new York The Californian company TAE Technologies intends to connect the first nuclear fusion reactors to the grid as early as the next decade. “We expect that we will put our reactors into commercial operation in the early 2030s,” CEO Michl Binderbauer told Handelsblatt.
The Los Angeles-based company has been researching nuclear fusion since 1998. In addition to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who died in 2018, the investors also include oil company Chevron, Google parent company Alphabet, sovereign wealth funds and large venture capitalists. In total, they have already invested $1.2 billion in TAE Technologies. Another round of financing is expected to be completed by the end of the summer. In addition, two spin-offs for health and e-mobility should also bring in money for the future.
Since the state research laboratory NIF in California made a major research breakthrough in December, interest in nuclear fusion start-ups has increased significantly. Since nuclear fusion could help in the fight against climate change, the US government wants to support the technology with more than one billion dollars in the coming year. Nevertheless, it will probably be a few more years before there is a commercial breakthrough.
“Ten years is a realistic time horizon before nuclear fusion becomes a concrete part of the energy mix,” said Paul Dabbar, nuclear engineer and former US Assistant Secretary of Energy. Dabbar, who is also a fellow at the Center for Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, gives TAE Technologies a good chance of achieving the set goals: “TAE Technologies has already built various machines and has experience in how to improve and scale them”, so dabbar. “In 30 years, nuclear fusion could be the dominant form of energy because it is safe and readily available.”
Temperatures of 100 million degrees
In fact, science has been researching nuclear fusion for decades. Unlike atomic fission, nuclear fusion relies on the fusing of atoms. The atoms fuse at temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius or more – similar to the sun. This releases energy. The technology promises permanently available, clean energy with a fraction of the radioactive waste that nuclear fission produces. The risk of a core meltdown is also eliminated.
However, because the process requires extremely high temperatures, researchers have always had to put in more energy than they could generate through fusion. At the end of last year, the US research institute NIF announced that, for the first time, it had generated more energy with its experimental reactor than was put into the process. However, this does not include the energy required to operate the high-power lasers. Experts therefore still see many challenges.
>> Read more: US researchers report breakthrough in nuclear fusion
The solutions for nuclear fusion can be roughly divided into laser and magnet-based approaches. Unlike the NIF researchers who pioneered laser fusion, TAE Technologies and other startups rely on magnets that create a plasma and heat the particles inside. With the laser-based solution, tiny explosions occur. In order to generate electricity from this, many of them have to be ignited in succession. The plasma-based approach, on the other hand, is more consistent.
“The magnet solution is likely to be more commercially viable,” says Kim Budil, director of the Livermore lab. In the case of the lasers used by the company’s own researchers, on the other hand, it will take “decades”.
Competition increases chances of success
In addition to TAE, the private companies also include the MIT spin-off Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), Firstlight Fusion, General Fusion, Helion Energy and German companies such as Marvel Fusion from Munich. The three German start-ups Proxima Fusion, Gauss Fusion and Focused Energy want to bundle their research and development in several areas in the near future.
Energy expert Dabbar welcomes the brisk competition among start-ups. Just ten years ago, the few companies would all have been researching similar technologies. “Today, the various start-ups are researching very different approaches,” he observes. “It increases the chance that some of them will be successful.”
After the USA and Canada, Dabbar believes Great Britain and Germany are best positioned among start-ups. “In Japan and China, research is primarily state-run,” says the physicist. On the other hand, Dabbar has serious doubts about the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor – ITER for short – in France. “They will probably soon be overtaken technologically by younger companies,” he says. Especially now that the money for nuclear fusion is likely to be looser again – especially in the USA.
“The entrepreneurship is better developed in the USA, there is more money, the willingness to take risks is greater,” says TAE boss Binderbauer about the United States. On the other hand, Europe is generally more progressive when it comes to alternative energies.
Helion is intended to provide Microsoft Fusion power
In addition to TAE, Dabbar also paints a good chance for Commonwealth Fusion in Massachusetts to produce more energy than it puts in for the first time in 2025 or 2026. The company could then work on converting it into electricity in a second step.
In May, Helion also caused a stir with a contract with Microsoft. According to this, Helion is to deliver 50 megawatts of energy from nuclear fusion over the next five years. “I have no idea how they want to implement that,” says Binderbauer, “and I know them very well.”
The Los Angeles-based company has been researching nuclear fusion since 1998.
(Photo: TAE Technologies)
However, Dabbar points out that Helion relies on a different technology that is intended to convert the energy directly into electricity. “If they can do that, they would not have to develop a system for converting it into electricity as a second step,” explains the energy expert.
Two spin-offs for cancer therapy and e-mobility
Until the companies actually deliver electricity, they lack important sales. But at least TAE Technologies could generate income before then. The company has spun off two side businesses from its research: the health spin-off TAE Life Sciences and the e-mobility spin-off TAE Power Solutions.
At TAE Life Sciences, a particle accelerator originally developed for nuclear fusion is used in cancer treatment. In clinical trials, 15 patients with cancer in the neck area have already been treated. “We hope to get approval in China in just 18 months,” says Binderbauer. He could also imagine selling the division to a larger medical technology company.
At TAE Power Solutions, sales will probably come faster. The spin-off is expected to make tens of millions of dollars this year. Binderbauer wants to more than double that in the coming year.
Discussions with BMW, Siemens and Volkswagen
TAE Power Solutions relies on the storage technology that the company developed for nuclear fusion: because the experiments require three-quarters of a gigawatt of electricity for a few seconds and the power grid cannot supply it, TAE Technologies has developed its own control and battery systems. Binderbauer explains that these could be used in e-cars because they help to use battery power more efficiently. TAE Technologies is already talking to various car manufacturers, including BMW.
“But the technology will also make sense for charging trucks from logistics companies, city buses or for providers of e-car charging stations,” explains Binderbauer. The company is in talks with providers such as Volkswagen’s Electrify America and Siemens.
“It’s a bit like the moon landing: By-products like Teflon were also created there, which we now use in completely different areas,” says Binderbauer.
“Binderbauer is the most advanced in the secondary use of technologies that have been developed for nuclear fusion,” says energy expert Dabbar. But he also sees potential in other areas, especially when it comes to the heat- and magnet-resistant materials that the start-ups are developing.
But Dabbar is certain of one thing: In the first nanoseconds after the Big Bang, the universe decided that nuclear fusion was the best source of energy for itself. “We will soon be using this source as well.”
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