Fusion Power Startups have long been followed by a stubborn question: Will the technology work?
But now with net-positive merger no longer The stuff of science fiction, a new harvest of startups was based on secular questions: Can reactors be built for less money? How can the maintenance be made easier? The answers could mean the difference between profitability and failure.
Francesco Volpe hopes that at least they will be. The founder and CTO of Renaissance fusion has been studying fusion for decades. Over the years, he has been inspired by various projects that have come in a unique view of a fusion reactor design, that is put on The attention of investors.
Renaissance collected a series A1 of 32 million euros, the company said exclusively to Techcrunch. The round was led by Crédit Mutuel Impact Environmental and solidarity revolution Fund with the participation of LowerCarbon Capital. The startup plans to use these funds to create a demonstrator that should prove the basic parts of its new design.
Fusion with a turn
The merger performance promises to produce large amounts of clean electricity from a rich fuel source. Most fusion startups follow one of two approaches: inertia restriction, in which laser compress fuel pellets for ignition fusion impulses and magnetic restriction, whereby large magnets of correction into long-burning fusion reactions.
Startarators, the species that Volpe designs, belong to the latter camp. They are defined by their apparently random phrases and boosts to stabilize the plasma by working with his quirks instead of fighting against them. A major experiment in Germany has proven the validity of the concept, but his confused magnets were a challenge for manufacturing.
The Renaissance based in Grenoble set out to simplify the actuator. It is not the only company that tries – – – Thea energy Is another – and his approach is more of a mix.
The reactive design of the startup looks like a polygon segmented tube, each decorated with etchings, resemble lines on a topographical map. But the lines are not freshly; Instead, you have the high-temperature super guidelines (HTS), which define the quirky contours of the plasma inside.
“I really wanted to simplify this to the necessary minimum,” Volpe told Techcrunch.
The first simplification of the segmented tubular sausage, inspired by its final research using Wendelstein 7-AS, an experimental stellarator.
“If you look at this from above, you can see a pentagonal form,” he said. “So I thought why we didn’t push it to the border. Let us literally make cylinders – not approximate cylinders, but actual cylinders. “
Other reactive designs use cylinders, but they tend to form plasma into a donut form, not to the radical curves that define a star material. In order to give his design the necessary twists, Volpe pulled the work of a Spanish colleague who printed a scaffold to lead cheap, flexible cables in the form of a star. The cables were much easier to make than the complex magnets of most actors, but the 3D printing part was not quite as commercial.
Volpe further simplifies the idea. Instead of replicating the complexity of the plasma in three -dimensional magnets, it flatters. The tubes in the design of Renaissance are covered with wide leaves of HTS magnets. In this coating, a laser etches a number of thin, meandering lines that circle the pipe. These lines separate a magnet from the next.
The magnetic field becomes stronger at points where the superconductive strips are wider. You will push back harder against the plasma in the tube. When the material is thinner, the magnetic field is weaker, so that the plasma extends. The exact shape of the plasma is determined by expanded computer simulations.
In order to protect the tubes from neutrons that fly out of the fusion reaction, the Renaissance bathes the interior with liquid lithium. To ensure that the liquid flows against the wall and does not drip on the plasma, the company turns an electrical current to the liquid metal, whereby a magnetic field is pulled to the powerful magnets on the outside of the tube. Small balls that contain melted lead floated in the liquid absorbed part of the neutron bombing. The liquid ceiling also fulfills triple by breeding more fuel for the reactor and transferring heat to power steam turbines.
Magnetic carpets
Volpe said that the Renaissance will be on the right track in the coming months of producing wide HTS carpets. A demonstrator that integrates tubular HTS magnets and liquid lithium walls should be finished by the end of 2026. Volpe hopes that the startup can build a full stellarator by the early 2030s, a timeline that is similar to other fusion startups.
Volpe hopes that the demonstrator will prove that the concept is greater than the sum of its parts, of which everyone was promising, but together could pave the way for a cheaper fusion reactor. “They connect the points. It is the essence of inspiration, ”said Volpe.
