TAE Technologies
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TAE Technologies, Inc., formerly Tri Alpha Energy, is an American company based in Foothill Ranch, California developing aneutronic
fusion power Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. Devices d ...
. The company's design relies on an advanced beam-driven field-reversed configuration (FRC), which combines features from
accelerator physics Accelerator physics is a branch of applied physics, concerned with designing, building and operating particle accelerators. As such, it can be described as the study of motion, manipulation and observation of relativistic charged particle beams ...
and other fusion concepts in a unique fashion, and is optimized for hydrogen-boron fuel, also known as proton-boron or ''p''-11B. It regularly publishes theoretical and experimental results in
academic journals An academic journal (or scholarly journal or scientific journal) is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the dissemination, scr ...
with hundreds of publications and posters at scientific conferences and in a research library hosting these articles on its website. TAE has developed five generations of original fusion platforms with a sixth currently in development. It aims to manufacture a prototype commercial fusion reactor by 2030.


Organization

The company was founded in 1998, and is backed by private capital. It operated as a stealth company for many years, refraining from launching its website until 2015. It did not generally discuss progress nor any schedule for commercial production. However, it has registered and renewed various patents. As of 2021, TAE Technologies had more than 250 employees and had raised over US$880 million.


Funding

Main financing has come from
Goldman Sachs The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered in Lower Manhattan in New York City, with regional headquarters in many internationa ...
and
venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...
ists such as Microsoft co-founder
Paul Allen Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American businessman, computer programmer, and investor. He co-founded Microsoft, Microsoft Corporation with his childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which was followed by the ...
's Vulcan Inc., Rockefeller's
Venrock Venrock (portmanteau of Venture and Rockefeller) is an American venture capital firm formed in 1969 to build upon the successful investing activities of the Rockefeller family that began in the late 1930s. It has offices in Palo Alto, California, ...
, and Richard Kramlich's
New Enterprise Associates New Enterprise Associates (NEA) is an American-based venture capital firm. NEA focuses investment stages ranging from seed stage through growth stage across an array of industry sectors. With over $25 billion in committed capital, NEA is one of t ...
. The
Government of Russia The Russian Government () or fully titled the Government of the Russian Federation () is the highest federal executive governmental body of the Russian Federation. It is accountable to the president of the Russian Federation and controlled by ...
, through the
joint-stock company A joint-stock company (JSC) is a business entity in which shares of the company's stock can be bought and sold by shareholders. Each shareholder owns company stock in proportion, evidenced by their shares (certificates of ownership). Shareho ...
Rusnano Rusnano Group () is a Russian state-established and funded company. The Rusnano Group's mission is to create competitive nanotechnology-based industry in Russia. Rusnano invests directly and through indirect funds into all major knowledge-based ...
, invested in Tri Alpha Energy in October 2012, and
Anatoly Chubais Anatoly Borisovich Chubais (; born 16 June 1955) is a Russian- Israeli politician and economist who was responsible for privatization in Russia as an influential member of Boris Yeltsin's administration in the early 1990s. During this period, ...
, Rusnano CEO, became a board member. Other investors include the
Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of Burroughs Wellcome, one of the predec ...
and the
Kuwait Investment Authority The Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) is the State owned sovereign wealth fund of the State of Kuwait, managing the state's reserve and the state's future generation fund, also known as "Ajyal Fund". Founded in 1953, the KIA is the world's old ...
. As of July 2017 the company reported that it had raised more than $500 million in backing. As of 2020, it had raised over $600 million, which rose to around $880 million in 2021 and $1.2 billion as of 2022.


