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Cat Clifford, CNBC climate tech and innovation reporter, at Helion Energy on October 20.

Photo taken by Jessie Barton, communications for Helion Energy, with Cat Clifford’s camera.

On Thursday, October 20, I took a reporting trip to Everett, Wash., to visit Helion Energy, a fusion startup that has raised raised nearly $600 million from a slew of relatively well known Silicon Valley investors, including Peter Thiel and Sam Altman. It’s got another $1.7 billion in commitments if it hits certain performance targets.

Because nuclear fusion has the potential to make limitless quantities of clean energy without generating any long-lasting nuclear waste, it’s often called the “holy grail” of clean energy. The holy grail remains elusive, however, because recreating fusion on earth in a way that generates more energy that is required to ignite the reaction and can be sustained for an extended period of time has so far remained unattainable. If we could only manage to commercialize fusion here on earth and at scale, all our energy woes would be solved, fusion proponents say. 

Fusion has also been on the horizon for decades, just out of reach, seemingly firmly entrenched in a techno-utopia that exists only in science fiction fantasy novels.

David Kirtley (left), a co-founder and the CEO at Helion, and Chris Pihl, a co-founder and the chief technology officer at Helion.

Photo courtesy Cat Clifford, CNBC.

But visiting Helion Energy’s enormous workspace and lab pulled the idea of fusion out of the completely fantastical and into the potentially real for me. Of course, “potentially real” doesn’t mean that fusion will be a commercially viable energy source powering your home and my computer next year. But it no longer feels like flying a spaceship to Pluto.

As I walked through the massive Helion Energy buildings in Everett, one fully operational and one still under construction, I was struck by how workaday everything looked. Construction equipment, machinery, power cords, workbenches, and countless spaceship-looking component parts are everywhere. Plans are being executed. Wildly foreign-looking machines are being constructed and tested.

The Helion Energy building under construction to house their next generation fusion machine. The smokey atmosphere is visible.

Photo courtesy Cat Clifford, CNBC.

For the employees of Helion Energy, building a fusion device is their job. Going to the office every day means putting part A into Part B and into part C, fiddling with those parts, testing them, and then putting them with more parts, testing those, taking those parts apart maybe when something doesn’t work right, and then putting it back together again until it does. And then moving to Part D and Part E.

The date of my visit is relevant to this story, too, because it added a second layer of strange-becomes-real to my reporting trip. 

On October 20, the Seattle Everett region was blanketed in dangerous levels of wildfire smoke. The air quality index for Everett was 254, making it the worst air quality in the world at that time, according to IQAir.

Helion Energy’s building under construction to house the seventh generation fusion machine on a day when wildfire smoke was not restricting visibility.

Photo courtesy Helion Energy

“Several wildfires burning in the north Cascades were fueled by warm, dry, and windy weather conditions. Easterly winds flared the fires as well as drove the resulting smoke westwards towards Everett and the Seattle region,” Christi Chester Schroeder, the Air Quality Science Manager at IQAir North America, told me.

Global warming is helping to fuel those fires, Denise L. Mauzerall, a professor of environmental engineering and international affairs at Princeton, told me.

“Climate change has contributed to the high temperatures and dry conditions that have prevailed in the Pacific Northwest this year,” Mauzerall said. “These weather conditions, exacerbated by climate change, have increased the likelihood and severity of the fires which are responsible for the extremely poor air quality.”

It was so bad that Helion had told all of its employees to stay home for the first time ever. Management deemed it too dangerous to ask them to leave their houses.

The circumstances of my visit set up an uncomfortable battle. On the one hand, I had a newfound sense of hope about the possibility of fusion energy. At same time, I was wrestling internally with a deep sense of dread about the state of the world.

I wasn’t alone in feeling the weight of the moment. “It is very unusual,” Chris Pihl, a co-founder and the chief technology officer at Helion, said about the smoke.

Pihl has worked on fusion for nearly two decades now. He’s seen it evolve from the realm of physicist academics to a field followed closely by reporters and collecting billions in investments. People working on fusion have become the cool kids, the underdog heroes. As we collectively blow past any realistic hope of staying within the targeted 1.5 degrees of warming and as global energy demand continues to rise, fusion is the home run that sometimes feels like the only solution.

“It’s less of a academic pursuit, an  altruistic pursuit, and it’s turning into more of a survival game at this point I think, with the way things are going,” Pihl told me, as we sat in the empty Helion offices looking out at a wall of gray smoke. “So it’s necessary. And I am glad it is getting attention.”

