Tokamak Energy subsidiary chosen for commercial fusion program

The DOE’s $46m Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program supports private companies in bringing fusion energy toward technical and commercial viability. 

In a five-to-10-year window, selected companies will team with US national laboratories, universities, and others to address major technical and commercialisation milestones for the successful design of a fusion pilot plant.

The program includes Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Focused Energy Inc, Princeton Stellarators Inc, Realta Fusion Inc, Type One Energy Group,  Xcimer Energy Inc, and Zap Energy Inc.

Warrick Matthews, Tokamak Energy’s managing director, said: “We are delighted to be selected by the US DOE for its Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program. It’s a fantastic endorsement of the strength of our team, technology and path to commercial fusion energy, combining the spherical tokamak with high temperature superconducting magnets.

“We look forward to working with the DOE on the next steps towards delivering clean, secure, affordable fusion power to the world, addressing the twin challenges of energy security and climate change.” 

Tokamak Energy, with over 10 years’ experience of designing, building and operating tokamaks, has links with US national laboratories, including Oak Ridge, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and Los Alamos, plus the University of Illinois.

In a separate development, Tokamak Energy and General Atomics (GA) have signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on high temperature superconducting technology for fusion energy and other applications, including aviation, naval, space and medical.

The collaboration will utilise GA’s capabilities for manufacturing large-scale magnet systems and Tokamak Energy’s expertise in HTS magnet technologies.

“GA has significant experience, knowledge and facilities to produce large superconducting magnets at scale,” said Matthews. “Tokamak Energy has been developing HTS technologies for fusion for over a decade. The integration of these complementary capabilities promises to accelerate the development and production of HTS technologies in additional fields, such as aviation, naval, space and medical applications.”