Chapter 1675: Challenge!

At the press conference, David Terry's second speech gave reporters about two minutes to think.

Finally, an arm was raised high in the crowd.

"Mr. Turley, your announcement of the 'Orion' project is exciting! However, according to public information, your company's longest sustained magnetic confinement plasma doesn't appear to have exceeded a hundred seconds."

The reporter named is from the technology section of the Wall Street Journal and is known for his sharp questions:

"How can you convince the market and customers that in just ten years, your company can advance this technology, which is still in the laboratory verification stage, to a commercial power generation scale of 100 megawatts? Do you have a detailed roadmap and timetable to address the technical risks and engineering challenges involved?"

This question goes straight to the heart of the matter and is also the biggest question in the minds of all reporters present and even global followers.

Ten years does not seem to be enough time for a huge project, especially a huge project in the United States.

What's more, it involves a revolutionary technology that has no precedent.

David Terry had obviously anticipated this question and did not show any panic.

He waved to the staff backstage, indicating that the PPT screen should be switched.

A clear roadmap for technological evolution appeared on the big screen.

“You mentioned ‘holding time,’ and that’s the key to understanding the unique advantages of Helion’s technology approach.”

Terai smiled and replied:

"Unlike the current mainstream tokamaks that pursue 'long-term steady-state operation', Helion Energy has chosen the technology route of magnetic inertial confinement fusion, the core of which is 'non-ignition fusion' and 'pulsed operation'."

He pulled out a telescopic antenna from somewhere and pointed at a key module on the roadmap as if giving a lecture:

"The traditional tokamak, or stellarator, approach aims to achieve long-term, ideally indefinite, high-temperature, high-density confinement of plasma to produce sustained thermonuclear fusion reactions... Helion Energy's 'Orion' power plant will use a purely magnetic approach to directly recover fusion energy!"

The screen shows a dynamic schematic:

A plasma target pellet compressed by a strong magnetic field undergoes a micro fusion explosion in the center of a vacuum chamber.

The high-temperature and high-pressure plasma generated by the explosion expanded violently in an instant.

"Look here," Terry pointed at the expanding plasma. "When the plasma produced by fusion expands at high speed, it exerts a strong reaction force on the powerful confining magnetic field generated by the external coil surrounding it. This reaction force, according to Faraday's law of electromagnetic induction, induces a powerful pulsed current in the coil, with a direction opposite to the initial confining current."

The schematic diagram clearly shows that the high-intensity pulse current generated by induction is directly captured, rectified, boosted and then input into the grid by the efficient power electronics system.

"Therefore," Terai concluded, "our system outputs high-quality AC electricity that can be directly connected to the grid! From fusion to power output, there are no secondary processes such as heat conversion and mechanical movement. This not only increases efficiency but also greatly simplifies the system."

"At the same time, this unique energy recovery principle makes Orion naturally suited to short-pulse, high-repetition-rate operation. Unlike a tokamak, which requires maintaining an extremely unstable, high-temperature plasma for extended periods, we instead use powerful magnetic field pulses to compress the fuel pellet to its extremes in a short period of time, inducing fusion. We then efficiently capture the induced electrical energy generated when the expanding plasma resists the magnetic field."

After a brief pause, Terai concluded:

"That's why, in the data we published, although Qsci is only 0.97, Qeng can still reach 1.10. From an energy balance perspective, we only need to ensure that the fusion energy in each pulse exceeds the internal losses in the system. This is much simpler than maintaining a long-term steady-state 'artificial sun'."

Although Trey's explanation was clear and concise enough, it was unlikely that the non-professional reporters present would understand all the details.

Fortunately, they can roughly understand the core differences of the Helion route——

Avoid steady-state operation, a recognized and insurmountable technical obstacle, and choose a shortcut that seems more "tricky" but is also more focused on engineering feasibility and rapid commercialization.

And for journalism, that's enough.

Because the breakthrough previously announced by China focused on "steady-state operating time".

Tit-for-tat is exactly what the media loves most.

Not surprisingly, a reporter from the BBC Technology Channel was the first to seize this topic.