How Helion’s technology works

CEO and co-founder David Kirtley walked me around the vast lab space where Helion is working on constructing components for its seventh-generation system, Polaris. Each generation has proven out some combination of the physics and engineering that is needed to bring Helion’s specific approach to fusion to fruition. The sixth-generation prototype, Trenta, was completed in 2020 and proved able to reach 100 million degrees Celsius, a key milestone for proving out Helion’s approach.

Polaris is meant to prove, among other things, that it can achieve net electricity — that is, to generate more than it consumes — and it’s already begun designing its eighth generation system, which will be its first commercial grade system. The goal is to demonstrate Helion can make electricity from fusion by 2024 and to have power on the grid by the end of the decade, Kirtley told me.

Cat Clifford, CNBC climate tech and innovation reporter, at Helion Energy on October 20. Polaris, Helion’s seventh prototype, will be housed here.

Photo taken by Jessie Barton, communications for Helion Energy, with Cat Clifford’s camera.

Some of the feasibility of getting fusion energy to the electricity grid in the United States depends on factors Helion can’t control — establishing regulatory processes with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and licensing processes to get required grid interconnect approvals, a process which Kirtley has been told can range from a few years to as much as ten years. Because there are so many regulatory hurdles necessary to get fusion hooked into the grid, Kirtley said he expects their first paying customers are likely to be private customers, like technology companies that have power hungry data centers, for example. Working with utility companies will take longer.

One part of the Polaris system that looks perhaps the most otherworldly for a non fusion expert (like me) the Polaris Injector Test, which is how the fuel for the fusion reactor will get into the device.

Arguably the best-known fusion method involves a tokamak, a donut-shaped device that uses super powerful magnets to hold the plasma where the fusion reaction can occur. An international collaborative fusion project, called ITER (“the way” in Latin), is building a massive tokamak in Southern France to prove the viability of fusion.

Helion is not building a tokamak. It is building a long narrow device called a Field Reversed Configuration, or FRC, and the next version will be about 60 feet long.

The fuel is injected in short tiny bursts at both ends of the device and an electric current flowing in a loop confines the plasma. The magnets fire sequentially in pulses, sending the plasmas at both ends shooting towards each other at a velocity greater than one million miles per hour. The plasmas smash into each other in the central fusion chamber where they merge to become a superhot dense plasma that reaches 100 million degrees Celsius. This is where fusion occurs, generating new energy. The magnetic coils that facilitate the plasma compression also recover the energy that is generated. Some of that energy is recycled and used to recharge the capacitors that originally powered the reaction. The additional extra energy is electricity that can be used.  

This is the Polaris Injector Test, where Helion Energy is building a component piece of the seventh generation fusion machine. There will be one of these on each side of the fusion device and this is where the fuel will get into the machine.

Photo courtesy Cat Clifford, CNBC.

Kirtley compares the pulsing of their fusion machine to a piston.

“You compress your fuel, it burns very hot and very intensely, but only for a little bit. And the amount of heat released in that little pulse is more than a large bonfire that’s on all the time,” he told me. “And because it’s a pulse, because it’s just one little high intensity pulse, you can make those engines much more compact, much smaller,” which is important for keeping costs down.

The idea is actually not new. It was theorized in the 1950s and 60s, Kirtley said. But it was not possible to execute until modern transistors and semiconductors were developed. Both Pihl and Kirtley looked at fusion earlier in their careers and weren’t convinced it was economically viable until they came to this FRC design. 

Another moat to cross: This design does use a fuel that is very rare. The fuel for Helion’s approach is deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen that is fairly easy to find, and helium three, which is a very rare type of helium with one extra neutron.

“We used to have to say that you had to go into outer space to get helium three because it was so rare,” Kritley said. To enable their fusion machine to be scaled up, Helion is also developing a way to make helium three with fusion.

A dose of hope

There is no question that Helion has a lot of steps and processes and regulatory hurdles before it can bring unlimited clean energy to the world, as it aims to do. But the way it feels to walk around an enormous wide-open lab facility — with some of the largest ceiling fans I have ever seen — it seems possible in a way that I hadn’t ever felt before. Walking back out into the smoke that day, I was so grateful to have that dose of hope.

But most people were not touring the Helion Energy lab on that day. Most people were sitting stuck inside, or putting themselves at risk outside, unable to see the horizon, unable to see a future where building a fusion machine is a job that is being executed like a mechanic working in a garage. I asked Kirtley about the battling feeling I had of despair at the smoke and hope at the fusion parts being assembled.

“The cognitive dissonance of sometimes what we see out in the world, and what we get to build here is pretty extreme,” Kirtley said.

