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Commonwealth Fusion Systems

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Commonwealth Fusion Systems
Company typePrivately held company
Founded2018
Headquarters
Cambridge, Massachusetts
,
USA
Key people
CEO Bob Mumgaard[1]
Number of employees
100
Websitewww.cfs.energy

Commonwealth Fusion Systems is an American company aiming to build a compact fusion power plant based on the ARC tokamak concept.[2] The company is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

History

CFS was founded in 2018 as a spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC).[3] After initial funding of $50 million in 2018 from Eni,[2] CFS closed its Series A in 2019 with a total of $115 million in funding from Eni,[4] Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and others.[5][6] CFS raised an additional $84 million in Series A2 funding from Temasek, Equinor, and Devonshire Investors, as well as from previous investors.[7] As of October 2020, CFS had approximately 100 employees.[8]

Technology

The company plans to focus on proving new yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) high-temperature superconducting magnet technology, demonstrating a large-bore, high-field (20 Tesla) magnet in 2021.[7] This magnet technology will then be used to construct SPARC, a demonstration net energy tokamak.[9] It then plans to build a power plant based on the ARC design.[2] Both SPARC and ARC plan to use deuterium-tritium fuel.

In September 2020, the company reported significant progress in the physics and engineering design of the SPARC tokamak,[1][10] and in October 2020, the development of a new high temperature superconducting cable, called VIPER, capable of sustaining higher electric currents and magnetic fields than previously possible.[11][12]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Fountain, Henry (29 September 2020). "Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Is 'Very Likely to Work,' Studies Suggest". New York Times. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
  2. ^ a b c "MIT and newly formed company launch novel approach to fusion power". MIT News. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  3. ^ Tollefson, Jeff (9 March 2018). "MIT launches multimillion-dollar collaboration to develop fusion energy". Nature. pp. 294–295. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-02966-3. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  4. ^ Devlin, Hannah (9 March 2018). "Nuclear fusion on brink of being realised, say MIT scientists". the Guardian. Retrieved 16 April 2018.
  5. ^ Rathi, Akshat (September 26, 2018). "In search of clean energy, investments in nuclear-fusion startups are heating up". Quartz. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
  6. ^ "Commonwealth Fusion Systems Raises $115 Million and Closes Series A Round to Commercialize Fusion Energy". PR Newswire. Retrieved June 27, 2019.
  7. ^ a b Systems, Commonwealth Fusion. "Commonwealth Fusion Systems Raises $84 Million in A2 Round". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2020-05-26.
  8. ^ Aut, Kramer David author (2020-10-13). "Investments in privately funded fusion ventures grow". doi:10.1063/PT.6.2.20201013a. {{cite journal}}: |first= has generic name (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  9. ^ "A New Approach to Fusion Energy Starts Today | MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences". eapsweb.mit.edu. Retrieved 2019-04-09.
  10. ^ "New Scientific Papers Predict Historic Results for Commonwealth Fusion Systems' Approach to Commercial Fusion Energy". Commonwealth Fusion Systems. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
  11. ^ "New High-Temperature Superconductor (HTS) Cable Demonstrates High Performance". Commonwealth Fusion Systems. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
  12. ^ "Superconductor technology for smaller, sooner fusion". MIT PSFC. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
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