To bypass the severe neutron degradation associated with the standard Deuterium-Tritium (D-T) fuel cycle, several commercial entities are pursuing advanced, aneutronic fuels coupled with Direct Energy Conversion (DEC).

Helion Energy's Polaris device aims to utilize Deuterium-Helium-3 (D-He3) fuel, extracting electricity directly from the fusion reaction through magnetic induction rather than relying on a traditional thermal steam cycle. The architecture, if validated, would eliminate the balance-of-plant complexity that dominates the cost stack of conventional fusion designs.

The architecture, if validated, would eliminate the balance-of-plant complexity that dominates the cost stack of conventional fusion designs.

TAE Technologies is optimizing its Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC) architecture to burn hydrogen-boron (p-B11) fuel. TAE recently achieved a breakthrough by forming an FRC plasma using entirely Neutral Beam Injection (NBI), eliminating legacy theta-pinch formation hardware and significantly reducing reactor complexity for its forthcoming Copernicus device.