nuclear fusion founder dr. david kirtley ceo ; dr. john slough cso ; chris pihl cto ; dr. george votroubek pi headquarters redmond wa website helion energy home page helion energy inc. is an american company in redmond wa developing a magneto inertial fusion power technology called the fusion engine . 1 their approach combines the stability of magnetic containment and once per second heating pulsed inertial fusion . 2 they are working on the development of a 50 mw scale system that they hope to have working by 2019 . 3 4 contents 1 organization 2 technology 2.1 fuel 2.2 containment 2.3 compression 2.4 energy generation 3 funding 4 revenue model 5 references organization edit helion energy is a spin off of redmond company msnw llc 5 that develops space propulsion and fusion energy related technologies . the ceo is david kirtley chief science officer is john slough and cto is chris pihl . the primary fusion technology was developed by slough also a research professor at the university of washington with additional technologies generated by pihl and kirtley . the management team won the 2013 national cleantech open energy generation competition and awards at the 2014 arpa e future energy startup competition . 2 technology edit according to published documents the fusion engine technology is based on the inductive plasmoid accelerator ipa experiments 6 7 performed at msnw llc from 2005 through 2012 . this engine operates at 1 hz injecting plasma compressing it to fusion conditions expanding it and directly recovering the energy to provide electricity . 8 the ipa experiments claimed 300 km s velocities deuterium neutron production and 2 kev duterium ion temperatures . 7 fuel edit helion intends to use helium 3 deuterium fuel . this fuel allows essentially aneutronic fusion that produces only a small amount of low energy neutrons . the helium is captured and reused eliminating supply concerns . 2 fusion reaction 2d 3he 4he 1p 18.3 mev the ipa experiments used deuterium deuterium fusion which produces a 2.4 mev neutron per reaction . helion and msnw published articles describing a deuterium tritium implementation which is the easiest to achieve but generate 14 mev neutrons . containment edit this fusion approach uses the magnetic field of a field reversed configuration frc plasmoid operated with solid state electronics derived from power switching electronics in wind turbines to prevent plasma losses . an frc is a magnetized plasma configuration notable for its closed field lines high beta and lack of internal penetrations . 2 compression edit to inject the plasmoid into the fusion burn chamber two plasmoids are accelerated at high velocity with pulsed magnetic fields and merge into a single plasmoid at high pressure . 2 their experiments achieved plasmas of 1.5 tesla and 2 kev temperatures . published records show plans to compress fusion plasmas to 12 tesla . 9 energy generation edit energy is captured by direct energy conversion that translates high energy alpha particles directly into a voltage . this eliminates the need for steam turbines and cooling towers and the associated energy losses . 2 funding edit helion energy received 7 million in funding from nasa the u.s. department of energy and the department of defense 10 followed by 1.5 million from the private sector in august 2014 through the seed accelerators y combinator and mithril capital management . 11 the company raised an additional 10.6 million in july 2015 . 200 million will be needed for the commercial pilot plant . the plan would be to start building commercial systems by 2022 . citation needed the fusion engine is compact semi truck sized will be able to generate lower cost electricity than current baseload power sources . citation needed revenue model edit helion energy s strategy is to generate revenue based on a royalty model of electricity produced with projected electricity prices of 40 60 mwhr 4 to 6 cents per kwh . penetration of the new capacity market is estimated at 20 % of market growth 2.5 % per annum eventually reaching 50 % of new power generation worldwide 52 b yr . gradual displacement of existing supplies enables continued growth to 20 % of world electrical generation after 20 years with a net return of over 300 billion . 2 references edit helionenergy.com helion energy website . a b c d e f g next big future helion energy raised 10.9 million and has filed to raise 21 million which would be enough to build a breakeven scale fusion machine in 2016 2017 . nextbigfuture.com . retrieved 2015 08 21 . helion executive summary pdf . cleantech open announcement 2013 . msnwllc.com msnw llc website . votroubek g. ; slough j. ; andreason s. ; pihl c. june 2008 . formation of a stable field reversed configuration through merging . journal of fusion energy . springer science business media . 27 1 2 123 127 . doi 10.1007 s10894 007 9103 4 . a b slough john ; votroubek george ; pihl chris 13 april 2011 . creation of a high temperature plasma through merging and compression of supersonic eld reversed con guration plasmoids . nuclear fusion . international atomic energy agency . 51 5 . doi 10.1088 0029 5515 51 5 053008 . svoboda elizabeth 21 june 2011 . is fusion power finally for real . popular mechanics . hambling david 16 august 2011 . new scientist small fusion startups aim for breakeven . new scientist . halper mark 30 april 2013 . the nearness of fusion the materials and coolant challenges facing one fusion company mirror fission . the alvin weinberg foundation . russell kyle 14 august 2014 . y combinator and mithril invest in helion a nuclear fusion startup . techcrunch . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title helion energy & oldid 693380282 categories accelerator physicsplasma physicsnuclear physicsnuclear fusionfusion powertechnology companies of the united statesengineering companies of the united stateshidden categories all articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from october 2015 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 2 december 2015 at 05 03 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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