More Helion Energy news....

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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mvanwink5
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by mvanwink5 »

This is another good article on Helion (Wall Street Journal) that I posted over on an EMC2 thread, but I thought for completeness I should repost here (apologies this is just for ease of following a company's developing story). I thought science side of the story is missing the funding side, so to back fill...

http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/201 ... RDS=helion

VC Funding, Y Combinator Power Up Nuclear-Fusion Co. Helion Energy

“If our physics hold, we hope to reach that goal in the next three years,” said Dr. Kirtley. Helion, which was incorporated in 2009, has been working from internal funding and $7 million in Energy Department and Department of Defense grants thus far, the CEO said. (It did attempt to raise venture funding back in 2009, but then decided to turn to internal and government funding, according to Dr. Kirtley.)
The company found believers in its new investors.
“We’ve come to the conclusion that fusion was not a crazy idea,” Mr. Royan said. He said Mithril’s team has reviewed various nuclear-power technology developers and approaches. One of his requirements for backing a technology company in the space is that “there should be no miracle physics requirements, no immaculate conception.”
The team at Helion has come further than any other nuclear startup in developing a working model that Mr. Royan said could “with a reasonable degree of assurance” scale into a project that would produce electricity at a price below that which is derived from natural gas. He said the team has an entrepreneurial approach, caring for the way the resultant product would look and why it would be accepted in the market, and caring about costs and other aspects that scientific-minded teams typically leave aside.
Mr. Royan said that when he met Helion’s CEO he was impressed by the jargon that Dr. Kirtley used, such as “product road map.” “You are talking like a software guy,” Mr. Royan said he told the CEO.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Ivy Matt
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Ivy Matt »

Helion Energy gave a presentation at the 2014 CleanTech Open in San Franciso:
As an alumni and 2013 National Energy Generation Category winner we were honored to attend and showcase Helion’s funding and technology progress.
Helion didn't win any awards this year, though I suppose as a previous winner they may have been disqualified from competing. I don't suppose anyone here attended, or if they attended, Helion didn't say anything new.
Temperature, density, confinement time: pick any two.

Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

Ivy Matt wrote:Helion Energy gave a presentation at the 2014 CleanTech Open in San Franciso:
As an alumni and 2013 National Energy Generation Category winner we were honored to attend and showcase Helion’s funding and technology progress.
Helion didn't win any awards this year, though I suppose as a previous winner they may have been disqualified from competing. I don't suppose anyone here attended, or if they attended, Helion didn't say anything new.
They were not competing but invited as a speaker, being last years awardee.

mvanwink5
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by mvanwink5 »

Science and development of a concept takes time and unfortunately it seems normal for multiple and differing skill sets to not go together. When they do, you get an Elon Musk phenomena. General Fusion seems to have this in their organization, maybe at Tri-Alpha. What is the opinion about the principals at Helion, are they 'world class' at bringing their concept to final conception?

EMC2 hasn't seemed to have secured the cash, Helion has at least managed to get staged cash in place, whether it is adequate or not is one more huge question.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

mvanwink5 wrote:Science and development of a concept takes time and unfortunately it seems normal for multiple and differing skill sets to not go together. When they do, you get an Elon Musk phenomena. General Fusion seems to have this in their organization, maybe at Tri-Alpha. What is the opinion about the principals at Helion, are they 'world class' at bringing their concept to final conception?

EMC2 hasn't seemed to have secured the cash, Helion has at least managed to get staged cash in place, whether it is adequate or not is one more huge question.
I think that Helions concept is among the most realistic and down to earth. Their design is relatively simple and compact. They have tested all of the aspects of their reactor with subscale devices and have tests by others for comparison to understand the scaling laws, which match their theoretical models. They stay away from PB11, doing D+D and D+He3 instead. That is much easier to do and they gain some flexibility regarding the business model and tuning of the reaction that others do not have. In fact their design could just as well do D+T if for some reason D+D/ D+He3 does not work out. D+He3 still allows for direct conversion, which makes reactors much cheaper and more compact than D+T does. If I had to bet on someone, I would bet on them, provided they get funding.
David Kirtley, John Slough and the rest of the executive team combined bring 100 years of experience in the field.
Last edited by Skipjack on Tue Dec 02, 2014 3:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

crowberry
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by crowberry »

Here is what David Kirtley from Helion Energy has to say on attracting VC funding. It is not easy as the time given is usually to short to explain anything in depth:
http://www.arpae-summit.com/Press/In-the-News#greenwire

Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

crowberry wrote:Here is what David Kirtley from Helion Energy has to say on attracting VC funding. It is not easy as the time given is usually to short to explain anything in depth:
http://www.arpae-summit.com/Press/In-the-News#greenwire
This is why we fail.

mvanwink5
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by mvanwink5 »

Actually, there are many varieties of VC firms and some include long term development ventures in their investment mix, ventures with a 'Google' future and worth the time horizon. Milestone driven staged investment is used to control risk. Earlier in this topic I posted a link that reflects this, but to bring out some salient points:

http://www.xconomy.com/national/2014/08 ... c-startup/

**some investors are developing structures to fund high-risk companies that take many years to commercialize….

**“If everything works exactly as we hope it will, we’re talking about taking six years before we’re generating electricity and earning revenue,” says David Kirtley, the CEO of Redmond, WA-based nuclear fusion company Helion Energy, which received $1.5 million in Series A funding from Y Combinator and Mithril Capital Management. “For fusion, that’s awfully fast. For an investment, that’s still pretty slow.”

