NearStar Fusion Tour a Smashing Success!

On December 8th, eleven members of AIChE NCS enjoyed a tour of the facilities of NearStar Fusion and their co-located sister company, HyperJet Fusion, twin startups pursuing nuclear fusion energy from a humble industrial park in Chantilly, Virginia. Leading the tour was Amit Singh, an electrical engineer now serving as NearStar’s friendly and charismatic CEO. Amit gave us a beautifully illustrated overview of nuclear fusion; the challenges of sustaining a fusion reaction on Earth; the various approaches, recent advances, and other players in the field; as well as NearStar’s own concept.

Amit then took us on a walkthrough of the facility, with help from two of the team’s plasma physicists, Doug Witherspoon and Andrew Case. Doug showed us the various iterations that their plasma guns have gone through (including the prototype built in his basement!) and discussed the fuel options available and their pros and cons. Andrew showed us his work on NearStar’s imploding liner technology used to compress the fuel target even more, giving us a very dramatic demonstration involving a Coca-Cola can. Amit then discussed how one of the biggest challenges in fusion research is the diagnostics, since the magneto-hydrodynamic models available today are simply not yet adequate. He showed us their “sysadmin’s nightmare,” a constantly evolving patchwork of cables, oscilloscopes, and other instruments used to collect and download experimental data for the next refinement to the models.

Other highlights including seeing giant capacitors acquired as surplus from the “Star Wars” Strategic

Defense Initiative, now destined for NearStar’s plasma railgun; getting souvenir cans of “deuterium fuel” (regular drinking water); and, of course, NearStar Fusion stickers for all. Thanks to everyone who joined us on the visit! For those who couldn’t, please look NearStar Fusion up: they have lots of great information and papers on their website, they have a lively social media presence, and they’ve even gotten some coverage in the popular press lately.