Helion secures $500m investment in latest sign of investor confidence in the technology
A nuclear fusion start-up backed by Silicon Valley investor Sam Altman and Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital has secured $500m to demonstrate commercially viable power by 2024 in the largest capital raise yet by a private fusion company.
The investment in US-based Helion is the latest sign of growing private sector confidence in the potential of nuclear fusion to provide clean, cheap power that would fundamentally transform the world’s ability to cut carbon emissions.
“On the whole, fusion has been missing from the global conversation about what we’re going to do about the climate crisis, but that is rapidly changing,” Altman, who will join Helion’s board as executive chair, told the Financial Times.
The newly formed Fusion Industry Association said last week that at least 35 different companies were now pursuing nuclear fusion around the world and predicted that fusion energy would be connected to the grid in the 2030s.
The prospect of fusing atoms to generate almost unlimited power from minimal fuel has tantalised scientists for decades. Soviet scientists pioneered the development of the first fusion machine, known as the “tokamak”, in the 1950s but no group has been able to achieve fusion while producing more electricity than the system consumes.
Unlike the traditional tokamak approach, which uses energy from the fusion reaction to drive steam turbines, Helion’s system enables it to generate electricity directly from the fusion reaction as the fuel expands.
David Kirtley, Helion’s chief executive, compared it to the regenerative breaking system in a Tesla electric car, where the kinetic energy from the vehicle is used to recharge the battery system.
“The key there is that we can bypass all the capital cost and all the complexity of all those steam turbine systems . . . and focus on getting fusion as small and fast as possible.”
The $500m investment, led by Altman, fully funds Helion to build by 2024 what would be the first fusion demonstration plant to generate net electricity. If successful, the investors, who also include Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and sustainability-focused Capricorn Investment Group, have committed to a further $1.7bn to fund future manufacturing.