“Twenty years ago, we were less optimistic about fusion.” But now, his eyes glow as he walks me around the lab. “I get very excited. I get very — you can tell — I get very energized.”

Other young scientists are also excited about fusion too. At the beginning of the week when I visited, Kirtley was at the American Physics Society Department of Plasma Physics conference giving a talk.

“At the end of my talk, I walked out and there were 30 or 40 people that came with me, and in the hallway, we just talked for an hour and a half about the industry,” he said. “The excitement was huge. And a lot of it was with younger engineers and scientists that are either grad students or postdocs, or in the first 10 years of their career, that are really excited about what private industry is doing.”

The race is on to replicate the power of the sun with fusion energy

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Honda’s new S7 electric SUV is surprisingly stylish and affordable, but you can’t have it

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March 6, 2025

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Honda's new S7 electric SUV is surprisingly stylish and affordable, but you can't have it

Honda-S7-electric-SUV

Honda officially launched its new electric SUV, the S7, in China. As its first high-end electric SUV, Honda says the S7 will set new benchmarks with over 400 miles (650 km) of driving range, first-class comfort, and a stylish new design. The S7 will compete with the Tesla Model Y and other premium electric SUVs in China, starting at about $36,000.

Meet the Honda S7 electric SUV

Honda’s joint venture in China, Dongfeng-Honda claimed “the surge is about to break out” after teasing the S7’s new styling last month. On Thursday, the company officially launched its new electric SUV.

The S7 will be key to Honda’s comeback in the world’s largest EV market. Honda’s new electric SUV is now available starting at 259,900 yuan (about $36,000).

In terms of size, at 4,750 mm long, 1,930 mm wide, and 1,625 mm tall, the S7 is about the same size as the Tesla Model Y (4,797 mm long, 1,920 mm wide, 1,624 mm tall).

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Honda designed the SUV from the ground up for buyers in China, claiming it offers better driving, more fun, and more style. The electric SUV wears Honda’s new “H Mark,” exclusive for its next-gen EV lineup. Other design elements include a light-up H logo up front, a foot-sensing electric tailgate, and retractable door handles.

Honda-S7-electric-SUV
Honda S7 electric SUV (Source: Dongfeng-Honda)

Inside, the S7 is Honda’s first with a dimming panoramic sunroof. With a 2,930 mm wheelbase, it has a spacious interior with up to 860 mm of second-row legroom.

Several premium features include a 3-spoke multi-function leather steering wheel, streaming media rearview mirror, a fragrance system, and BOSE sound system.

Honda-S7-electric-SUV-interior
Honda-S7-electric-SUV-interior

Loaded with the latest software and connectivity tech, the S7 has “Honda’s most powerful smart cockpit” with split 12.8″ and 10.25″ smart infotainment screen and 9.9″ instrument display.

Honda Connect 4.0 provides an AI Voice Assistant, multi-screen linking, and continuous improvement with AI. Meanwhile, Honda Sensing 360+ includes ADAS features like active cruise control, pre-collision warning, lane keeping assist, parking assist, and a 360-degree panoramic imaging system.

It’s available in both single-motor (RWD) and dual-motor (AWD) options. The RWD variant includes a 268 hp (200 kW) electric motor and an 89.8 kWh NMC battery pack, good for a 650 km (404 miles) CLTC range.

With an added front motor, the AWD S7 packs up to 469 hp (350 kW) and is rated with 620 km (385 miles) CLTC driving range.

In comparison, the new Tesla Model Y RWD first edition starts at 263,500 yuan ($36,200), with a CLTC range of up to 593 km (368 miles). The Long-Range AWD model, with a CLTC range of up to 719 km (447 miles), starts at 303,500 yuan ($42,000).

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Segway’s new flagship Ninebot MAX G3 opens for preorder at $500 off, Jackery Spring Sale takes 50% off units, Samsung, more

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March 6, 2025

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Segway's new flagship Ninebot MAX G3 opens for preorder at 0 off, Jackery Spring Sale takes 50% off units, Samsung, more

Leading today’s Green Deals is the $500 off pre-sale promotion on Segway’s new Ninebot MAX G3 eKickScooter that comes with a bunch of upgraded features like Apple Find My, autonomous locking/unlocking, and more – all at $900 through March 24. We also have Jackery’s Spring Sale in full swing with 50% off discounts on its power stations and solar generators (and bonus savings), one of which is the Explorer 3000 Pro Portable Power Station bundled with two 200W solar panels at a new $1,994 low. Lastly, we have Samsung’s Bespoke AI Laundry Combo All-in-One Washer and Ventless Heat Pump Dryer coming with a bunch of additional savings at $2,199. Plus, all the other hangover Green Deals are in the links at the bottom of the page, like yesterday’s Anker SOLIX weekend flash sale offers, the Lectric XPedition 1.0 and XPeak 1.0 price cuts, and more.

