The US Department of Energy (DOE) released the DOE Fusion Energy Strategy 2024. DOE Fusion Energy Strategy 2024 is organized around three pillars: closing the science and technology (S&T) gaps to a commercially relevant fusion pilot plant; preparing the path to sustainable, equitable commercial fusion deployment; and building and leveraging... Read more →

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory used additive manufacturing to produce the first defect-free complex tungsten parts for use in extreme environments. The accomplishment could have positive implications for clean-energy technologies such as fusion energy. Tungsten has the highest melting point of any metal, making it ideal for fusion reactors... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $30 million in funding to develop first-wall materials—the materials used for the chamber where fusion reactions occur—that can maintain design performance in a fusion power plant. (DE-FOA-0003240) As fusion energy advances toward commercial deployment, finding materials capable of optimized performance for... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced $16 million in funding for projects focused on advancing innovative fusion technology and collaborative research on small-scale experiments and on the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, an Office of Science scientific user facility. The projects will be executed under 16 awards at 13... Read more →

ORNL will lead three new DOE-funded projects designed to bring fusion energy to the grid on a rapid timescale. These three fusion energy projects are aimed directly at the national goal of advancing fusion science and technology and bringing them together to develop and optimize cost-effective fusion energy systems. The... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced $29 million in funding for seven team awards for research in machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data resources for fusion energy sciences. Nineteen institutions will apply advanced and autonomous algorithms to address high-priority research opportunities in fusion and plasma sciences. The teams include... Read more →

Canada-based General Fusion announced a new Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) machine that will fast-track the company’s technical progress. To be built at the company’s new Richmond, British Columbia headquarters, this machine is designed to achieve fusion conditions of more than 100 million degrees Celsius by 2025, and progress toward scientific... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced $46 million in funding (DE-FOA-0002809) to eight companies advancing designs and research and development for fusion power plants. These awardees will work to acheive important technical and commercialization milestones to advance successful design of a fusion pilot plant (FPP) to move fusion toward... Read more →

The US Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) announced up to $10 million in funding to develop novel manufacturing technologies for superconducting tapes. (DE-FOA-0002784 Modification 06) Enabling widely available low-cost, high-performance superconducting (HTS) tapes could help enable the market growth and proliferation of nuclear fusion, superconducting... Read more →

Eni and Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), a spin-out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) signed a Collaboration Framework Agreement with the aim of accelerating the industrialization of fusion energy. Eni made its first investment into CFS in 2018 and is a significant shareholder. This strategic agreement will leverage Eni’s... Read more →

TAE Technologies, the world’s largest private fusion energy company, has spun-out a new subsidiary, TAE Power Solutions. TAE Power Solutions intends to deliver a novel technology to improve fundamentally the reliability, efficiency, longevity, and affordability of electric-powered products, from vehicles to renewable energy storage. The proprietary technology platform is derived... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) and DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced the achievement of fusion ignition at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). On 5 December, a team at LLNL’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) conducted the first controlled fusion experiment in history to reach this milestone—known as scientific... Read more →

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), Canada’s premier nuclear science and technology organization, and General Fusion have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to pursue a series of joint projects to accelerate the deployment of commercial fusion power in Canada. Fusion energy holds great potential as a clean and reliable form of... Read more →

Construction of General Fusion’s demonstration machine, which is being built at the UK Atomic Energy Agency’s Culham Campus, advanced significantly with the fabrication of an at-scale fusion vessel trial ring by Sheffield Forgemasters. This critical component will confirm the specifications of the thick-walled fusion vessel, designed to withstand the high... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $10 million in funding (DE-FOA-0002784) to establish clear practices to determine whether low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR) could be the basis for a potentially transformative carbon-free energy source. The funding is part of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) LENR Exploratory Topic,... Read more →

Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have found a way to build high-temperature superconducting magnets made of material that conducts electricity with little or no resistance at temperatures warmer than before. Such powerful magnets would more easily fit within the tight space inside... Read more →

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... Read more →

The US Department of Energy has selected General Fusion for two new funding awards through the Office of Fusion Energy Science’s Innovation Network for Fusion Energy (INFUSE) program. The awards will advance Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) technology for use in commercial fusion power plants through collaboration with the Savannah River... Read more →

The US Department of Energy announced $29 million in funding for 14 projects as part of the Galvanizing Advances in Market-aligned fusion for an Overabundance of Watts (GAMOW) program, which is jointly sponsored by ARPA-E and the Office of Science–Fusion Energy Sciences (SC-FES). (Earlier post.) GAMOW teams will work to... Read more →

Toroidal (doughnut-shaped) tokamaks are prone to intense bursts of heat and particles, called edge localized modes (ELMs). These ELMs can damage the reactor walls and must be controlled to develop reliable fusion power. Scientists have learned to tame these ELMs by applying spiraling rippled magnetic fields to the surface of... Read more →

Chevron Corporation made a Series A investment in Zap Energy Inc., a Seattle-based start-up company developing a next-generation modular nuclear reactor with an innovative approach to advancing cost-effective, flexible, and commercially scalable fusion. Zap Energy will use the funds raised in this round to continue technology development and grow its... Read more →