Fusion Fuel and Abundance

Fusion draws on some of the most abundant materials available; abundance reduces the geopolitical and extractive pressure of fuel supply.

Where the fuel comes from

The breeder (Hyperion) runs on deuterium and tritium. Deuterium is a stable hydrogen isotope present in ordinary water; tritium is bred in-machine from lithium. The breeder is designed to make its own tritium, with a tritium breeding ratio studied as a design lever across values of 1.1, 1.5, and 1.8. The burner (Aegis / MetroVolt) runs on deuterium and helium-3.

Why abundance is an environmental property

Scarce fuels drive extraction into ever more marginal and damaging deposits, and concentrate supply in few hands. Abundant fuels relieve both pressures. Deuterium is effectively inexhaustible on human timescales, and lithium, while finite, is widely distributed. This does not make the fuel cycle impact-free, but it changes its character.

Helium-3 for the burner is genuinely scarce on Earth. We are candid that a large burner fleet would depend on a helium-3 supply that does not yet exist at scale. That is a real gate on the burner path, discussed in helium-3 and the planet, not something we paper over.

Abundance also changes the politics of energy. Fuels concentrated in a few deposits invite competition and coercion over their supply; fuels drawn from ordinary water and widely distributed lithium are harder to weaponize. That is an environmental benefit in the broad sense, because conflict over resources is itself a driver of ecological harm.

See the tritium cycle and the planet for how breeding closes the fuel loop.