Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Energy |
Founded | 2017 |
Headquarters | Seattle, Washington , US |
Key people | Benj Conway (President, CEO), Brian A. Nelson (CTO), Uri Shumlak (CSO) |
Number of employees | 150 (2024) |
Website | www |
Zap Energy is an American privately held company that aims to commercialize fusion power through use of a sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch. The firm is based in Seattle Washington, with research facilities nearby in Everett and Mukilteo, Washington. [1] The firm aims to scale their technology to maintain plasma stability at increasingly higher energy levels, with the goal of achieving scientific breakeven and eventual commercial profitability. [2] [3] [4]
The conceptual basis for the technology was developed at the University of Washington led by Uri Shumlak. Zap Energy formed following the positive initial results achieved by an experimental device named Fusion Z-pinch Experiment (FuZE) as part of the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) ALPHA program. The firm was co-founded by British entrepreneur and investor Benj Conway (President, CEO), with technologist Brian A. Nelson (Chief Technology Officer), and physicist Uri Shumlak (Chief Science Officer). [5]
A pinch effect occurs when a current flowing in a conductor produces an inward-directed force, squeezing the conductor. The conductor in pinch fusion is a plasma of fusion fuel (in magneto-inertial fusion it may be an imploding liner). The current is induced using either an external magnet, or directly applied by electrodes in a reaction chamber. The device's relative simplicity led many researchers around the world to build pinch systems.
In early experiments, pinch systems were found to be unstable and the plasma was quickly forced into the walls of the reaction chamber, cooling and quenching the plasma so that fusion does not occur. This led to the development of stabilized pinch machines, most notably ZETA in the United Kingdom. At first, it appeared these designs were free from the instabilities of the earlier devices. However, further investigation showed that new microinstabilities were just as effective at destroying confinement as the earlier, larger, instabilities had been. With no obvious solution to these new class of problems, major research on the classic pinch devices ended by the early 1960s.
The idea of using the flow of the plasma as an added stabilizing force emerged in the 1990s. [6] In this concept, the pinch is developed such that the plasma flows at different, faster speeds at increasing distances from the center of the plasma column, with the outer layers being about ten times as fast as the center. [6] The magnetic field created by the pinch current is a function of both the density and speed of the charges. This causes the resulting pinch field to be non-linear across the plasma column. This surpasses the growth rate of the kink, sausage and interchange instabilities. The exact conditions that need to be reached to stabilize the pinch is an open area of research. [7] [8]
Zap Energy's technical origins rely on the work of Dr. Uri Shumlak at the University of Washington, starting in 1995. [6] The university built three experimental machines to test the flowing pinch:
The Shumlak lab developed custom tools to measure their plasmas. [13]
Zap Energy was founded in 2017 as a research spin-off from the Fusion Z-pinch Experiment (FuZE) research team at the University of Washington and collaborations with researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. [14] Zap Energy then built a next generation fusion core, FuZE-Q (2021–present at Zap Energy). Zap achieved their first fusion reaction as a business in 2018, [15] but in November 2021, Livermore National Laboratory provided an independent and more precise measurement of neutron production inside the flowing pinch, proving that the machine can do fusion with deuterium fuel. [16] The effort was led by ARPA-E, where the agency organized fusion teams to support private fusion companies.
