#Industry News
Fusion Goes Private
The development of nuclear fusion is no longer limited to government-funded research. Private companies have stepped in and are making impressive progress toward producing virtually endless nuclear energy.
Building on decades of experience, new firms are taking alternative routes to overcome the challenges that have hampered fusion-based electricity generation, which relies on the same process that powers our sun.
Tri Alpha Energy is the world’s largest private fusion company. Backed by $500 million in private capital from a diverse group of energy and technology investors, the company has performed more than 50,000 experiments to date. Dr. Michl Binderbauer, chief technology officer, explains:
Simply speaking, there are two things that determine success in fusion: long enough and hot enough. Long enough refers to the need to confine plasma for timescales that are equal to or longer than the time it takes to burn the fuel, while hot enough addresses the issue that such confinement needs to occur at temperatures hot enough to cause the violent collisions between fuel particles that cause fusion.
Even after decades of experimentation, confinement—the ability to hold energy and fuel under requisite conditions—is beyond difficult. So far, energy losses have always outstripped fusion gain. One solution is to scale up device size and magnetic field strength. However, this drives up costs, technical complexity and the time it takes to build new machines.
