Breeder (Hyperion) Readiness Gates

The specific gates the breeder must pass, from simulated plasma to a fleet that breeds net tritium.

From a design point to a fuel factory

The breeder (Hyperion) is a D-T spherical tokamak whose public design point is a simulated Q_sci of 3.076 at 85.0 MW of fusion power, 9.66 MA of plasma current, a 16.84 T peak field, and negative triangularity of delta -0.30. Its role is to make isotopes and neutrons — roughly a 4 kg/yr tritium class output plus about 1.97 kg/yr of helium-3 and 14 MeV neutrons — not to sell electricity. Each of those outputs sits behind a gate.

The breeding question is the crux

A breeder that cannot close its own tritium balance is not a breeder. That is why TBR is treated as a lever: 1.1 leaves little margin for losses and decay, 1.5 is a working target, and 1.8 is an aspirational upper case whose feasibility in a ported, structured machine is unproven. The local-versus-net reconciliation — breeding computed in an idealized cell versus the whole-machine balance — is an explicitly open gate.

Timeline

Construction begins Q2 2027; FOAK first tritium is targeted for approximately 2030, followed by NOAK and BOAK units. No net-gain hardware claim is made before FOAK operates.