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To: Red Badger
Helion makes big bet on ‘Tiny Merge’ fusion testbed to meet aggressive Microsoft timeline

The company is building a downsized testbed device called “Tiny Merge,” a machine less than one-eighth the size of Polaris, its seventh-generation and final prototype. The decision reflects the reality that key issues remain that Helion’s larger, more expensive prototypes haven’t fully resolved. These concerns must be addressed before final designs for a power plant can be locked in.

Up in WI, Micro$oft has poured well over $1 billion into a start up, promising fusion power at scale.

Nothing so far.

8 posted on 05/23/2026 9:40:36 PM PDT by texas booster (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team # 36120) Cure Alzheimer's!)
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To: texas booster

The temperatures, pressures, and electrical fields to compress ionic hydrogen will destroy the vessel in continuous operation. Until this is solved and it maybe will happen, we will not have fusion power. Oddly, we have have nuclear fusion in research reactors that actually produced more energy then that required to do such. It was not continuous as if such the reactor vessel would be destroyed.


12 posted on 05/23/2026 10:05:44 PM PDT by cpdiii (cane cutter, deckhand, oilfield roughneck, drilling fluid tech, geologist, pilot, pharmacist, MAGA)
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