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Nuclear fusion is a carbon-free, virtually infinite source of power that is safer that current nuclear fission reactors. For decades, it has been the “Holy Grail” of the energy sector. The ultimate fusion reactor is the Sun, of course. Hobbyists can create fusion reactions. The challenge is to generate sustained fusion in a system that produces more energy that it requires to operate and efficiently captures the energy that is released.
In the past, fusion research was largely driven by government funded projects that focused on large-scale efforts like the twenty five billion dollar International Thermonuclear Experiment Reactor (ITER) in France or the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore in California.
But that dynamic is changing. Currently, venture capital dollars are funding smaller, private efforts as the world scrambles to create and deploy new clean tech and climate tech to prevent the most-dire predicted impacts of global warming. There is a growing community of fusion research enterprises in the Pacific Northwest that includes Avalanche Energy, Helion, Zap Energy and CTFusion in Washington state and British Columbia’s General Fusion.
Robin Langtry and Brian Riordan are the founders of Avalanche Energy. They are taking a less conventional route to the development of commercial nuclear fusion. Their approach depends on a small-scale solution and does not require the tremendous temperatures and pressures needed by other systems such as the popular tokamaks. They are curious why no one else has tried their approach and wonder if anyone has shown any reason why it will not work.
The startup has raised five million dollars in a seed funding round, secured by a Patent Corporation Treaty (PCT) International Patent. Just recently, they emerged from the stealth mode they had been operating in. A few weeks ago, the AE team generated their first neutrons via fusion.
Avalanche Energy was launched in 2018 and this summer it opened its research facility just down from the Seattle’s Museum of Flight and the original Boeing site. It has grown to ten employees and hopes to double that by the end of this year.
Other fusion ventures are geared toward larger-scale energy production for utilities and other large energy consumers. This is creating multiple niches in the fusion research field. Langtry said, “There’s actually not a lot of competition. It is really collaborative.”
The fusion reactor that AE is developing with be about the size of a large shoe box (one-foot diameter and two-feet long). It could be deployed as multiple units to power cargo ships, airplanes and other sectors of the economy that are going to be difficult to transition from fossil fuel. They estimate that it would take six of their reactors to power a passenger car.
Lubos Brieda is the president of Particle in Cell consulting. They recently provided a third-party evaluation of the startup’s proof of concept. The Los Angeles-area engineer is enthusiastic about the future of small-scale approaches to fusion. He said, “The future is in these small reactors.”
Please read Part 2 next