00:00At Helion, we are building fusion power plants.
00:04Fusion is a source of clean, safe, unlimited energy
00:08that is the same process that happens in stars.
00:12And at Helion, we build systems operationally right now that do fusion.
00:17And actually, we're working on building our eighth generation system,
00:21which is our first power plant for Microsoft.
00:24Yeah, that's so exciting to think about where this could all go
00:27and the type of energy that you could generate.
00:29Again, clean energy and safe energy.
00:31Your approach to fusion differs from some of the other companies
00:34that are out there doing fusion by converting energy from plasma into electricity, right?
00:39So tell us a little bit more about how that actually works,
00:42especially when it comes to these new plans.
00:46At Helion, we work on something we call direct electricity recovery.
00:51And so what this fundamentally means is that it's like a regenerative braking in electric cars.
00:56We can actually, from the fusion process itself, take electricity out directly
01:00without the traditional thermal cycles, steam turbines, cooling towers.
01:05We eliminate all that.
01:06That allows us to, one, build fusion systems that are a lot smaller than anybody else
01:10so that we can then iterate quickly.
01:12So we've now, at Helion, built seven generations of fusion systems that do fusion.
01:17We're located here in Washington state.
01:19And then now we're working on the world's first fusion power plant.
01:23And we've been making progress on that rapidly over the last few years.
01:27Yeah, it seems like you really are moving so quickly now
01:30with that 2028 kind of goal and deadline sitting out there.
01:33How are you going to reach that goal?
01:35It just seems like there's so much that has to get done to make that happen.
01:38How are you actually working to reach that goal?
01:44Well, we started a while ago.
01:45So our power plant, we call that Orion, has been under development for the last few years.
01:52So last year we got the permit to initial the building permit and the environmental permits,
01:57the first in the fusion industry, to begin construction of that site,
02:01began the large-scale infrastructure building, building the buildings, building the substations.
02:05In fact, earlier this year, got the operational permit now that enables us to go forward and
02:11complete the site.
02:12In parallel to that, at our factories here in Everett, Washington, we're building all of
02:17the subscale systems, the subsystems that will be mass-produced to deploy the generator.
02:22I think one of the key differentiators for Helion is that we build generator systems at our factory
02:29that are then deployed at a power plant.
02:31That allows us to move a lot faster than everybody else.
02:34Yeah, it's so interesting to think about your business model and how all of that science
02:37and engineering is coming together to make that happen.
02:40You also mentioned that this is in partnership with Microsoft, right?
02:44Or they're going to be actually purchasing the power plant from Helion.
02:47And then also OpenAI, another partner.
02:49So talk to us about the importance of these partnerships that you're making right now.
02:56I think this is really critical.
02:59And it's not just critical for Helion, but in fact, for the entire fusion industry as it
03:03matures from academia and national labs to commercial power plants and generators.
03:09So Helion has a number of customers already for its power.
03:13Microsoft was our first PPA, power purchase agreement, for 50 megawatts of delivered power
03:18to the grid in the same grid that their data centers are connected to.
03:23We also have agreements with Nucor, a steel company in the United States, the U.S.'s largest
03:29steel company for a 500 megawatts of clean, safe power for their systems.
03:34And then continuing conversations with other large data centers and other companies to be
03:39able to provide even more amounts of power as demand has been skyrocketing in the United States.
03:45Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, the demand for power, the demand for fusion energy with
03:49all of the needs that AI is really necessitating at this point.
03:53What is that really saying about where we're at and also where we're headed as we look to
03:58the rest of this year and, you know, 10 years down the line, what we really are going to
04:01need from our power plants?
04:05We watched the power, the growth of the power market accelerate over the last five years.
04:10In fact, in the next five years, we're expecting 20% more power demand to come online in the
04:17United States.
04:17That's a massive amount of baseload, clean electricity that has to be on all the time
04:22to meet the needs of electric vehicle charging and data centers.
04:26So I'm really excited that fusion is positioned right now to be able to answer that need.
04:31And it's not something that we could say a decade ago.
04:34And so I'm excited that the generators and the plants that we're building today are going
04:39to be able to meet that need because it's just at the right time where that power demand
04:44is accelerating quickly.
04:46Yeah, it seems like it is exactly the right time with that growth and those needs just
04:50growing every day, it seems.
04:52Tell us about some of the challenges that you've faced because this is no easy feat what you
04:56are doing here.
04:57What are some of the biggest challenges that you found in creating these power plants and,
05:02you know, really getting this source of fusion power to be scalable for all these big clients
05:08and customers who really want to work with you?
05:12Well, we've built now seven generations of machines that do fusion, and each one of those
05:18has had to overcome a number of hurdles.
05:20The earliest machines, which were supported by the U.S. government, were around demonstrating
05:25the core science that you can do fusion with the approach that we have.
05:29Then we scaled that up under venture capital support and funding for the engineering and the
05:35scaling of those systems, where now our seventh generation system, Polaris, that came online
05:40earlier this year and now has demonstrated advanced fusion fuels.
05:44We're the first company to do that, as well as setting world records for temperature and fusion
05:49outputs.
05:50And so each of those steps has been incremental and taken a lot of the team to go and build
05:55and demonstrate that you can do it.
05:57You can do it safely and you can do it quickly.
06:00Yeah, I mean, it seems like you do have that incremental kind of success as you kind of move
06:04forward going into the future here.
06:06I mean, as we look to the next decade, what does success really look like for helium energy?
06:10What should really people be keeping their eye on here past just the 2028 potential opening
06:16of your next power plant?
06:18But what should they really be looking at over the next decade?
06:24As the first power comes online, you get electricity from fusion on the grid.
06:28That's a huge milestone for the whole industry.
06:30But then we got to go further than that.
06:32Actually, what I tell the team is if all we do is build the world's first fusion power
06:36plant and that's it.
06:37As a company, we failed and we didn't meet the world's need for clean and safe power.
06:42And so in parallel to that, we are building out the manufacturing.
06:45Actually, in the last year, we've doubled our manufacturing footprint here in Everett,
06:49Washington to be able to not just build one system, but in the United States, build the
06:54subsystems, the components and the generators for whole fleets of these that we can deploy
06:59all over the United States and then eventually globally.
07:02Well, we look forward to seeing where all of this goes and we really appreciate you talking
07:05through all of it with us today.
07:07Thank you so much, David Kirtley, CEO of Helion Energy.
07:09Appreciate you being here.
07:12Absolutely.
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