Leadership and board of directors

TAE's technology was co-founded by physicist Norman Rostoker, as a spin-out of his work at the
University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, U ...
. Steven Specker, former CEO of the Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI), was CEO from October 2016 to July 2018. Michl Binderbauer, who earned his PhD. in plasma physics under the guidance of Rostoker at UCI, moved from CTO to CEO following Specker's retirement. Specker remains an advisor. Additional board members include
Jeff Immelt Jeffrey Robert Immelt (born February 19, 1956) is an American manufacturing executive working as a venture partner at New Enterprise Associates. He previously was the CEO of General Electric from 2001 to 2017, and the CEO of GE's Medical Systems ...
, former CEO of
General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...
; John J. Mack, former CEO of Morgan Stanley; and
Ernest Moniz Ernest Jeffrey Moniz, Order of Prince Henry, GCIH (; born December 22, 1944) is an American nuclear physicist and former government official. From May 2013 to January 2017, he served as the 13th United States secretary of energy in the Obama admi ...
, former
United States Secretary of Energy The United States secretary of energy is the head of the United States Department of Energy, a member of the Cabinet of the United States and fifteenth in the United States presidential line of succession, presidential line of succession. The po ...
at the
US Department of Energy US or Us most often refers to: * Us (pronoun), ''Us'' (pronoun), the objective case of the English first-person plural pronoun ''we'' * US, an abbreviation for the United States US, U.S., Us, us, or u.s. may also refer to: Arts and entertainme ...
, who joined the company's board of directors in May 2017.


Collaborators

Since 2014 TAE Technologies has worked with
Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
to develop a process to analyze the data collected on plasma behavior in fusion reactors. In 2017, using a
machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...
tool developed through the partnership and based on the "Optometrist Algorithm", it found significant improvements in plasma containment and stability over the previous C-2U machine. The study's results were published in ''
Scientific Reports ''Scientific Reports'' is a peer-reviewed open-access scientific mega journal published by Nature Portfolio, covering all areas of the natural sciences. The journal was established in 2011. The journal states that their aim is to assess solely ...
''. In November 2017 the company was admitted to a
United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear w ...
program, "Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment", that gave it access to the
Cray XC40 The Cray XC40 is a massively parallel multiprocessor supercomputer manufactured by Cray. It consists of Intel Haswell Xeon processors, with optional Nvidia Tesla or Intel Xeon Phi accelerators, connected together by Cray's proprietary "Ar ...
supercomputer. In 2021, TAE Technologies announced a joint research project with Japan’s Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS), a three year-long study on the effects of hydrogen-boron fuel reactions in the NIFS Large Helical Device (LHD).


Subsidiaries


TAE Life Sciences

In March 2018 TAE Technologies announced it had raised $40 million to create TAE Life Sciences, a subsidiary focused on refining boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) for cancer treatment, with funding led by ARTIS Ventures. TAE Life Sciences also announced that it would partner with Neuboron Medtech, which would be the first to install the company's beam system. TAE Life Sciences shares common board members with TAE Technologies and is led by Bruce Bauer.


TAE Power Solutions

In September 2021, TAE Technologies announced the formation of a new division, Power Solutions, to commercialize the
power management Power management is a feature of some electrical appliances, especially copiers, computers, computer CPUs, computer GPUs and computer peripherals such as monitors and printers, that turns off the power or switches the system to a low-power ...
systems developed on the C-2W/Norman reactor for the
electric vehicle An electric vehicle (EV) is a motor vehicle whose propulsion is powered fully or mostly by electricity. EVs encompass a wide range of transportation modes, including road vehicle, road and rail vehicles, electric boats and Submersible, submer ...
, charging infrastructure, and
energy storage Energy storage is the capture of energy produced at one time for use at a later time to reduce imbalances between energy demand and energy production. A device that stores energy is generally called an Accumulator (energy), accumulator or Batte ...
markets, with veteran industrialist David Roberts as its CEO.


