Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, May 10 / PRNewswire-FirstCall-Asianet /-- Nuclear fusion technology can bring unlimited potential for clean energy, and Microsoft believes it is close to being able to connect to the grid. The company today announced a surprising agreement to buy electricity from Helion Energy, a nuclear fusion company.

Helion Energy has developed a nuclear fusion generator, which is scheduled to be operational on a power grid in Washington State in 2028. The goal is to generate at least 50 megawatts of power, a small but significant figure that exceeds the current 42 megawatts capacity of the first two wind farms in the United States.

"that's the boldest thing I've ever heard." "I would never say impossible on such issues," said Robert Rosner, a theoretical physicist at the University of Chicago. "but if they succeed, it will be amazing." Experts' optimistic estimates of when the world will build its first fusion power plant range from the end of this century to decades later. The success of Helion depends on making amazing breakthroughs in a very short period of time and then commercializing its technology so that it can compete with other energy sources in cost.

However, Helion is not afraid. "this is a binding agreement, and if we fail to build a nuclear fusion system, there will be economic penalties." "We have promised to build a system and sell it commercially to Microsoft," David Cotley, founder and CEO of Helion, told The Verge.

How does a nuclear fusion system work? In short, nuclear fusion mimics the way stars produce light and heat. In our sun, hydrogen nuclei fuse together to form helium and produce huge amounts of energy. Since the 1950s, scientists have been trying to replicate the process in a controlled way. They have been able to replicate in an uncontrollable way, that is, a hydrogen bomb. )

This is in contrast to the nuclear power plants we have today that release energy through fission, which splits atoms. One of the main disadvantages of fission is that it leaves unstable nuclides, which can be radioactive for millions of years. Nuclear fusion avoids the problem of radioactive waste because it basically creates new helium atoms.

The most advanced attempt to generate electricity through nuclear fusion uses a machine (called tokamak) that uses a powerful laser beam to hit a tiny target or relies on a magnetic field to constrain ultra-hot material (called plasma). Instead of using both methods, Helion is developing a 40-foot-long device called a plasma accelerator that heats fuel to 100 million degrees Celsius, heats deuterium (a hydrogen isotope) and helium-3 into plasma, and then uses a pulsed magnetic field to compress the plasma to the point of fusion.

Solving the problem of energy efficiency is crucial to achieving nuclear fusion power generation, which requires extremely high temperatures and pressures to force atoms to fuse together. Until recently, researchers were unable to do this, always consuming more energy than the fusion reaction actually produced. Last December, the laser achieved a huge breakthrough, called "fusion ignition", which meant that a fusion reaction that led to an increase in net energy was triggered for the first time, an important milestone that Helion had not yet reached.

Getting enough helium-3 fuel, a very rare isotope for quantum computing and medical imaging, may be another challenge. However, Helion says it has applied for a patent to make its own helium-3 by fusing deuterium atoms together in its plasma accelerator.

Assuming Helion can do all this, they must still ensure that they can do so in an affordable way, generating electricity that is as expensive or cheaper than today's power plants, solar and wind farms. The company did not disclose the price in its electricity purchase agreement with Microsoft, but Mr. Kotley said the company's goal is to one day reduce costs to 1 cent per kilowatt hour.

But as has been the case with nuclear fusion dreams for decades, we can only wait and see.

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