A Seattle Start-Up's Big Step Toward Fusion Energy
The company, General Fusion, plans to use an emerging technology known as magnetized target fusion to create the world’s first commercial fusion reactor within two decades.
#1) Fusion energy is the holy grail of renewable sources
abundant, clean and virtually limitless. The science is complicated, but its premise is simple: Use hot plasma to drive turbines and generate electricity. If it’s cheap enough—and that’s a big if—it could be a revolutionary way to power our lives.
#2) The need for fusion power
With fossil fuels dwindling and climate change looming, alternative energy sources are needed to meet human needs without causing irreparable damage to our environment. Research teams around the world have been working for decades on fusion power, which could potentially provide infinite clean energy—but progress has been slow.
#3) How it could get us off fossil fuels
A fusion reactor would generate energy from two forms of hydrogen -- deuterium and tritium -- that are found in sea water. The company says that its technology will use a combination of high-energy lasers and magnetic fields to ignite a small amount of fusion fuel, which releases more energy than it takes to start it. This would be an improvement over existing reactors, which use more energy than they generate to run, said Leslie Dewan, co-founder and chief executive officer of Commonwealth Fusion Systems.
#4) Why are scientists in Washington excited?
The fact that we are now making fusion in a very small device, but still producing neutrons in large numbers, is very significant, said Maria Cantwell, a Democratic senator from Washington state. Neutrons are what we ultimately want to measure because they are a direct signature of energy being produced through fusion. We're talking about a new era of clean, carbon-free energy production.
#5) Where does this start-up fit in?
ITER is a giant tokamak (donut-shaped) machine that’s currently being built in France. (The machine’s name is short for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. It will create a plasma with 400 million degrees, contained by intense magnetic fields.
#6) Who is behind this start-up?
TAE Technologies is a small, relatively unknown company based in Bellevue, Washington. It was founded in 2010 by Paul Allen and his chief technology officer Dr. Ronald L. Skip Strickland, a former Microsoft executive who left to pursue private projects.
#7) What does their announcement mean?
The announcement that Tri Alpha Energy, a start-up company in Fife, Wash., claims to have taken a big step toward harnessing fusion energy—the Holy Grail of clean energy. Its technology relies on high-powered magnets and superconductors (materials that conduct electricity without resistance) to contain hydrogen plasma at temperatures of millions of degrees, but only for billionths of seconds. The fuel is deuterium and tritium, naturally occurring isotopes that are found in seawater.