Design


Underlying theory

In mainline fusion approaches, the energy needed to allow reactions, the
Coulomb barrier The Coulomb barrier, named after Coulomb's law, which is in turn named after physicist Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, is the energy barrier due to electrostatic interaction that two nuclei need to overcome so they can get close enough to undergo a ...
, is provided by heating the fusion fuel to millions of degrees. In such fuel, the
electron The electron (, or in nuclear reactions) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary charge, elementary electric charge. It is a fundamental particle that comprises the ordinary matter that makes up the universe, along with up qua ...
s disassociate from their
ion An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convent ...
s, to form a gas-like mixture known as a plasma. In any gas-like mixture, the particles will be found in a wide variety of energies, according to the
Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution In physics (in particular in statistical mechanics), the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution, or Maxwell(ian) distribution, is a particular probability distribution named after James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann. It was first defined and use ...
. In these systems, fusion occurs when two of the higher-energy particles in the mix randomly collide. Keeping the fuel together long enough for this to occur is a major challenge. TAE's machines spin plasma up into a looped structure called a field-reversed configuration (FRC) which is a loop of hot, dense plasma. Material inside an FRC is self-contained by the fields the plasma creates. As the plasma current moves around the loop, it creates a magnetic field perpendicular to the direction of motion, much like current in a wire would do. This self-created field helps to hold in the plasma current and keeps the loop stable. The challenge with field-reversed configurations is that they slow down over time, wobble, and eventually collapse. The company's innovation was to continuously apply particle beams along the surface of the FRC to keep it rotating. This beam and hoop system was key to increasing the machines' longevity, stability and performance.


TAE's design

The TAE design forms a field-reversed configuration (FRC), a self-stabilized rotating toroid of particles similar to a
smoke ring A smoke ring is a visible vortex ring formed by smoke in a clear atmosphere. Smoking, Smokers may blow smoke rings from the mouth, intentionally or accidentally. Smoke rings may also be formed by sudden bursts of fire (such as lighting and i ...
. In the TAE system, the ring is made as thin as possible, about the same
aspect ratio The aspect ratio of a geometry, geometric shape is the ratio of its sizes in different dimensions. For example, the aspect ratio of a rectangle is the ratio of its longer side to its shorter side—the ratio of width to height, when the rectangl ...
as an opened
tin can A steel can, tin can, tin (especially in British English, Australian English, Canadian English and South African English), or can is a container made of thin metal, for distribution or storage of goods. Some cans are opened by removing the to ...
. Particle accelerators inject fuel ions tangentially to the surface of the cylinder, where they either react or are captured into the ring as additional fuel. Unlike other
magnetic confinement fusion Magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) is an approach to generate thermonuclear fusion power that uses magnetic fields to confine fusion fuel in the form of a plasma (physics), plasma. Magnetic confinement is one of two major branches of controlled fusi ...
devices such as the
tokamak A tokamak (; ) is a device which uses a powerful magnetic field generated by external magnets to confine plasma (physics), plasma in the shape of an axially symmetrical torus. The tokamak is one of several types of magnetic confinement fusi ...
, FRCs provide a
magnetic field A magnetic field (sometimes called B-field) is a physical field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular ...
topology Topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is the branch of mathematics concerned with the properties of a Mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformat ...
whereby the axial field inside the reactor is reversed by eddy currents in the plasma, as compared to the ambient magnetic field externally applied by solenoids. The FRC is less prone to
magnetohydrodynamic In physics and engineering, magnetohydrodynamics (MHD; also called magneto-fluid dynamics or hydro­magnetics) is a model of electrically conducting fluids that treats all interpenetrating particle species together as a single continu ...
and
plasma instabilities In plasma physics, plasma stability concerns the stability properties of a plasma in equilibrium and its behavior under small perturbations. The stability of the system determines if the perturbations will grow, oscillate, or be damped out. It ...
. The science behind the colliding beam fusion reactor is used in the company's C-2, C-2U and C-2W projects. A key concept is that the FRC is kept in a useful state over an extended period. To do this, the accelerators inject the fuel such that when the particles scatter within the ring they cause the fuel already present to accelerate in rotation. This process would normally slowly increase the positive charge of the fuel mass, so electrons are also injected to keep the charge roughly neutralized. The FRC is held in a cylindrical, truck-sized
vacuum chamber A vacuum chamber is a rigid enclosure from which air and other gases are removed by a vacuum pump. This results in a low-pressure environment within the chamber, commonly referred to as a vacuum. A vacuum environment allows researchers to c ...
containing
solenoid upright=1.20, An illustration of a solenoid upright=1.20, Magnetic field created by a seven-loop solenoid (cross-sectional view) described using field lines A solenoid () is a type of electromagnet formed by a helix, helical coil of wire whos ...
s. It appears the FRC will then be compressed, either using adiabatic compression similar to those proposed for
magnetic mirror A magnetic mirror, also known as a magnetic trap or sometimes as a pyrotron, is a type of magnetic confinement fusion device used in fusion power to trap high temperature Plasma (physics), plasma using magnetic fields. The mirror was one of the e ...
systems in the 1950s, or by forcing two such FRCs together using a similar arrangement. The design must achieve the "hot enough/long enough" (HELE) threshold to achieve fusion. The required temperature is 3 billion degrees Celsius (~250 keV), while the required duration (achieved with C2-U) is multiple milliseconds. TAE's reactor can produce up to 100 times more fusion power output than a tokamak based on the same magnetic field strength and plasma volume.


