Startups seek power of stars
Global warming threat has investors backing firms trying to harness fusion energy
ABINGDON, England — Harnessing fusion energy into something commercially viable — and maybe, ultimately, a clean source of power that replaces fossil fuels for centuries to come — has long been thought by some as the ultimate moonshot.
But investor interest in fusion energy continues to rise, and the number of startups in the field is multiplying, with an estimated 1,100 people in several countries making their living at these firms. An industry is taking shape, with a growing network of companies that supply highly specialized equipment, like the components of the powerful magnets fusion devices require.
No one knows when fusion energy will become commercially viable, but driving the private investments is a rising alarm about global warming.
“Nobody has a better plan to deal with the climate crisis,” said David Kingham, one of the three co-founders of a company called Tokamak Energy that has raised about $200 million.
At Tokamak, a goal is to eventually heat isotopes of hydrogen hot enough so that their atoms combine in a reaction that releases enormous amounts of energy. This is the essence of fusion, often described as the energy behind the sun and stars.
At the company’s laboratory in a business park outside Oxford, there is a warning on the public address system every 15 to 20 minutes that a test is coming and everyone should stay out of the room with the fusion device, which is 14 feet high with thick steel walls. There is a whirring sound that lasts about one second. Then a monitor shows an eerie pulsing video of the inside of the device as a powerful beam blasts into superheated gas known as a plasma.
During the test, Tokamak’s prototype machine, which costs about $68 million to build, reached 11 million degrees Celsius. The scientists figure they need to reach 100 million degrees Celsius, or about seven times the temperature at the core of the sun. They expect to get there by year’s end.
The company’s name refers to a type of device invented in the former Soviet Union and now the main focus in the field. Tokamak’s attempt to achieve fusion by using powerful magnets to contain and compress superheated gas — creating a kind of lightning in a bottle.
Since the early 1990s, the number of fusion startups has been growing. Andrew Holland, CEO of the Fusion Industry Association, said that there are at least 35 companies in several countries, including the United States and China. They have raised a combined $1.9 billion, largely from private sources, according to a forthcoming study by the association and the British Atomic Energy Authority.
The coming years, though, will require big increases in spending, fusion executives say. Persuading investors to make the leap to the $50 million to $100 million chunks needed for another generation of prototypes is not easy.
“People are still measuring investment returns with the usual metrics,” like how much revenue a company is producing, said Michl Binderbauer, CEO of California-based TAE Technologies, which has raised about $900 million, the largest publicly identified amount of money raised by fusion startups.
Binderbauer is trying to make a business of some technologies TAE has developed on the road to fusion. A TAE subsidiary is developing treatments for cancer using particle beams. The ventures, he said, are an easier sell for investors.