Most current fusion energy projects require tritium, which is incredibly scarce and also unstable. TAE Technologies explains that it has found a way that is both cheaper and safer. By announcing hydrogen-boron (HB) fusion, TAE achieved a first in the world by performing tests in magnetically confined plasma.Hydrogen-boron used for the first time
With an investment of more than $1.2 billion behind it, TAE shared the results of its fifth generation fusion reactor called Norman, which is designed to sustain plasma at 30 million °C but has already exceeded 75 million °C. TAE is targeting plasma confinement of more than a billion degrees Celsius, many times hotter than tritium reactors would need by the early 2030s. In this goal, the company believes that the prototype lidded cylinder fusion reactors it designed, unlike other reactors, will play a key role.TAE has recently taken a big step towards its goals by publishing a peer-reviewed paper in the prestigious journal Nature Communications documenting the world’s first measurement of hydrogen-boron fusion in magnetically confined plasma. The tests were conducted with the LHD reactor of the National Institute of Fusion Science of Japan, which has the world’s largest superconducting plasma trapping device and the world’s second largest starr.
The results are promising
As a result of the tests, it was determined that HB fusion could increase to a measurable density. “This experiment gives us a wealth of data to work with and shows that hydrogen-pipe has a place for grid-scale fusion power,” said Michl Binderbauer, CEO of TAE Technologies. Binderbauer believes they can solve the physics problem at hand and unlock unlimited energy with this non-radioactive, abundant fuel.TAE has seen HB-based fusion work, and now it’s time to scale up. By the middle of the decade, the company plans to build a reactor called “Copernicus” that produces more energy than it consumes. The company expects its “Da Vinci” plant, which it says will be the world’s first prototype HB fusion power plant connected to the grid, to be up and running by the early 2030s.
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