TAE Technologies exceeds fusion reactor performance goals by 250% as company closes $250M round; $1.2B to date
22 July 2022
After achieving temperatures greater than 75 million degrees Celsius and demonstrating unmatched real-time control of plasma with its fifth-generation fusion research reactor, Norman, TAE Technologies has secured strategic and institutional investments to fund the construction of its next research reactor, the sixth-generation Copernicus.
TAE says that its non-radioactive approach represents the fastest, most practical, and economically competitive solution to bring abundant carbon-free energy to the grid. TAE’s Copernicus reactor, which will be constructed in a 100,000-square-foot facility in Irvine, Calif., is designed to demonstrate the viability of achieving net energy generation with TAE’s advanced beam-driven field-reversed configuration (FRC)—the penultimate step on TAE’s path to commercialize clean fusion power.
TAE’s fifth-generation reactor, Norman, has proven capable of sustaining stable plasma at more than 75 million degrees Celsius, 250% higher than its original goal.
TAE’s fifth-generation reactor, Norman, was unveiled in 2017 and was designed to keep plasma stable at 30 million degrees Celsius. After five years of experiments to optimize Norman’s capabilities, the machine has proven capable of sustaining stable plasma at more than 75 million degrees Celsius, 250% higher than its original goal.
With a track record of over delivering on milestones and performance capacity, TAE has to date has raised a total of $1.2 billion for its commercial fusion development. In its recently closed Series G-2 financing round, TAE secured $250 million from investors in the energy, technology, and engineering sectors to support the company’s mission to deliver a long-term solution to rapidly growing electricity demand while providing global energy independence and security.
TAE’s safe, non-radioactive approach avoids carbon and particulate emissions, mitigating any impact on the environment or climate change.
Chevron, Google, Reimagined Ventures, Sumitomo Corporation of Americas, and TIFF Investment Management are among the company’s most recent investors, along with a large US West-coast-based mutual fund manager and a big US pension fund. Goldman Sachs served as the exclusive financial advisor in connection with the Series G-2 financing round.
This investment follows TAE’s public-private partnership with Japan’s National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS).
Google continues to be an exceptional computational AI and machine learning partner for TAE. With a collaboration that began in 2014, Google’s investment follows the success of the jointly developed Optometrist Algorithm, which deploys Google’s machine learning to optimize the operation of TAE’s research reactors, substantially advancing the rate of progress and ultimate performance achieved. Programmatic steps that used to take well over a month can now be achieved within one day. In addition, the companies have developed breakthrough capabilities in holistically post-processing and integrating a large set of independent diagnostic measurements to produce high fidelity insights into experimental data at record-breaking scale.
What sets TAE apart from other fusion efforts is the company’s proprietary advanced beam-driven field-reversed configuration (FRC), a combination of plasma physics and accelerator physics, developed to integrate into the grid with TAE’s preferred fuel source, hydrogen-boron, also known as proton-boron or p-B11.
TAE’s sixth-generation fusion reactor Copernicus is expected to demonstrate the viability of achieving net energy generation from TAE fusion by mid-decade.
TAE’s sixth-generation fusion reactor Copernicus
TAE is committed to non-radioactive hydrogen-boron both for its abundance—in excess of 100,000 years supply globally—and because it is the cleanest, safest, most economical terrestrial fuel cycle for fusion, with no geopolitical concerns or proliferation risks. The company has worked toward delivering cost-competitive, environmentally benign hydrogen-boron fusion since its founding in 1998.
Could it be possible, that in accordance with all achievements so far reached with HB11 fusion, that a final goal could be achieved in the next 5 or 6 years?
Posted by: yoatmon | 22 July 2022 at 03:45 AM
How can they do it this cheap comparatively to ITER project ... could ask question in reverse mood.
Construction of the ITER complex in France started in 2013,[17] and assembly of the tokamak began in 2020.[18] The initial budget was close to €6 billion, but the total price of construction and operations is projected to be from €18 to €22 billion;[19][20] other estimates place the total cost between $45 billion and $65 billion
Posted by: zorg | 22 July 2022 at 06:50 AM
ITER is based on the tokamak design and is capable of pulsed operation only. HB11 fusion is capable of continuous operation and has no radioactive wastes as ITER. There is a fundamental difference between the two. Should the HB11 fusion be crowned with success, then ITER will be a historical billion dollar grave.
Posted by: yoatmon | 22 July 2022 at 07:59 AM
I look forward to seeing what the greens will find to complain about if it works.
Posted by: mahonj | 22 July 2022 at 09:10 AM
it is as clean as windmills and solar panels.
Posted by: Gorr | 22 July 2022 at 12:18 PM
Finally, a reasonable use for green hydrogen.
All kidding aside, I really hopes this works but even with their timeline it will be until the mid 2030s before they could have a prototype capable of producing power for the grid. Meanwhile, we need to start building Gen 4 fission power plants. There are 2 different systems that are supposed to be built within a few hundred miles of where I live (SLC, UT), a 12 unit NuScale modular light water reactor system near Idaho Falls, Idaho and a Sodium fast reactor (Natrium) in Kremmerer, Wyoming. The Natrium system is particularly interesting as it has stored high temperature salt section to provide the ability to load follow.
Posted by: sd | 22 July 2022 at 12:20 PM
@sd:
Yep, there is very little wrong with the reactors we know perfectly well how to build right now.
Fusion has been a convenient excuse for greens to kick nuclear into the long grass, making the perfect the enemy of the good.
As EP says, they are welcome to bury my share, and more, of the nuclear waste to run a high tech lifestyle in my back garden.
Posted by: Davemart | 22 July 2022 at 12:45 PM
Here in Australia we have the perfect geology to store nuclear waste. An agreement to store nuclear waste from medical facilities in South Australia has been reached, but the NIMBYs almost derailed it. Storing high-level waste from around the world safely would be a nice earner for the state and the traditional owners of the land. The population is clustered in Adelaide and along the coast, leaving the majority of an arid state available to find the ideal site.
Posted by: Biff | 22 July 2022 at 02:33 PM
This looks a lot like the "Focus Fusion" reactor stuff which has been around for a while. I went over to their site and here's their (positive) take on the TAE approach https://focusfusion.org/optimizing-plasma/
Posted by: Albert E Short | 23 July 2022 at 11:11 AM
I always wonder whether the next step will show they really need an additional $40 billion dollars and 20 years to actually make a commercial fusion reactor in line with the conventional ITER approach.
Still TAE, Commonwealth Fusion, General Fusion and Helion all have ball-park 1$ billion dollar funding scenarios and 10 year time-lines. Helion is the most optimistic with a goal of net-electricity production with their 2024 reactor. From this far away it is really hard to know how realistic the cost and time-lines of these start-ups except the observation that they defy conventional wisom.
Posted by: msevior | 24 July 2022 at 11:44 PM
Research, as described in a PhysOrg Article, is also applicable to this type of fusion reactor.
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-magnetizing-laser-driven-inertial-fusion-implosions.html
Posted by: yoatmon | 26 July 2022 at 03:17 AM