Milestone from TAE Technologies towards Cost-Competitive Carbon-Free Baseload Energy from Hydrogen-Boron Fuel Cycle. TAE Technologies, the world’s largest private fusion energy company, has announced a landmark fusion technology milestone by producing stable plasma at 50M+ degrees Celsius in a proprietary compact reactor design that can scale to competitive fusion-generated power.
This milestone furthers confidence in TAE’s path to commercialization, and has aided the company in raising $280M in additional funding. When combined with prior rounds, TAE has now raised over $880M from some of the world’s most sophisticated investors.
The latest financing is the direct result of TAE achieving its most recent scientific milestone on the path to delivering carbon-free baseload energy from the Hydrogen-Boron (aka H-B11 or p-B11) fuel cycle, the most abundant and environmentally friendly fuel source on Earth, capable of sustaining the planet for millennia.
This success crucially confirms a key differentiator of TAE’s patented technology: a positive relationship between plasma confinement and reactor temperature, meaning that the company’s compact linear configuration improves plasma confinement as temperatures rise. By generating such stable high temperature plasmas, TAE has now validated that the company’s unique approach can scale to the conditions necessary for an economically viable commercial fusion power plant by the end of the decade.
READ the latest news shaping the hydrogen market at Hydrogen Central
A portion of the capital will be used to initiate development of a demonstration facility called “Copernicus” that will operate well in excess of 100 million degrees Celsius to simulate net energy production from the conventional Deuterium-Tritium (D-T) fuel cycle. Copernicus will provide opportunities for TAE to license its technology for D-T fusion, while scaling to its ultimate goal utilizing p-B11.
Use of proceeds will also go to rapid commercialization of TAE’s revolutionary Power Management technology, born out of the power delivery systems for its fusion projects. This technology will be used to extend range, efficiency, and faster charging of electric vehicles, as well as for deployment in residential, commercial, industrial, and utility-scale electrical grid applications.
The continuing delivery of these scientific results has propelled TAE to bring in funding with accelerated velocity, including over $130M raised just this year. Broad global support has come from existing investors as well as from new strategic partners, sovereign wealth funds, institutional investors, and family offices spanning the globe. The company counts among its shareholders Vulcan, Venrock, NEA, Wellcome Trust, Google and the Kuwait Investment Authority, as well as the family offices of Addison Fischer, Art Samberg, and Charles Schwab, among others.
TAE has received funding in tranches based on projecting and achieving specific programmatic goals. This “money by milestone” approach has kept the company on time and on (or under) budget for its entire existence of more than 20 years.
Fusion Energy Milestone from TAE Technologies Validates Path to Cost-Competitive Carbon-Free Baseload Energy, Apr 08, 2021