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Accelerated iteration in FRCs: Helion's 'Tiny Merge' testbed

An eight-foot tubular testbed less than one-eighth the size of Polaris enables rapid, low-cost diagnostic iterations for FRC plasma-ring formation and merging.

EVERETT, WA — June 3, 2026 · 1 min read · Fusion Energy News Desk

Science

Direct energy conversion and the viability of aneutronic fuel cycles

Helion's Polaris targets D–He³ with magnetic induction recovery; TAE forms an FRC entirely from neutral beams en route to p–B11.

EVERETT, WA — June 3, 2026 · 1 min read

Science

Aneutronic Ambitions: Is Proton-Boron-11 Viable Before 2040?

Editorial Board: p-11B is the holy grail, but the Lawson product deficit makes it a late-2030s target, not a 2030 grid solution.

EDITORIAL — September 18, 2025 · 3 min read

Overcoming plasma instabilities via sheared-flow stabilized Z-pinches

Zap Energy's FuZE-3 hits 830 MPa electron pressure with a novel third electrode, putting the sheared-flow Z-pinch on a path to scientific gain.

EVERETT, WA — June 3, 2026 · 1 min read

Science

Yield scaling and wall-plug efficiency in inertial confinement fusion

NIF posts an 8.6 MJ shot at gain >4, but commercial ICF hinges on diode-pumped lasers reaching 10–18% wall-plug efficiency.

LIVERMORE, CA — June 3, 2026 · 1 min read

Science

The physics of pulsed magnetic inertial fusion

Pacific Fusion is building a 10 MJ demonstration facility in Albuquerque targeting net facility gain by 2030.

ALBUQUERQUE, NM — June 3, 2026 · 1 min read

Science

Advancing fusion-fission hybrid reactor architectures

China tenders environmental assessment for the 20 billion yuan Xinghuo HTS hybrid facility in Nanchang.

NANCHANG, CHINA — June 3, 2026 · 1 min read

Science

State-directed heavy infrastructure — China's BEST and CFETR tokamaks

EAST hits 1,066 seconds of H-mode as construction begins on the Burning Plasma Experimental Superconducting Tokamak.

HEFEI, CHINA — June 3, 2026 · 1 min read

Science

Quasi-isodynamic stellarators: the path to 'Stellaris'

Proxima Fusion signs agreement with RWE and Bavaria to site Stellaris at the decommissioned Gundremmingen nuclear fission site.

GARCHING, GERMANY — June 3, 2026 · 1 min read

Science

Scaling magnetized target fusion (MTF) with liquid metal liners

General Fusion's Lawson Machine 26 is the world's first MTF demonstration machine built at 50 percent of commercial-scale diameter.

VANCOUVER, BC — June 3, 2026 · 1 min read

Science

The Tritium Illusion: why D-T fusion is a dead end for baseload

Editorial Board: 14.1 MeV neutrons destroy the machine designed to contain them. The path to grid-scale fusion is aneutronic.

EDITORIAL — August 14, 2025 · 3 min read

Science

Spherical Tokamaks: physics triumphs vs engineering nightmares

Editorial Board: high-beta compact STs are the most viable path to commercial power density — if the center column survives.

EDITORIAL — October 22, 2025 · 3 min read

Science

The Helium-3 Bottleneck: Lunar Mining Hype vs. In-Situ Plasma Breeding

Editorial Board: extraterrestrial mining is an economic fantasy. The only viable D-3He path is in-situ plasma breeding.

EDITORIAL — October 6, 2025 · 2 min read

Science

Parasitic D-D Reactions in D-³He Plasmas: Managing the 5% Neutron Leakage

Editorial Board: D-3He is not perfectly clean. Suppressing parasitic D-D branching is an exercise in ruthless plasma confinement.

EDITORIAL — October 29, 2025 · 2 min read

Science

Princeton PPPL demonstrates ML-based disruption prediction at 95% accuracy

Convolutional network trained on DIII-D and JET data predicts plasma disruptions 50 ms in advance.

PRINCETON, NJ — May 28, 2026 · 1 min read

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Citations & Sources

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[01]
Fusion Industry Association — Annual Report
FIA · 2025
[02]
DOE Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program
U.S. Department of Energy