**Mithril, though, decided to take a chance on Helion Energy because the startup has already demonstrated a number of the key components of its fusion reactor and the company’s management has a commercial, rather than research, mindset

**In one way, the investment isn’t so unusual: Helion Energy has to hit spelled-out technical milestones before it raises a planned Series B in about a year. The big difference is that it will then take tens of millions of dollars and three to five years to get to what would be considered a beta product in tech, Royan says. But Mithril was structured specifically so it could stay invested in companies for as long as 10 years, he says.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

crowberry
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by crowberry »

Found this Helion Energy news:
Helion Energy recently signed a lease with CalWest Industrial Properties for a 2,845 square foot Flex Tech space in Westpark (8555 154th Avenue NE, Redmond, WA). NAI Puget Sound Properties is pleased to work with such an innovative company and aid in their rapid growth.

Helion Energy has developed a safe magneto-inertia fusion system that it will use to provide smaller and lower cost modular fusion power plants. Helion Energy is growing and Steve Balkman of NAI Puget Sound Properties is working with them to locate a larger research and development facility in the Puget Sound area.
http://www.nai-psp.com/helion-energy/

Ivy Matt
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Ivy Matt »

Here's an article on Helion from January 20:

Energy’s Holy Grail? You can find it at Redmond’s Helion Energy
That dream is a Holy Grail of nuclear physics — fusion power — and researchers at a small Redmond laboratory, Helion Energy, believe they are only a few years away from creating nuclear fusion that can be used as a source for electricity. Several other ventures worldwide believe they are just as close, although everyone is using different approaches.
Nothing very new, but I believe this is the first time I've seen the name of Helion's break-even device:
This fusion reactor prototype is the fourth one built by Helion. In Starbucks-style, the stages of development are named after coffee drink sizes. The third version was dubbed “Tall,” and the current one is “Grande,” which is capable of generating 50 million degrees of heat. The next and final version will be dubbed “Venti,” with a goal of generating the required 100 million degrees of heat to produce fusion. The Venti model is still in the design stage by Helion’s staff of seven full-time and four part-time scientists.
There's also a list of fusion efforts which is more exhaustive than any I've seen coming from a news site, although it fails to include EMC2.
Temperature, density, confinement time: pick any two.

DeltaV
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by DeltaV »

While Polywell gets ignored, MSNW (Helion's root) gets new NASA funding:
http://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/march/na ... abilities/
The three NextSTEP advanced propulsion projects, $400,000 to $3.5 million per year per award, will have no more than a three-year performance period focused on ground testing efforts. The selected companies are:

Ad Astra Rocket Company of Webster, Texas
Aeroject Rocketdyne Inc. of Redmond, Washington
MSNW LLC of Redmond, Washington
Space propulsion was Dr. Bussard's original motivation for Polywell, was it not?

tokamac
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by tokamac »

Aside your remarks about Polywell, it's interesting to note Ad Astra is the company behind VASIMR:
http://www.adastrarocket.com/aarc/VASIMR

Skipjack
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by Skipjack »

Wonder which one of their projects got funded. They have several that could work, including the Fusion Driven Rocket and the ELF thruster.

crowberry
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by crowberry »

James Temple has published an article and a 7 min 50 s video Going Nuclear: The Fusion Race Is Heating Up. Will Anyone Cross the Finish Line? (Video) with an interview with David Kirtley of Helion Energy at http://recode.net/2015/07/01/going-nucl ... ine-video/. There is some nice footage from Helion Energys laboratory. NIF and ITER are also touched on.

Helion Energy does not make a lot of noise about themselves. They have gotten funding, but I have not seen any talks or papers from them lately. Does anyone here have more insight on the results they are getting with their current device? In the video Kirtley claims that in three years time they will be ready to build a break even capable prototype.

mvanwink5
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Re: More Helion Energy news....

Post by mvanwink5 »

Comparing funding for these fusion projects to the "Nigerian Prince" scam is pure hyperbole, and coming from a Gubbermant funded scientist, I wonder if it might be just self-serving? Gubbermant always seems to get the best bureaucrats money can buy.
Counting the days to commercial fusion. It is not that long now.

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