![]() "You compress your fuel, it burns very hot and very intensely, but only for a little bit. Kirtley compares the pulsing of their fusion machine to a piston. The additional extra energy is electricity that can be used. Some of that energy is recycled and used to recharge the capacitors that originally powered the reaction. The magnetic coils that facilitate the plasma compression also recover the energy that is generated. This is where fusion occurs, generating new energy. The plasmas smash into each other in the central fusion chamber where they merge to become a superhot dense plasma that reaches 100 million degrees Celsius. The magnets fire sequentially in pulses, sending the plasmas at both ends shooting towards each other at a velocity greater than one million miles per hour. The fuel is injected in short tiny bursts at both ends of the device and an electric current flowing in a loop confines the plasma. It is building a long narrow device called a Field Reversed Configuration, or FRC, and the next version will be about 60 feet long. An international collaborative fusion project, called ITER ("the way" in Latin), is building a massive tokamak in Southern France to prove the viability of fusion. One part of the Polaris system that looks perhaps the most otherworldly for a non fusion expert (like me) the Polaris Injector Test, which is how the fuel for the fusion reactor will get into the device.Īrguably the best-known fusion method involves a tokamak, a donut-shaped device that uses super powerful magnets to hold the plasma where the fusion reaction can occur. Working with utility companies will take longer. Because there are so many regulatory hurdles necessary to get fusion hooked into the grid, Kirtley said he expects their first paying customers are likely to be private customers, like technology companies that have power hungry data centers, for example. Some of the feasibility of getting fusion energy to the electricity grid in the United States depends on factors Helion can't control - establishing regulatory processes with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and licensing processes to get required grid interconnect approvals, a process which Kirtley has been told can range from a few years to as much as ten years. And I am glad it is getting attention." How Helion's technology works "It's less of a academic pursuit, an altruistic pursuit, and it's turning into more of a survival game at this point I think, with the way things are going," Pihl told me, as we sat in the empty Helion offices looking out at a wall of gray smoke. As we collectively blow past any realistic hope of staying within the targeted 1.5 degrees of warming and as global energy demand continues to rise, fusion is the home run that sometimes feels like the only solution. People working on fusion have become the cool kids, the underdog heroes. He's seen it evolve from the realm of physicist academics to a field followed closely by reporters and collecting billions in investments. Pihl has worked on fusion for nearly two decades now. "It is very unusual," Chris Pihl, a co-founder and the chief technology officer at Helion, said about the smoke. I wasn't alone in feeling the weight of the moment. At same time, I was wrestling internally with a deep sense of dread about the state of the world. On the one hand, I had a newfound sense of hope about the possibility of fusion energy. The circumstances of my visit set up an uncomfortable battle. Management deemed it too dangerous to ask them to leave their houses. It was so bad that Helion had told all of its employees to stay home for the first time ever. "These weather conditions, exacerbated by climate change, have increased the likelihood and severity of the fires which are responsible for the extremely poor air quality." "Climate change has contributed to the high temperatures and dry conditions that have prevailed in the Pacific Northwest this year," Mauzerall said. Mauzerall, a professor of environmental engineering and international affairs at Princeton, told me. Global warming is helping to fuel those fires, Denise L. Easterly winds flared the fires as well as drove the resulting smoke westwards towards Everett and the Seattle region," Christi Chester Schroeder, the Air Quality Science Manager at IQAir North America, told me. "Several wildfires burning in the north Cascades were fueled by warm, dry, and windy weather conditions. Personal Loans for 670 Credit Score or Lower Personal Loans for 580 Credit Score or Lower Best Debt Consolidation Loans for Bad Credit
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