Head below for other New Green Deals we’ve found today and, of course, Electrek’s best EV buying and leasing deals. Also, check out the new Electrek Tesla Shop for the best deals on Tesla accessories.

Segway’s new flagship Ninebot MAX G3 eKickScooter opens for preorder at $900

Segway has launched its pre-sale promotion on its new Ninebot MAX G3 eKickScooter at $899.99 shipped through March 24. Carrying a normal price tag of $1,400, this is the very first chance to grab some cash savings on this all-new model before it officially releases on March 25. You’ll be getting a 36% markdown while this promotion continues, saving you $500 off the going rate and setting the bar for future discounts down the road. Head below to learn more about this new e-scooter and its features.

Segway’s Ninebot Max G3 e-scooter arrives as the latest version of its flagship eKickScooter lineup, sporting an 800W motor that peaks at 2,000W to provide increased top speeds of 28 MPH while also tackling up to 30% inclines. With its Boost Mode activated, you’ll even have acceleration up to 15.5 MPH in just 2.4 seconds. The 597Wh battery delivers a travel range up to 50 miles on a single 3.5-hour charge, courtesy of its built-in fast charger, with the timeframe dropped to 2.5 hours after connecting a DC charger cable simultaneously.

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There’s a bunch of upgraded features on Segway’s Ninebot MAX G3, like the Stability Enhancement System for improved handling, disturbance resistance and slip resistance – even at high speeds. There’s also the inclusion of Apple Find My through its companion app to detect and find your scooter whenever needed, as well as extra security in the form of autonomous locking and unlocking via Bluetooth, with the distance it does so being adjustable to your preferences. You’ll also find it coming with dual suspension, 11-inch self-sealing tires, an automatic 6W headlight, an underglow lighting system, and a 2.4-inch smart TFT display that offers the usual at-a-glance riding data alongside navigation, caller ID and smart charge management.

You can also browse through Segway’s current sale offers while the savings are still around, which has the Apple Find My-capable Ninebot E2 Pro eKickScooter down at $500, among others.

Jackery Spring Sale power stations

Jackery Spring Sale drops Explorer 3000 Pro solar generator with two 200W panels to new $1,994 low

We’re almost out of winter, which means Jackery has launched a Spring Sale through March 12 with up to 50% taken off a selection of power stations, solar generator bundles, and accessories – plus, there’s even an extra 5% in savings too. One notable inclusion that is hitting the best rate we’ve seen to date, is the Explorer 3000 Pro Portable Power Station that comes bundled with two 200W solar panels for $1,994.05 shipped, after using the promo code EXTRA5 at checkout. This package would normally cost $3,999, with discounts usually keeping things between $2,199 and $2,799, though we’re seeing it start at $2,099 here, which gets all the better with the extra savings. Having gone as low as $1,999 during Black Friday, today’s deal pushes that rate aside while saving you $2,005 – landing things at a new all-time low and beating out Amazon’s current pricing by a huge margin.

A great option for folks who want one of the more versatile (and larger) power stations for camping, home backup, and RV support, Jackery’s Explorer 3000 Pro provides a solid 3,024Wh capacity for starters. It can dish out plenty of juice for your devices and appliances, with its output reaching 3,000W normally while surging upwards to 6,000W. Among its 10 port options, you’ll find an RV-dedicated TT30 port, making this one of the brand’s best models for motor home living. Recharging its own battery takes just 2.4 hours when plugged into a standard outlet, or you can hook up its full 1,200W of solar input to hit 100% in three to four hours (time increased for the included 400W input here). There’s also the third option of connecting it to your car, which will get it back to full in about 35 hours.

***Note: The extra 5% off coupon has not been factored into the prices below – be sure to use the code EXTRA5 at checkout for the maximum savings!

Deals for your home backup needs:

Deals for your garden & DIY work:

Deals for your short travel needs:

Accessory deals:

You can browse the entire lineup of Jackery’s Spring Sale on the landing page here through March 12.

