Avalanche Energy published a research paper in an IEEE journal. Avalanche is a VC-backed, fusion energy start-up based in Seattle, WA. with about $51 million in funding. They are designing, testing and building fusion batteries small enough to hold in your hand. Their modular reactor design can be stacked like battery packs for a wide …
Helicity Space is making good progress fabricating key parts for their lab prototype of their nuclear fusion drive. This was described last month. Helicity Space has raised their seed round of over $3.5 million per Pitchbook but could have raised over $6 million. The first prototypes would be better than current electric drives. The ISP …
Helicity Space wants to get an afterburner on an electric propulsion system. It will be pulsed-power magneto inertial fusion concept. It is similar to z-pinch but more like helical pinch. It seems like they have exceeded the $5 million seed funding target. They will take 24-36 months (from 1 year ago) to get their lab …
How far away is Tokomak nuclear fusion? People get confused by the terms megajoules and various kinds of breakeven metrics. There are simpler ways to look at it. How fast is the progress? What has to be achieved for a commercial nuclear fusion reactor? The JET tokomak reactor has been working for a few decades. …
The UK Atomic Energy Authority (‘UKAEA’) and First Light Fusion (‘First Light’) have today signed an agreement for the design and construction of a new purpose-built facility to house First Light’s Machine 4 at UKAEA’s Culham Campus in Oxfordshire. First Light is pursuing an “inertial confinement” approach to fusion. First Light’s method leverages the same …
NASA has funded a phase 1 NIAC (NASA Innovation Advanced Concepts) study to get through about 24 miles (40 kilometers) of ice on Europa and other moons with liquid oceans. Jupiter’s satellite Europa almost certainly hides a global saltwater ocean beneath its icy surface. Chemistry at the ice surface and ocean-rock interface might provide the …
Helion Fusion CEO, David Kirtley, presented an update on the work as of December, 2022. They are working on their seventh-generation prototype system and they have had over 10,000 shots with the sixth-generation system. They create and form plasmas and accelerate two plasmas to merge at supersonic speeds. They do not inject beams and operate …
General Fusion of Canada is developing magnetized target fusion and is one of the top five fusion energy startups in terms of overall funding. They have raised about $322 million from Jeff Bezos, the Canadian and Malaysian governments. I track over 30 nuclear fusion projects and think this one, Helion Energy and HB11 Energy are …
This animation shows a close up of the projectile/target interaction inside the reaction vessel for First Light Fusion. They electromagnetically launch a projectile to create inertial fusion. They do not use a laser. the target implodes faster than the projectile. They were getting velocity multipliers by 10X back in 2019. They think the onward path …
LLNL’s experiment surpassed the fusion threshold by delivering 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of energy to the target, resulting in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output, demonstrating for the first time a most fundamental science basis for inertial fusion energy (IFE). Many advanced science and technology developments are still needed to achieve simple, affordable IFE to power …