From 2015 to 2020, a series of U.S. Department of Energy grants enabled the team to test their sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch reactor at progressively higher energy levels. [18] [19] [20] [21]
In July 2020, Zap Energy raised $6.5 million in Series A round funding. [22]
In May 2021, Zap closed $27.5 million in Series B funding including from Addition, Energy Impact Partners, Chevron Technology Ventures, and Lowercarbon Capital. [23] [5] [24] Chevron's financing was the first investment in fusion energy by a major U.S. oil company. [25] [26]
In June 2022, Zap Energy announced first plasmas in their breakeven device (FuZE-Q) and a $160 million Series C raise backed by Lowercarbon Capital, Bill Gates's Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Shell PLC, Valor, DCVC, Energy Impact Partners, Chevron, and others. [27] [28]
In October 2022, the Centralia Coal Transition Energy Technology Board awarded a $1 million grant to Zap Energy to fund the costs of assessing the feasibility of constructing a Zap fusion energy pilot plant at the site of the TransAlta Big Hanaford gas power plant. [29]
In May 2023, Zap Energy was one of eight companies chosen for the United States Department of Energy Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program. [30] [31]
In June 2023, Zap Energy secured significant new repetitive pulsed power manufacturing capabilities by acquiring the liquidated assets of ICAR. [32] Also in June, Zap Energy was selected as a World Economic Forum Technology Unicorn, valued at more than one billion USD. [33]
In April 2024, Zap Energy published a research paper showing that FuZE had demonstrated 1-3 keV plasma electron temperatures (11 to 37 million degrees C), the simplest, smallest, and lowest cost device to do so. [34]
In October 2024, the firm announced that it closed a $130 million Series D and had begun operating a platform named Century to do integrated tests of power plant relevant technologies like repetitive pulsed power and liquid metal walls. [35]
The Zap Energy reactor is a pulsed power system with no external magnets. [1] [36] [12] The machine is a ~2 meter long metal tube with a cathode running halfway down the middle. A voltage is applied between the central cathode and the grounded wall. Fusion fuel is puffed in the back of the machine, which ionizes due to Paschen breakdown, creating a plasma. [17] This plasma sweeps forward and assembles into a ~50 cm long flowing pinch in the gap between the cathode and the wall.
Zap Energy has outfitted these machines with tools to measure the performance of the flowing pinch. These tools include:
Other diagnostic tools have been used to measure the pinches, many in partnership with experimenters from United States Department of Energy National Laboratories.
Zap Energy argued that the rate of fusion in a flowing pinch scales as the pinch current to the 11th power [39] [40] [41] and that because of this, all that is needed to generate net power from a flowing pinch is higher current. However, this scaling model is based on adiabatic plasmas and that model fails to capture all real-world behavior.[ citation needed ]
Critics have pointed out that higher currents could introduce drift waves (drift instabilities) and shock waves that could tear the plasma apart. [41] In drift waves, the (+) ions and (-) electrons move at different speeds because of their mass differences, and this disrupts the plasma. Shock waves could form during the pinch assembly process. When the plasma sweeps together at high speeds, the two plasma waves could form a shock wave at higher speeds. Possible solutions include finding other ways to form a pinch plasma.
Supporting simulations suggest that to reach net power, ~650 kiloamps (kA) of current is needed through the flowing pinch. As of late 2021, the firm was testing with currents reaching 500 kA. [42]
Zap Energy proposed to surround the pinch with a molten metal blanket to absorb the energetic neutrons emitted by the pinch plasma. The blanket would convert the fusion energy to heat, which could in turn drive a steam turbine. This approach is similar to those proposed for inertial confinement fusion, and by First Light Fusion, General Fusion, several other fusion efforts, and shares several traits with cooling systems proven in operating fission nuclear reactors cooled with liquid metal sodium.
The higher pinch currents that are needed for scale-up introduce the possibility of electrode melting and erosion. This kind of erosion has been researched extensively within the field of spacecraft electric propulsion. In 2021, Zap's cathodes were made from copper coated with tungsten carbide, which has a maximum melting point of 3,103 kelvin. [43] Possible solutions include materials like graphene, making machines with bigger spot sizes, active cooling, or other work-around.
Another critique is that the volume of plasma inside the narrow pinch beam is relatively small relative to fusion machines such as magnetic mirrors, tokamaks, or other fusion devices. This caps the amount of fusion fuel, and subsequently, the amount of energy that can be made in a flowing pinch. Possible solutions include higher shot rates, multiple machines, and longer and wider pinch beams.
Nuclear fusion is a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei, combine to form one or more atomic nuclei and neutrons. The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as either the release or absorption of energy. This difference in mass arises as a result of the difference in nuclear binding energy between the atomic nuclei before and after the fusion reaction. Nuclear fusion is the process that powers active or main-sequence stars and other high-magnitude stars, where large amounts of energy are released.
A tokamak is a device which uses a powerful magnetic field generated by external magnets to confine plasma in the shape of an axially symmetrical torus. The tokamak is one of several types of magnetic confinement devices being developed to produce controlled thermonuclear fusion power. The tokamak concept is currently one of the leading candidates for a practical fusion reactor.
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 designed to harness this energy are known as fusion reactors. Research into fusion reactors began in the 1940s, but as of 2024, no device has reached net power, although net positive reactions have been achieved.
This timeline of nuclear fusion is an incomplete chronological summary of significant events in the study and use of nuclear fusion.
