Twisted Stellarator Reactor Is Coming to Market, Propel Nuclear Fusion Energy

Nuclear fusion could be the next big thing to help us achieve a carbon-free energy source. According to a new report, a fusion reactor will come to the market from the fusion company Type One Energy.

A Fusion Company Is Bringing Stellarator to the Market

There are three groups of fusion reactors - gravitational, inertial, and magnetic. Magnetic reactors are the most promising and can be grouped into two further camps - tokamaks and stellarators, MSN reported.

Stellarators are somewhat the dark horse compared to tokamaks, which are widely regarded (even by the US Department of Energy) as the leading concept for commercial fusion. However, stellarators have a few advantages over their well-known rival.

Stellarators are already making their way into the commercial world after fusion startup Type One Energy-which combines expertise from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics and MIT-received $29 million to develop its stellarator technology.

Fusion is the best energy source. Its successful commercialization will be a significant step toward providing everyone with clean, plentiful energy, said Carmichael Roberts, from the Bill Gates-backed Breakthrough Energy Ventures, in a press release. It is possible to achieve practical fusion on the grid in the upcoming decade thanks to developments in stellarator science, particularly Type One Energy's capacity to carry out stellarator development projects.

While working toward a functional fusion power plant, Type One Energy says it intends to build a stellarator test bed for assessing the accuracy of the business's models. However, the company hasn't given a particular deadline.

For now, stellarators will have a chance to popularize their peculiar "twist" on fusion power. But Type One Energy certainly faces a difficult path ahead, just like many other colleges, organizations, and businesses engaged in fusion energy.

Stellarators Vs. Tokamaks

Stellarators are tokamaks' distant cousins, with one significant exception. In addition to passing an electric current across the plasma, superconducting coils and a central solenoid are used in tokamaks, such as the forthcoming ITER. In contrast, stellarators use a sequence of twisting superconducting magnets to control the plasma rather than a plasma-based current.

There are six times more tokamak reactors than stellarators because it takes so much work to construct the latter's twisted arrangement. Tokamaks are better at maintaining plasma's heat, while stellarators like Germany's Wendelstein 7-X are better at containing plasma, said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Although stellarators are thought to be more difficult to build than tokamaks, they are now somewhat simpler to make, thanks to advances in computing technology. Supercomputers, for instance, were used to create the Wendelstein 7-X's exact twisting construction. The Department of Energy, however, notes that it can be extremely difficult to produce the huge bore wire coils with the millimeter accuracy required for these machines.

Additionally, there are other fusion concepts receiving startup treatment outside the stellarator. Companies are looking to explore ways to make inertial confinement fusion a green energy revolution after the National Ignition Facility's successful fusion test in December 2022. Additionally, there is a substantial amount of commercial interest in tokamaks.

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