The 11B(''p'',α)αα aneutronic reaction

An essential component of the design is the use of "advanced fuels", i.e. fuels with primary reactions that do not produce
neutrons The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , that has no electric charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. The neutron was discovered by James Chadwick in 1932, leading to the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938, the f ...
, such as
hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...
and boron-11. FRC fusion products are all
charged particles In physics, a charged particle is a particle with an electric charge. For example, some elementary particles, like the electron or quarks are charged. Some composite particles like protons are charged particles. An ion, such as a molecule or atom ...
for which highly efficient direct energy conversion is feasible.
Neutron flux The neutron flux is a scalar quantity used in nuclear physics and nuclear reactor physics. It is the total distance travelled by all free neutrons per unit time and volume. Equivalently, it can be defined as the number of neutrons travelling ...
and associated on-site
radioactivity Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is conside ...
is virtually non-existent. So unlike other
nuclear fusion Nuclear fusion is a nuclear reaction, reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei combine to form a larger nuclei, nuclei/neutrons, neutron by-products. The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as either the rele ...
research involving
deuterium Deuterium (hydrogen-2, symbol H or D, also known as heavy hydrogen) is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen; the other is protium, or hydrogen-1, H. The deuterium nucleus (deuteron) contains one proton and one neutron, whereas the far more c ...
and
tritium Tritium () or hydrogen-3 (symbol T or H) is a rare and radioactive isotope of hydrogen with a half-life of ~12.33 years. The tritium nucleus (t, sometimes called a ''triton'') contains one proton and two neutrons, whereas the nucleus of the ...
, and unlike
nuclear fission Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma photons, and releases a very large amount of energy even by the energetic standards of radioactiv ...
, no
radioactive waste Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. It is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, nuclear decommissioning, rare-earth mining, and nuclear ...
is created. The hydrogen and boron-11 fuel used in this type of reaction is also much more abundant. TAE Technologies relies on the clean 11B(''p'',α)αα reaction, also written 11B(''p'',3α), which produces three
helium Helium (from ) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic, inert gas, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. Its boiling point is ...
nuclei called α−particles (hence the name of the company) as follows: A
proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , Hydron (chemistry), H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' (elementary charge). Its mass is slightly less than the mass of a neutron and approximately times the mass of an e ...
(identical to the most common hydrogen nucleus) striking boron-11 creates a
resonance Resonance is a phenomenon that occurs when an object or system is subjected to an external force or vibration whose frequency matches a resonant frequency (or resonance frequency) of the system, defined as a frequency that generates a maximu ...
in
carbon-12 Carbon-12 (12C) is the most abundant of the two stable isotopes of carbon ( carbon-13 being the other), amounting to 98.93% of element carbon on Earth; its abundance is due to the triple-alpha process by which it is created in stars. Carbon-1 ...
, which decays by emitting ''one high-energy'' primary α−particle. This leads to the first
excited state In quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Add ...
of
beryllium-8 Beryllium-8 (8Be, Be-8) is a radionuclide with 4 neutrons and 4 protons. It is an unbound resonance and nominally an isotope of beryllium. It has a half-life on the order of 8.19 seconds, decaying into two alpha particles. This has importa ...
, which decays into ''two low-energy'' secondary α-particles. This is the model commonly accepted in the
scientific community The scientific community is a diverse network of interacting scientists. It includes many "working group, sub-communities" working on particular scientific fields, and within particular institutions; interdisciplinary and cross-institutional acti ...
since the published results account for a 1987 experiment. TAE claimed that the reaction products should release more energy than what is commonly envisaged. In 2010, Henry R. Weller and his team from the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory (TUNL) used the high intensity γ-ray source (HIγS) at
Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...
, funded by TAE and the U.S. Department of Energy, to show that the mechanism first proposed by
Ernest Rutherford Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who was a pioneering researcher in both Atomic physics, atomic and nuclear physics. He has been described as "the father of nu ...
and
Mark Oliphant Sir Marcus Laurence Elwin Oliphant, (8 October 1901 – 14 July 2000) was an Australian physicist and humanitarian who played an important role in the first experimental demonstration of nuclear fusion and in the development of nuclear weapon ...
in 1933, then Philip Dee and C. W. Gilbert from the
Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...
in 1936, and the results of an experiment conducted by French researchers from IN2P3 in 1969, was correct. The model and the experiment predicted ''two'' high energy α-particles of almost equal energy. One was the primary α-particle and the other a secondary α-particle, both emitted at an angle of 155 degrees. A third secondary α-particle is also emitted, of lower energy.


