The American company Helion Energy has officially received permission from the authorities of the state of Washington to build and operate the world's first commercial fusion power plant, writes kaldata.com
This makes it a leader in the race to create a virtually inexhaustible source of clean energy. If Helion fulfills its promises, the power plant will begin operating in just two years.
Helion received two key licenses from the Washington State Department of Health: for the use of radioactive materials and for emissions into the air. This allows the construction of the main building of the Orion plant to begin at the site in Malaga, Washington.
The precedent is historic, as no company has received such permits for a commercial fusion plant before. This was facilitated by the decision of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Advance 2024 Act, which classify fusion not as nuclear fission, but as a safer technology (in the same category as particle accelerators and medical devices).
Helion has set itself an extremely ambitious deadline: to provide 50 megawatts of electricity for Microsoft data centers by 2028. The companies signed such a contract in 2023. Orion will be the first plant to connect to the electricity grid precisely to fulfill this commercial obligation.
Despite the regulatory breakthrough, the scientific community still has questions about Helion, writes IE. The biggest challenge is that no company in the world has yet demonstrated cost-effective controlled fusion. Critics also note that Helion rarely publishes its results in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Nevertheless, the licenses are an important signal to the industry as a whole. They show that regulators are ready for fusion energy and that its development will not be blocked by bureaucratic delays, as sometimes happens with other innovations. The question now is whether Helion will be able to fulfill its promises by 2028.
What is the principle of Helion Energy's breakthrough in fusion
Helion Energy's approach to fusion is radically different from traditional projects such as the international ITER reactor (which uses a massive Tokamak). Helion's breakthrough and innovation is based on four fundamental principles that aim to turn fusion into a commercially viable technology.
Here's how their concept works:
Plasmoids and FRC (Field Reversed Configuration)
Instead of trying to maintain a huge, continuous mass of plasma for hours, Helion creates so-called plasmoids - stable, self-organizing rings of plasma (like smoke rings) that generate their own internal magnetic field. This configuration is called Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC).
Pulse Collision and Compression (Plasma Accelerator)
The Helion machine operates in pulses (like an internal combustion engine), rather than in continuous mode.
Two plasmoids are created at opposite ends of the linear reactor.
They are accelerated towards each other by powerful magnets at over 1.5 million kilometers per hour.
They collide in the central chamber, where they merge into a larger plasmoid.
Huge magnets in the center compress this plasma extremely rapidly, raising its temperature to over 100 million degrees Celsius, which triggers thermonuclear fusion.
Direct Energy Conversion (The Key Breakthrough)
This is the company's biggest innovation. Most other fusion concepts (as well as current nuclear power plants) use the heat from the reaction to heat water, make steam, and turn a turbine. This process is expensive, complex, and wastes a lot of energy.
Helion bypasses steam turbines:
When the plasmoid is compressed and fusion begins, a huge amount of new energy is released.
This energy causes the plasma to expand rapidly.
Because the plasma is electrically charged, its expansion pushes back the magnetic field created by the reactor's magnets.
According to Faraday's Law of Electromagnetic Induction, a change in the magnetic field induces an electric current directly in the coils surrounding the reactor.
The result is that thermonuclear energy is converted directly into electricity with very high efficiency.
Aneutron Fuel (Deuterium and Helium-3)
Standard fusion reactions use Deuterium and Tritium (D-T), which release high-energy neutrons during fusion. These neutrons damage the reactor walls and make the components radioactive.
Helion aims for a reaction between Deuterium and Helium-3 (D-He3). This reaction is almost "aneutronic" – instead of neutrons, it releases mostly charged particles (protons and alpha particles). The presence of charged particles is absolutely essential for direct energy conversion to work.
Because Helium-3 is extremely rare on Earth, Helion has developed a closed loop in which they synthesize their own Helium-3 through reactions between deuterium.
The Helion system is not a "stove" that heats water, but rather an electromagnetic engine. Their design allows the reactor to be much smaller, cheaper to build, and theoretically much more efficient at transferring energy to the electrical grid.