing is that they claim to be using helium-3 as a fuel. This is harder than D-T fusion [23] and it doesn't fully represent what they're planning. Their entire fuel cycle involves 50% D-D fusion, 25% D-T fusion, and 25% D-He3 fusion. Helion is also notable because they've gotten more private funding than any company other than Commonwealth Fusion Systems. I'm more skeptical. At least it seems unlikely that they will get fusion on their first medium experiment, especially since that requires improvements of multiple orders of magnitude in both triple product and shot frequency. They should expect to design an 8th experiment based on what they learn from Polaris. Helion gets fusion by 2025 (5%) or 2030 (20%).
Helion gets fusion by 2025 (5%) or 2030 (20%).
[24]: After SPARC, Type One Energy, Renaissance Fusion, and one of Tokamak Energy, Marvel, or Helion.
Open Thread 232
July 10, 2022 · Original source
2: Speaking of turning money into big positive impacts on the future, Sam Altman writes in to say he enjoyed the recent book review of The Future Of Fusion Energy, and that he predicts Helion (the fusion startup he’s a leading investor in) has a 85% chance of Q > 1 D-T fusion by 2024, and a 65% chance of Q > 1 D-He3 fusion by 2026.
Inline links: book review of, Helion