‘Cheap and simple’ Bill Gates-backed fusion concept surpasses heat of the Sun in milestone moment
A fusion start-up says it has managed to generate temperatures that are hotter than the core of the Sun, at a “fraction of the complexity and cost” of its competitors.
Scientists at Zap Energy say they have “joined the rarefied ranks” of organizations that have made a plasma that replicates the core of the Sun. The extreme heat is needed to make parts of atoms fuse together – unleashing massive amounts of carbon-free energy, as the Sun does.
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Funded by oil and gas giant Chevron and the Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy, scientists at US company Zap are among many trying to make nuclear fusion work on Earth.
The first energy gain was reported by US scientists in 2022, raising hopes for fusion’s potential as a near-limitless power source that could help tackle climate change.
Zap’s unique approach
Zap’s chief scientist Uri Shumlak said the company’s tests “paint a good overall picture of a fusion plasma with room to scale towards energy gain”.
The Zap device is based on a concept called a “Z pinch”, in which the intensely hot plasma is confined in a small space, only a few meters wide and high. Leading fusion research uses a much larger machine called a tokamak to trap the plasma in a magnetic cage.
Compared to existing nuclear power plants, fusion wouldn’t generate long-term radioactive waste requiring storage for thousands of years.
Overcoming previous challenges
The Z pinch has previously stymied scientists because the plasma would quickly cool down. However, Zap Energy says it has mastered this problem with an experiment that lasted “long enough to produce very high temperatures” of between 11 million Celsius and 37 million Celsius. The temperature at the Sun’s core is about 15 million Celsius.
“These are meticulous, unequivocal measurements, yet made on a device of incredibly modest scale by traditional fusion standards,” said Ben Levitt, the company’s head of research.
“We’ve still got a lot of work ahead of us, but our performance to date has advanced to a point that we can now stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the world’s pre-eminent fusion devices, but with great efficiency, and at a fraction of the complexity and cost.”
Concerns about timelines
Plans are afoot in the UK to get a prototype fusion plant up and running by 2040. This means it is doubtful whether any fusion breakthroughs would come in time to achieve the world’s net zero goals by 2050. However, proponents of fusion say it could be a long-term energy source beyond that date.
“It would be counter-intuitive if not outright silly to say we’ve reached the deadline in 2050 so now we don’t need it any more,” International Atomic Energy Agency Chief Rafael Grossi said last year.
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Divya