First Light used a large two-stage hyper-velocity gas gun to launch a projectile at a target, containing the fusion fuel and achieved fusion. The projectile reached a speed of 6.5 km per second before impact. First Light’s highly sophisticated target focuses this impact, with the fuel accelerated to over 70 km per second (151,000 mph) …
Nuclear Fusion startup, Helion Energy, received $500 million in funding and has $1.7 billion in commitments. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and former president of Y Combinator, led the round. Co-founder of Facebook Dustin Moskovitz and Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital, Capricorn Investment Group also invested. David Kirtley, Helion’s co-founder and CEO plans to build systems …
Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) announced it has closed on more than $1.8 billion in Series B funding to commercialize fusion energy. This money will be used construct, commission, and operate SPARC, the world’s first commercially relevant net energy fusion machine. They will also start work on ARC, the first commercial fusion power plant, which includes …
Here are a Lawrence Livermore and ARPA-E presentation on the science and roadmap details for Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS). CFS has completed and validated their 20 Tesla magnet system which is critical for massively reducing the size of a commercial Tokamak. CFS has raised $215 million and now have a staff of over 240. They …
Commonwealth Fusion Systems and MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) have demonstrated a magnet with a record-breaking 20 Tesla magnetic field. This is the core technology that they planned to create. They now have to mass produce it at ten times lower cost and assemble it into a net energy gain system by 2025. …
On Aug. 8, 2021, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL’s) National Ignition Facility (NIF) made a significant step toward ignition, achieving a yield of more than 1.3 megajoules (MJ). This is still twelve times less than the 20 megajoules that simulations indicate can be achieved. Everything would need to be redesigned to try to get to …
The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and General Fusion will build and operate its Fusion Demonstration Plant (FDP) at UKAEA’s Culham Campus. The FDP will demonstrate General Fusion’s proprietary Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) technology. Construction starts 2022. Liquid Metal Wall A liquid metal wall will be inside the outer wall. It absorbs energy from the …
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) are adding tiny, Swiss-cheese-type holes to components to improve fusion energy generation processes. Above -PPPL physicist Andrei Khodak next to diagrams showing his concept for a porous fusion facility wall (Collage by Elle Starkman / PPPL Office of Communications) New computer simulations …
The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and General Fusion have announced an agreement under which General Fusion will build and operate its Fusion Demonstration Plant (FDP) at UKAEA’s Culham Campus. General Fusion will enter into a long-term lease with UKAEA following construction of a new facility at Culham to host the FDP. The FDP will …
The Limitless Space Institute had a report from its Interstellar Initiative Grant recipients. One of the presenters is from the University of Albama who are working on a sub-kilowatt system to generate nuclear fusion pulses for propulsion. Dr. Jason Cassibry, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and an assistant research professor at the …
