Commonwealth Fusion Systems

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.

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

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. Fountain, Henry (29 September 2020). "Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Is 'Very Likely to Work,' Studies Suggest". New York Times. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
  2. "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. 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". Physics Today. 2020 (2): 1013a. doi:10.1063/PT.6.2.20201013a.
  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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