Inverse cyclotron converter (ICC)

Direct energy conversion systems for other fusion power generators, involving collector plates and "
Venetian blind A window blind is a type of window covering. There are many different kinds of window blinds which use a variety of control systems. A typical window blind is made up of several long horizontal or vertical slats of various types of hard mate ...
s" or a long linear
microwave cavity A microwave cavity or radio frequency cavity (RF cavity) is a special type of resonator, consisting of a closed (or largely closed) metal structure that confines electromagnetic fields in the microwave or radio frequency, RF region of the spect ...
filled with a 10- Tesla magnetic field and rectennas, are not suitable for fusion with ion energies above 1
MeV In physics, an electronvolt (symbol eV), also written electron-volt and electron volt, is the measure of an amount of kinetic energy gained by a single electron accelerating through an electric potential difference of one volt in vacuum. When us ...
. The company employed a much shorter device, an inverse
cyclotron A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Januar ...
converter (ICC) that operated at 5
MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...
and required a magnetic field of only 0.6 tesla. The
linear motion Linear motion, also called rectilinear motion, is one-dimensional motion along a straight line, and can therefore be described mathematically using only one spatial dimension. The linear motion can be of two types: uniform linear motion, with ...
of fusion product
ion An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convent ...
s is converted to
circular motion In physics, circular motion is movement of an object along the circumference of a circle or rotation along a circular arc. It can be uniform, with a constant rate of rotation and constant tangential speed, or non-uniform with a changing rate ...
by a magnetic cusp. Energy is collected from the charged particles as they spiral past quadrupole
electrodes An electrode is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit (e.g. a semiconductor, an electrolyte, a vacuum or a gas). In electrochemical cells, electrodes are essential parts that can consist of a variety ...
. More classical collectors collect particles with energy less than 1 MeV. The estimation of the ratio of fusion power to radiation loss for a 100 MW FRC has been calculated for different fuels, assuming a converter efficiency of 90% for α-particles, 40% for
Bremsstrahlung radiation In particle physics, bremsstrahlung (; ; ) is electromagnetic radiation produced by the deceleration of a charged particle when deflected by another charged particle, typically an electron by an atomic nucleus. The moving particle loses kinetic ...
through
photoelectric effect The photoelectric effect is the emission of electrons from a material caused by electromagnetic radiation such as ultraviolet light. Electrons emitted in this manner are called photoelectrons. The phenomenon is studied in condensed matter physi ...
, and 70% for the accelerators, with 10T superconducting magnetic coils: * ''Q'' = 35 for deuterium and tritium * ''Q'' = 3 for deuterium and helium-3 * ''Q'' = 2.7 for hydrogen and boron-11 * ''Q'' = 4.3 for polarized hydrogen and boron-11. The
spin polarization In particle physics, spin polarization is the degree to which the spin, i.e., the intrinsic angular momentum of elementary particles, is aligned with a given direction. This property may pertain to the spin, hence to the magnetic moment, of co ...
enhances the fusion cross section by a factor of 1.6 for 11B. A further increase in ''Q'' should result from the nuclear quadrupole moment of 11B. And another increase in ''Q'' may also result from the mechanism allowing the production of a secondary high-energy α-particle. TAE Technologies plans to use the ''p''-11B reaction in their commercial FRC for safety reasons and because the energy conversion systems are simpler and smaller: since no neutron is released,
thermal A thermal column (or thermal) is a rising mass of buoyant air, a convective current in the atmosphere, that transfers heat energy vertically. Thermals are created by the uneven heating of Earth's surface from solar radiation, and are an example ...
conversion is unnecessary, hence no
heat exchanger A heat exchanger is a system used to transfer heat between a source and a working fluid. Heat exchangers are used in both cooling and heating processes. The fluids may be separated by a solid wall to prevent mixing or they may be in direct contac ...
or
steam turbine A steam turbine or steam turbine engine is a machine or heat engine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work utilising a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Par ...
. The "truck-sized" 100 MW reactors designed in TAE presentations are based on these calculations.