Samsung Bespoke AI Laundry Combo washer and dryer

Samsung’s Bespoke all-in-one AI Laundry Combo with bonus $100 credit is down at $2,199 ($3,622 value)

As part of the Discover Samsung sale that is running through March 9, you can score the brand’s Bespoke AI Laundry Combo All-in-One 5.3 cubic-foot Washer and Ventless Heat Pump Dryer at $2,199 shipped, with bonus savings (more below). This 2-in-1 unit normally fetches $3,324 at full price, which we’ve seen go as low as $1,899 direct from Samsung during Black Friday and $1,700 from Best Buy (though this rate hasn’t reappeared since). You’re looking at the fourth-lowest price overall and the third-lowest we’ve tracked direct from the brand, also coming along with a $100 credit for future purchases during this sale. You can also save a bit more by going with the open-box option in excellent condition on the same page for $1,759. While Best Buy is currently offering it at a $1 higher price, those of you with a Total Membership will also be benefitting from an additional $100 discount when purchasing from the outlet.

Before I go into the washer/dryer itself, I wanted to just point out some of the other bonus savings options. First off, there is the usual free installation (normally $25) alongside the three-year Samsung Care+ plan for just $1 (normally $199). Second, you can get up to $500 off in instant credits by trading in a phone or tablet. Lastly, you can exclusive savings if you are a teacher, first responder, government official, or part of the military (check drop-down menu on the page.

Samsung’s Bespoke AI Laundry Combo comes ENERGY STAR-certified with AI supporting you through settings management and also increasing its energy efficiency by identifying and adjusting settings based on the different fabrics you place inside and how soiled they are. The AI also pairs with the dual-inverter heat pump, calculating and estimating your electricity costs to “reduce energy usage by up to 19%.” There’s also the ventless design, which allows you to place it virtually anywhere, no longer needing to be next to a dedicate exhaust vent.

The detergent tank here sports a much larger capacity, holding up to 47 loads worth of detergent so you don’t have to regularly worry about filling and refilling in between laundry loads – plus, it also has a Flex One compartment that takes that convenience to the next level as it can be split between 25 loads of detergent and 34 loads of softener. It’s also been given self-cleaning and self-drying tech to keep laundry coming out fresh, smart controls via the SmartThings app (as well as hands-free voice controls), the EPA’s seal of approval, and much more.

You can check out all that the Discover Samsung sale is offering – including daily deals – on the main landing page here.

Best New Year EV deals!

Best new Green Deals landing this week

The savings this week are also continuing to a collection of other markdowns. To the same tune as the offers above, these all help you take a more energy-conscious approach to your routine. Winter means you can lock in even better off-season price cuts on electric tools for the lawn while saving on EVs and tons of other gear.

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U.S. will collapse Iran’s economy by shutting down its oil industry, Treasury secretary says

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March 6, 2025

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U.S. will collapse Iran's economy by shutting down its oil industry, Treasury secretary says

US Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent addresses the Economic Club of New York on March 6, 2025. 

Charly Triballeau | Afp | Getty Images

President Donald Trump‘s sanctions against Iran are designed to shut down the country’s oil industry and “collapse its already buckling economy,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday.

The U.S. is deploying sanctions against Iran aggressively for “immediate maximum impact,” Bessent told the Economic Club of New York. Trump’s goal is to slash Iran’s oil exports of 1.5 million barrels per day to a trickle, the Treasury secretary said.

“We are going to shut down Iran’s oil sector and drone manufacturing capabilities,” Bessent said. The administration also intends to cut off Tehran’s access to the international financial system, he said.

Prices for U.S. crude oil and the global benchmark Brent turned positive after Bessent’s comments. West Texas Intermediate rose 5 cents to close at $66.37 per barrel by while Brent gained 16 cents to settle at $69.46.

“Making Iran broke again will mark the beginning of our updated sanctions policy,” the Treasury secretary, a former global investment manager, said. “If I were an Iranian, I would get all my money out of the rial now,” he said, referring to Iran’s currency.

CNBC has reached out to Iran’s UN Mission for comment.

Trump reimposed his pressure campaign on Iran through a presidential memorandum on Feb. 4. Two days later, the Treasury Department started imposing sanctions on an international network shipping Iranian oil to China.

Oil prices fell to multiyear lows on Wednesday as Trump’s tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China raised fears among investors that economic growth will slow and crude demand will falter. OPEC+ also confirmed this week that it will gradually bring 2.2 million barrels per day back to the market starting in April.

The oil market right now sees a drop in Iranian supply as the only bullish catalyst for prices, JPMorgan analysts led by Natasha Kaneva told clients in a Thursday note.

Trump, after launching his maximum pressure campaign, has said he wants to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran. The president said he hoped maximum pressure is “not going to have to be used in any great measure at all.”

“I would much prefer a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement, which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper,” Trump said in a social media post on Feb. 5. In 2018, the president withdrew the U.S. from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal negotiated by former President Barack Obama.

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