There’s an article about a nuclear fusion start-up at Forbes you might be interested in:
Walking with Michl Binderbauer into his 2-acre laboratory feels a bit like taking a factory tour with Willy Wonka. In one corner Binderbauer, chief executive of TAE Technologies, shows off a new machine that blasts cancer tumors with a neutron beam. Engineers huddle in a control room. Beyond their window: Norman.
That’s the name of TAE’s 100-foot-long prototype nuclear fusion reactor, a magnificent assemblage of stainless steel vessels, electromagnets and particle accelerator tubes. Once every eight minutes Norman emits a clang, as it transforms 100 million watts of electricity into a cloud of 30 million degree Celsius plasma that it blasts with beams of protons (the simplest form of hydrogen). They smash together with enough force to fuse into helium—releasing copious amounts of energy in the process. “It’s a function of violence,†says Binderbauer, 50, with a smile.
TAE, known until last year as Tri Alpha Energy, has raised $600 million, most recently at a valuation of more than $2 billion. Investors include the late Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital, the Rockefeller family’s Venrock, and Big Sky Capital, family money of billionaire stock trader Charles Schwab. They’re betting that TAE will be able to tame fusion into a source of electricity.That’s the name of TAE’s 100-foot-long prototype nuclear fusion reactor, a magnificent assemblage of stainless steel vessels, electromagnets and particle accelerator tubes. Once every eight minutes Norman emits a clang, as it transforms 100 million watts of electricity into a cloud of 30 million degree Celsius plasma that it blasts with beams of protons (the simplest form of hydrogen). They smash together with enough force to fuse into helium—releasing copious amounts of energy in the process. “It’s a function of violence,†says Binderbauer, 50, with a smile.
TAE, known until last year as Tri Alpha Energy, has raised $600 million, most recently at a valuation of more than $2 billion. Investors include the late Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital, the Rockefeller family’s Venrock, and Big Sky Capital, family money of billionaire stock trader Charles Schwab. They’re betting that TAE will be able to tame fusion into a source of electricity.
Nuclear fusion has been the energy source of the future since I was a kid. Back then they thought commercially-viable fusion was 15 years away. It still is. If they’re right this time, it will transform life on earth.
I am intensely skeptical. For more than 40 years, some of the best physicists on Earth with virtually unlimited funding have been unable to achieve sustainable fusion. They have tried tokamaks, lasers, all sorts of inertial stuff. All failures. I doubt a startup will succeed.
But it’s their money.
I have the same doubts about private corporations getting to the Moon, let alone Mars. Pace Heinlein, but only two or three national governments, and no corporation or collection of corporations has the resources to put a man on the Moon. It is dubious that the US has those resources. RussiaChina might in as much as they are not subject to democratic pressures to hand out goodies and can pursue national goals.
Yeah, me too, and for the same reasons.
The capability of a mind to create such miraculous possibilities awes me. I really enjoyed reading this Forbes article!
“But it’s their money.”
And the only good reason I have for being happy they have it. Godspeed on the project.
re: “it transforms 100 million watts of electricity” is yet another example of our poor science education. There is such a thing as “100 million watts of power,” but it is not a measure of energy or “electricity,” whatever that means.
just imagine being able to power large scale desalinization plants anywhere in the world with nuclear. The deserts would bloom. The rivers could again fun free. People would have cheap access to fresh water. A scarce resource made plentiful. One less reason for war or desperate migration.
This really should be our next moonshot.
No, Gray, it would be a better “next moonshot” to put contraceptives in the world’s water, whether produced by atomic energy or nature. It would soon solve the problems of war, global warming, plastic pollution, extinction of frogs, butterflies, bees and birds, not to mention the great mammals of Africa, loss of energy supply, forced migration, and deaths by famine, volcano, tsunami and other natural disasters, and even alleviate the crowding on Everest and street crime.
Increasing the water supply can come later and might not even be needed.
Overdosed on Ehrlich.
I’m with Bob as well.
As for the funding, that’s why they call it venture capital. Where a 10-15 company portfolio has 3/4 wipeouts, a couple deals that trade sideways and 1, maybe 2 that make so much money a grown man would cry.
Moving past fusion, I wouldn’t be surprised, Dave, if you told me you are not that interested in the Stanley Cup. But to the degree you are, does your heart lie with the Blues?