The machine at first looks like something from a crazy inventor’s lab: a couple of giant coffee funnels with their pointed ends facing each other, and all surrounded by an ingenious system of electrical coils.
But as soon as it starts, the machine is clearly much more than that. Magnetic fields from the coils force hovering rings of red-hot atomic nuclei towards the centre, where they collide at a speed of 1.6 million km/h. The collisions make the temperature rise above 100 million degrees, so that nuclei start to fuse, and temperatures rise still further. The heat makes the electrically-charged fuel expand and a magnetic field extends towards another set of coils around the machine.
That’s where the miracle happens. The field induces electricity in the coils – electricity generated without turbines or generators. Electricity that can be sent directly into the electricity grid.
The machine was developed by the American company Helion Energy, and it represents a new way for fusion energy to provide us with clean electricity – and not in the 30-40 years previously expected by fusion researchers, but within a time frame of 10 years. And Helion Energy is not alone. Worldwide some 30 private fusion companies have raised nearly AU$3.5bn – primarily from private investors – to realise their ambitious projects. If the