He immediately raised his hand and asked:

"Mr. Terai, you mentioned that Helion's pulsed approach avoids the problem of maintaining a plasma for a long time. However, just last week, the Southwest Institute of Physics in China announced that their HL2A tokamak device achieved a steady-state high-confinement operation for 4175 seconds—over 69 minutes—and claimed to have achieved a net energy gain."

"What do you think of this breakthrough? Which route do you think represents the future of fusion energy?"

This question is sharp and highly topical, and it instantly brought the competitive situation between the East and the West in the field of fusion to the table.

Everyone's eyes were focused on David Terry, waiting for his response.

NBC's live cameras also locked on him.

The formal smile on Terai's face seemed to fade for a moment.

He hesitated for a moment, as if trying to organize his words.

Then he spoke in a rather cautious manner:

"First, I must emphasize that pulsed fusion and steady-state fusion are two important technological paths to achieving controlled nuclear fusion, each with its own advantages and disadvantages... They are not simply interchangeable, but rather explorations based on different physical principles and engineering concepts. On the road to ultimately commercializing fusion energy, both face their own challenges and may find their most suitable application scenarios in the future."

This opening statement seems quite fair.

However, he immediately changed the subject, his tone filled with undeniable doubt:

"However," Terry paused briefly, his gaze sweeping across the room, "Regarding the claims made by the Southwest Institute of Physics in China, based on currently available information and our understanding of fusion physics and engineering limits, I, along with many senior physicists at Helion Energy, hold serious reservations. We even... tend to believe their authenticity is questionable."

"Wow—"

Although the discussion about the authenticity of this matter has never stopped for several days.

However, this is the first time that the results released by China have been questioned so directly and openly.

Inevitably, a low cry of surprise was heard again in the conference hall.

The BBC reporter's eyes lit up, his face etched with the hope of a fight. He immediately pressed, "Mr. Turley, what are your specific reasons for this assessment? The HL2A is a modification of the original German ASDEX device, and its design inherently possesses considerable potential for long-pulse operation."

Since Telai dared to fire first, he must have been confident.

He immediately raised the most core question:

"To achieve and maintain a stable, highly confined plasma for an hour, the physical processes involved are extremely complex, involving hundreds of interconnected conditions, such as magnetohydrodynamic instabilities, turbulent transport, boundary localized mode control, and impurity control. This requires the world's top supercomputers to perform massive, high-precision numerical simulations."

"As we all know, due to bottlenecks in advanced semiconductor manufacturing, China has been unable to steadily obtain the most advanced high-performance computing chips. This is bound to lead to difficulties in the research and development, deployment, and practical application of exascale supercomputers... It can even be said that China has effectively been eliminated from competition in this field."

Trey's eyes became sharp, and his tone became deliberately more serious:

"This is like trying to solve a system of equations involving millions of variables using mental arithmetic alone. Therefore, without sufficient computing power to support it, the scientific basis and engineering credibility of claiming such 'breakthrough' progress are fundamentally questionable."

This reason directly hits the most sensitive and most human-restricted link in the current technological competition - computing power.

Linking fusion breakthroughs with the bottleneck problem of semiconductor chips seems extremely convincing and offensive.

After saying all this, Terry still seemed a little reluctant.

He then added, "Actually, what's even more questionable is the 'verifiability' and 'engineering translation' of the results... In other words, if China truly has achieved such an astonishing breakthrough, they should start building commercial fusion power plants like Helion Energy, rather than just writing about it on paper!"

This sentence is indeed powerful and domineering.

It not only stunned the reporters on the scene, but also made the Chinese insiders who were watching the live broadcast of the press conference thousands of miles away laugh and cry.

"Academician Lei." Luan Wenjie looked at Lei Wencheng, his tone revealing a very strange tone, "This is a naked declaration of war to us... or rather, to your Nuclear Construction Group!"

The latter showed a "troubled" expression:

"Don't worry. With the resources the entire project has received, if we can't get the demonstration reactor connected to the grid and generate electricity before this Helion Energy guy, I'll write a letter to the Academy of Engineering and resign my title as an academician!"