Progression of machines


Sewer pipe

Developed in 1998, the company’s proof-of-concept machine was created using a common sewer pipe and first demonstrated the viability of forming a field-reverse configured magnetic field.


CBFR-SPS

The CBFR-SPS is a 100 MW-class, magnetic field-reversed configuration, aneutronic
fusion rocket A fusion rocket is a theoretical design for a rocket driven by nuclear fusion, fusion propulsion that could provide efficient and sustained Spacecraft propulsion, acceleration in space without the need to carry a large fuel supply. The design requ ...
concept. The reactor is fueled by an energetic-ion mixture of hydrogen and boron (''p''-11B). Fusion products are helium ions (α-particles) expelled axially out of the system. α-particles flowing in one direction are decelerated and their energy directly converted to power the system; and particles expelled in the opposite direction provide
thrust Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that ...
. Since the fusion products are charged particles and does not release neutrons, the system does not require the use of a massive
radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'' consisting of photons, such as radio waves, microwaves, infr ...
shield A shield is a piece of personal armour held in the hand, which may or may not be strapped to the wrist or forearm. Shields are used to intercept specific attacks, whether from close-ranged weaponry like spears or long ranged projectiles suc ...
.


C-2

Various experiments have been conducted by TAE Technologies on the world's largest compact toroid device called "C-2". Results began to be regularly published in 2010, with papers including 60 authors. C-2 results showed peak ion temperatures of 400
Electron volts In physics, an electronvolt (symbol eV), also written electron-volt and electron volt, is the measure of an amount of kinetic energy gained by a single electron accelerating through an electric potential difference of one volt in vacuum. When u ...
(5 million degrees Celsius), electron temperatures of 150
Electron volts In physics, an electronvolt (symbol eV), also written electron-volt and electron volt, is the measure of an amount of kinetic energy gained by a single electron accelerating through an electric potential difference of one volt in vacuum. When u ...
, plasma densities of 1·1019 m−3 and 1·109 fusion neutrons per second for 3 milliseconds.


