Helion to supply Microsoft with fusion power by 2028, or pay penalties

Assembled electromagnetic coils ready for use in Helion’s 7th-gen Polaris prototype. Helion Energy
–

By Loz Blain
2023 May 15

–
In an outrageously audacious move, Washington-based fusion power startup Helion has signed the world’s first fusion power supply deal, promising to deliver Microsoft at least 50 megawatts of clean fusion power by 2028, or pay financial penalties.

–

If you’ll forgive the pun, there’s been a palpable energy in the field of nuclear fusion over the last few years. It’s driven by a fresh crop of companies breaking away from the lugubrious pace of massive inter-governmental projects like ITER, exploring new technologies, and promising practical, low-cost, commercial fusion power on radically shortened timelines.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems reckons its SPARC facility will demonstrate net energy by 2025, and will start supplying the grid with power “in the early 2030s,” potentially producing more than 100 MW. TAE Technologies reckons it’ll have a prototype of its Da Vinci generator supplying electrons to the grid in the early 2030s as well. Zap Energy is hoping its FuZE-Q reactor can create more energy than it uses by 2026.

None of those guys have signed a power supply deal yet, though. Helion, on the other hand, appears to have taken on some risk and put money where its mouth is. “This is a binding agreement that has financial penalties if we can’t build a fusion system,” Helion founder and CEO David Kirtley told The Verge. “We’ve committed to be able to build a system and sell it commercially to [Microsoft].”

According to a press release, “The plant is expected to be online by 2028 and will target power generation of 50 MW or greater after a 1-year ramp up period.”

We’d need to see the terms of the agreement here to know exactly how excited to get. It’s unclear exactly where these “financial penalties” will kick in, or exactly what risk Microsoft is taking on in signing this deal, so there’s still plenty of wiggle room for doubt and healthy skepticism around this absolutely extraordinary claim.

Indeed, all the language in Helion’s press release keeps things infuriatingly vague. “This collaboration represents a significant milestone for Helion and the fusion industry as a whole,” said CEO David Kirtley. “We are grateful for the support of a visionary company like Microsoft. We still have a lot of work to do, but we are confident in our ability to deliver the world’s first fusion power facility.”

“We are optimistic that fusion energy can be an important technology to help the world transition to clean energy,” chipped in an equally cautious Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith. “Helion’s announcement supports our own long term clean energy goals and will advance the market to establish a new, efficient method for bringing more clean energy to the grid, faster.”

Helion expects to “demonstrate the ability to produce electricity” with its seventh-gen Polaris prototype sometime in 2024, although that’s not the same as producing net energy. It sounds more like a demonstration of Helion’s unique power harvesting approach, which doesn’t use steam-driven turbines like many other designs, but instead captures energy directly from the interaction between the magnetic fields of the fusion chamber and the plasma itself as it expands and contracts due to fusion events.

Forgive us for breaking out the magnifying glass here, but as we’ve been told for decades now, fusion is somewhat of a holy grail of clean energy – safer than fission, controllable, zero-emissions and virtually limitless. And cheap too; Helion says it’s targeting electricity prices on the order of US$10 per MWh. The median cost of coal-fired power, according to The Hill, is more like US$36 per MWh, and new solar costs around US$24 per MWh.

Thus if Helion – backed to the tune of US$577 million according to CNBC, including a very substantial US$375 million from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman – gets this Microsoft deal delivered, it could be some of the biggest energy news in our lifetime, and a very positive step toward net-zero carbon by 2050.

It could also, as some point out, represent a huge piece of leverage that Microsoft could exert over OpenAI, since Helion is Altman’s biggest personal investment – a potentially scary thought in context of the potential darker side of AI.

–

Siméon

The news is exciting for climate change but it’s worth noting that it increases the bargaining power of Microsoft over Altman (highly involved in Helion) which
is not good for alignment. Ideally I would want to live in a world where if Microsoft says “if you don’t give us the… Show more

–

@Helion_Energy

Announcing Helion’s first customer: Microsoft. We expect to start producing electricity in the world’s first fusion power plant by 2028, dramatically shortening the timeline for commercially viable fusion energy. Read more: helionenergy.com/articles/annou

1:27 PM · 2023 May 10

80 Reply

Copy link to Tweet

–

Either way, we’re not prepared to pop any corks just yet, and we’re definitely put off by some of the vague weasel-wordery in Helion’s press release, but we certainly hope this company, or any of the other fusion upstarts, comes through with the goods.

Check out a simple overview of the technology in the video below.

https://youtu.be/HlNfP3iywvI

–
Helion’s approach to fusion: How it works
–

Source: Helion
–

Tags

Energy Nuclear Fusion Nuclear Microsoft Clean Energy Helion Energy
–

Loz Blain

Loz has been one of our most versatile contributors since 2007, and has since proven himself as a photographer, videographer, presenter, producer and podcast engineer, as well as a senior features writer. Joining the team as a motorcycle specialist, he’s covered just about everything for New Atlas, concentrating lately on eVTOLs, hydrogen, energy, aviation, audiovisual, weird stuff and things that go fast.
–

5 comments

Bob809 – 2023 May 15 – 04:56 AM

Can someone tell me why Microsoft ‘needs’ a fusion power generator?

michael_dowling – 2023 May 15 – 05:50 AM

Helion is putting their money where their mouth is! I have been batting for the small fry rather than the big players like ITER as to who will be able to get to actual commercial power production first.

rgbatduke – 2023 May 15 – 08:29 AM

A cynical person might assume that they are posting this more to bump stock prices than out of actual fear of a default. Or, they may hear Lockheed-Martin footsteps. The Skunk Works design is remarkably similar, and three years ago, LM claimed their prototype would work within 5 years. Needless to say, Lockheed-Martin has nearly inexhaustible capital resources and has a solid reputation for sound science and well-backed claims. If they get to break-even and then win-enough in the next two years, and get the major patents in the process, competing projects like Helion’s will have to show some major advantage AND not violate said patents. Sure, they’ll all have patent applications and claims in the works already, but the key components that they CAN’T patent yet are going to be a mix of hardware design AND the controlling “software”, e.g. just how they manipulate the fields and manage fuel injection, “ash” removal, and just how they get power out of it. Finally, there is the question of just what they are going to burn — DT fuel being expensive and the T requiring manufacture as it has a short half life and can’t be usefully mined in nature. DD would be cheap fuel, but operate at several significant fusion-pathway disadvantages.

Either way, interesting times. Both plans would produce a small scale, comparatively easily manufactured fusion energy device that can be rapidly scaled UP and deployed, unlike (as noted by others) ITER and the mega-toroid projects. They actually might enable “decarbonization” in a single decade or less, while crushing the solar and wind power industries underfoot along the way, especially if their design can just be build and carried in trucks to a coal-burning plant and then turned on, one at a time, until they match capacity and they put the lights out of the coal fire for the last time.

BlueOak – 2023 May 15 – 08:40 AM

Talk is cheap and merely bluster, without the details.

Gotta love Loz’s refreshing plain-speak.

“Indeed, all the language in Helion’s press release keeps things infuriatingly vague.”

And “we’re definitely put off by some of the vague weasel-wordery in Helion’s press release”.

Dan_of_Reason – 2023 May 15 – 07:06 PM

I’m not sure about “The median cost of coal-fired power, according to The Hill, is more like US$36 per MWh, and new solar costs around US$24 per MWh.”. Does it neglect the cost (CapEx) of solar and just focus on once it is installed? Why is China building all of the coal plants they can while solar is less expensive? There is no way, at present, that solar is $0.024 per kWh unless someone gives it to you for “free”.
–