User:AlexKjhu/sandbox

NOTES:

My wikipedia assignment focuses on the wikipedia pages of three nuclear fusion startups: Helion Energy, Tri Alpha Energy, and General Fusion. Specifically for this course, I will be looking to improve the information on the connections between these companies and their private backers (the commercial end) to academic or government funded research institutions. Each of their wikipedia pages has room for improvement, and below I list what I intend to improve on their pages:

Helion Energy:

1. More information needed on the key members of the organization, and their connections (if any) to Academia.
2. More information on private backers and connection to academia.
3. Additional information on technology and the source of the research responsible for it.

https://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/early_stage_innovation/niac/2012_phaseII_fellows_slough.html

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0029-5515/51/5/053008/meta

Tri Alpha Energy:

1. This company has much more connection with academia, as they have published many articles in academic journals. Much more information can be revealed about the individuals involved and their various relationships.
2. More information is needed on the key players in the company and their relationships with research institutions.
3. The "criticism" section of this article needs to be updated.

https://www.physics.uci.edu/people/toshiki-tajima

This wikipedia page is already sourced with plentiful articles about the key people involved, the page itself just needs to be updated to reflect all the information.

General Fusion:

1. There are several research collaborations that this company has done that are linked to on their wikipedia page. More information is needed on the people involved.
2. While the founders are known, their relationships with academic or other research institutions need to be expanded on.

http://generalfusion.com/2014/07/general-fusion-forms-research-partnership-with-mcgill-university/

http://www.pppl.gov/events/colloquium-magnetized-target-fusion-work-general-fusion

These companies are all secretive in various ways; for example, Tri Alpha did not even announce its existence until 2015. For this reason, there may not be publicly available quality information on some of these points.

HELION ENERGY ORIGINAL:

Organization (to be discarded):

Helion Energy is a spin-off of Redmond company MSNW LLC that develops space propulsion and fusion energy related technologies. The CEO is David Kirtley, Chief Science Officer is John Slough and CTO is Chris Pihl. The primary fusion technology was developed by Slough, also a research professor at the University of Washington, with additional technologies generated by Pihl and Kirtley.

The management team won the 2013 National Cleantech Open Energy Generation competition and awards at the 2014 ARPA-E Future Energy Startup competition.

NEW:

Helion Energy is a spin-off of Redmond company MSNW LLC that develops space propulsion technologies based on nuclear and plasma physics, including fusion energy. MSNW also conducts research and commercialization for NASA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy. The management team won the 2013 National Cleantech Open Energy Generation competition and awards at the 2014 ARPA-E Future Energy Startup competition.

The CEO of Helion Energy is Dr. David Kirtley, who used to lead the propulsion research and development at MSNW. He is a former NSF, NASA, and DOD fellow with experience in nuclear engineering, fusion, and aerospace, having raised $5 million in government funding.

Dr. John Slough is the Chief Science Officer at Helion Energy and is the founder and director of research at MSNW. He over three decades of experience conducting research into fusion and plasma physics. At MSNW, he was trying to create a fusion-powered rocket. In order to do so, he invented a nuclear fusion reactor that is orders of magnitude smaller than traditional nuclear fusion reactors, called the Fusion Engine. He decided to shift his focus from rockets to energy production, but the Fusion Engine remains the core technology behind Helion Energy. He has also raised more than $15 million in government grants throughout his career. Lastly, he has been a Research Professor in the Astronautics and Aeronautics Department at the University of Washington for the past 25 years, where he founded the Redmond Plasma Physics Laboratory (RPPL).

Chris Pihl is the Chief Technology Officer at Helion Energy. He is also a former employee at MSNW, where he was a project manager, and also has a long history at University of Washington, where he worked on pulse power system designs under Dr. John Slough’s Plasma Physics Laboratory. He went on to found private company Pulse Power Solutions. He added to the Helion Energy core technology by designing the validation devices.

Dr. George Votroubek is a Principal Scientist at Helion Energy. He is also a former employee at MSNW and has a history of plasma physics research at the University of Washington, where he got his Ph.D and worked under Slough’s Plasma Physics Laboratory.

TRI ALPHA ENERGY:

Organization:

As of 2014, TAE is said to have more than 150 employees and raised over $150 million,^[22] far more than any other private fusion power research company or the vast majority of federally-funded government laboratory and university fusion programs.^[23] Main financing has come from Goldman Sachs and venture capitalists such as Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Vulcan Inc., Rockefeller's Venrock, Richard Kramlich's New Enterprise Associates, the Government of Russia, through the joint-stock company Rusnano, invested in Tri Alpha Energy in October 2012, and Anatoly Chubais, Rusnano CEO, became a board member.^{[7][10][24][25][26]}

The management team at TAE includes several people that have contributed to the underlying technology of the company: Dr. Steven Specker, Dr. Michl Binderbauer, Dr. Artem Smirnov, and Dr. Toshiki Tajima.

Dr. Steven Specker is the CEO of TAE since October 2016. Prior to his involvement with TAE, he spent 30 years at General Electric, where he was the President of the Nuclear Department. After his time at GE, he worked as the CEO of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).

Dr. Michl Binderbauer is the President and CTO of TAE and has spent two decades inventing and evolving the various technologies used at TAE, in various fields such as reactor physics, isotope production, and chemical processing. He has more than 40 issued and pending U.S. patents. He also authored or co-authored peer-reviewed publications in fields relevant to nuclear fusion.

Dr. Artem Smirnov is the Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at TAE. Since 2006, he has led the development of ion diagnostics, plasma stabilization, and neutral beams. He also holds several patents and has co-authored many peer-reviewed publications. He is now responsible for TAE’s strategic partnerships.

Dr. Toshiki Tajima is the Chief Science Officer at TAE and has many years of research in various fields within nuclear engineering. Most notably, in 1979, Dr. Tajima and Dr. John M. Dawson of UCLA invented laser wakefield acceleration, or more commonly, plasma acceleration, a major breakthrough in the field of nuclear fusion. He has numerous research and academic relationships. He currently holds the Rostoker Chair in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. He has also served as a Professor in physics at the University of Texas at Austin, as Director-General of the Kansai Photon Science Institute of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, and as Chair Professor at Ludwig Maximilian University. He also has collaborations with other research organizations including the International Committee for Ultrahigh Intensity Lasers (ICUIL), the Extreme Light Infrastructure-Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) International Science Advisory Board, and the International Center for Zetta- and Exawatt Science and Technology (IZEST).