Budker Institute

The
Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics The Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics (BINP) is one of the major centres of advanced study of nuclear physics in Russia. It is located in the Siberian town Akademgorodok, on Academician Lavrentyev Avenue, Novosibirsk, Academician Lavrentiev ...
,
Novosibirsk Novosibirsk is the largest city and administrative centre of Novosibirsk Oblast and the Siberian Federal District in Russia. As of the 2021 Russian census, 2021 census, it had a population of 1,633,595, making it the most populous city in Siber ...
, built a powerful plasma injector, shipped in late 2013 to the company's research facility. The device produces a neutral beam in the range of 5 to 20 MW, and injects energy inside the reactor to transfer it to the fusion plasma.


C-2U

In March 2015, the upgraded C-2U with edge-biasing beams showed a 10-fold improvement in lifetime, with FRCs heated to 10 million degrees Celsius and lasting 5 milliseconds with no sign of decay. The C-2U functions by firing two donut shaped plasmas at each other at 1 million kilometers per hour, the result is a cigar-shaped FRC as much as 3 meters long and 40 centimeters across. The plasma was controlled with magnetic fields generated by electrodes and magnets at each end of the tube. The upgraded particle beam system provided 10 megawatts of power.


C-2W/Norman/Norm

In 2017, TAE Technologies renamed the C-2W reactor "Norman" in honor of the company's co-founder Norman Rostoker who died in 2014. In July 2017, the company announced that the Norman reactor had achieved plasma. The Norman reactor is reportedly able to operate at temperatures between 50 million and 70 million°C. In February 2018, the company announced that after 4,000 experiments it had reached a high temperature of nearly 20 million°C. In 2018, TAE Technologies partnered with the Applied Science team at Google to develop the technology inside Norman to maximize electron temperature, aiming to demonstrate breakeven fusion. In 2021, TAE Technologies stated Norman was regularly producing a stable plasma at temperatures over 50 million degrees, meeting a key milestone for the machine and unlocking an additional $280 million in financing, bringing its total of funding raised up to $880 million. In 2023, the company published a peer-reviewed paper reporting the first measurement of ''p''-11B fusion in magnetically confined plasma at the LHD in Japan. In 2025 the company disclosed its Norm reactor. It is significantly shorter than Norman, because it allowed the engineers to eliminate the long quartz tubes at either end of the chamber.


Copernicus

The Copernicus device was designed to operate using hydrogen and was expected to attain net energy gain around 2025. The approximate cost of the reactor was $200 million, and it was intended to reach temperatures of around 100 million°C to validate conditions needed for deuterium-tritium fusion while the company scaled to ''p''-11B fuel for its superior environmental and cost profile. TAE intended to start construction in 2022.


Da Vinci

The Da Vinci device is a proposed successor device to Copernicus, and a prototype for a commercially scalable reactor. It was scheduled to be developed in the second half of the 2020s and to achieve 3 billion°C and produce fusion energy.


See also

* China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor *
Commonwealth Fusion Systems Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) is an American fusion power company founded in 2018 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after a spin-out from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Its stated goal is to build a small fusion power plant ba ...
*
Dense plasma focus A dense plasma focus (DPF) is a type of Plasma (physics), plasma generating system originally developed as a fusion power device, starting in the early 1960s. The system demonstrated Power law, scaling laws that suggested it would not be useful in ...
* Fusion Industry Association * General Fusion *
Helion Energy Helion Energy, Inc. is an American fusion research company, located in Everett, Washington. They are developing a magneto-inertial fusion technology to produce helium-3 and fusion power via aneutronic fusion, which could produce low-cost clean ...
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Polywell The polywell is a proposed design for a fusion reactor using an electric and magnetic field to heat ions to fusion conditions. The design is related to the fusor, the high beta fusion reactor, the magnetic mirror, and the biconic cusp. A set of e ...
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Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) is a spherical tokamak fusion plant concept proposed by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and funded by the UK government. The project is a proposed DEMO-class successor device to the ...


References


External links

* {{Authority control Accelerator physics Fusion power companies Nuclear power companies of the United States Nuclear technology companies of the United States