Inertial electrostatic confinement, or IEC, is a class of fusion power devices that use electric fields to confine the plasma rather than the more common approach using magnetic fields found in magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) designs. Most IEC devices directly accelerate their fuel to fusion conditions, thereby avoiding energy losses seen during the longer heating stages of MCF devices. In theory, this makes them more suitable for using alternative aneutronic fusion fuels, which offer a number of major practical benefits and makes IEC devices one of the more widely studied approaches to fusion.
In fusion power research, the Z-pinch is a type of plasma confinement system that uses an electric current in the plasma to generate a magnetic field that compresses it. These systems were originally referred to simply as pinch or Bennett pinch, but the introduction of the θ-pinch concept led to the need for clearer, more precise terminology.
Aneutronic fusion is any form of fusion power in which very little of the energy released is carried by neutrons. While the lowest-threshold nuclear fusion reactions release up to 80% of their energy in the form of neutrons, aneutronic reactions release energy in the form of charged particles, typically protons or alpha particles. Successful aneutronic fusion would greatly reduce problems associated with neutron radiation such as damaging ionizing radiation, neutron activation, reactor maintenance, and requirements for biological shielding, remote handling and safety.
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. Magnetic confinement is one of two major branches of controlled fusion research, along with inertial confinement fusion.
A field-reversed configuration (FRC) is a type of plasma device studied as a means of producing nuclear fusion. It confines a plasma on closed magnetic field lines without a central penetration. In an FRC, the plasma has the form of a self-stable torus, similar to a smoke ring.
A dense plasma focus (DPF) is a type of plasma generating system originally developed as a fusion power device starting in the early 1960s. The system demonstrated scaling laws that suggested it would not be useful in the commercial power role, and since the 1980s it has been used primarily as a fusion teaching system, and as a source of neutrons and X-rays.
A pinch is the compression of an electrically conducting filament by magnetic forces, or a device that does such. The conductor is usually a plasma, but could also be a solid or liquid metal. Pinches were the first type of device used for experiments in controlled nuclear fusion power.
The polywell is a proposed design for a fusion reactor using an electric and magnetic field to heat ions to fusion conditions.
A linear transformer driver (LTD) within physics and energy, is an annular parallel connection of switches and capacitors. The driver is designed to deliver rapid high power pulses. The LTD was invented at the Institute of High Current Electronics (IHCE) in Tomsk, Russia. The LTD is capable of producing high current pulses, up to 1 mega amps (106 ampere), with a risetime of less than 100 ns. This is an improvement over Marx generator based pulsed power devices which require pulse compression to achieve such fast risetimes. It is being considered as a driver for z-pinch based inertial confinement fusion.
Magnetized target fusion (MTF) is a fusion power concept that combines features of magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) and inertial confinement fusion (ICF). Like the magnetic approach, the fusion fuel is confined at lower density by magnetic fields while it is heated into a plasma. As with the inertial approach, fusion is initiated by rapidly squeezing the target to greatly increase fuel density and temperature. Although the resulting density is far lower than in ICF, it is thought that the combination of longer confinement times and better heat retention will let MTF operate, yet be easier to build. The term magneto-inertial fusion (MIF) is similar, but encompasses a wider variety of arrangements. The two terms are often applied interchangeably to experiments.
TAE Technologies, formerly Tri Alpha Energy, is an American company based in Foothill Ranch, California developing aneutronic fusion power. The company's design relies on an advanced beam-driven field-reversed configuration (FRC), which combines features from accelerator physics 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 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.
Leopoldo Soto Norambuena, who publishes as Leopoldo Soto, is a Chilean physicist. He works at the Comisión Chilena de Energía Nuclear, where he founded the Plasma Physics and Nuclear Fusion Laboratory. His main contributions are in experimental physics.
The history of nuclear fusion began early in the 20th century as an inquiry into how stars powered themselves and expanded to incorporate a broad inquiry into the nature of matter and energy, as potential applications expanded to include warfare, energy production and rocket propulsion.
Theta-pinch, or θ-pinch, is a type of fusion power reactor design. The name refers to the configuration of currents used to confine the plasma fuel in the reactor, arranged to run around a cylinder in the direction normally denoted as theta in polar coordinate diagrams. The name was chosen to differentiate it from machines based on the pinch effect that arranged their currents running down the centre of the cylinder; these became known as z-pinch machines, referring to the Z-axis in cartesian coordinates.
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