Realta Fusion

The Asia-Pacific and ASEAN regions are home to some of the largest and fastest growing economies in the world, but that growth – particularly in island states like Singapore – will ultimately be limited by where they get the energy that underpins those economies. In the case of Singapore, which imports most of its energy in the form of fossil fuels, expensive efforts to establish grid connections to hydropower in Laos and Australian solar don’t solve the larger problem. Fusion energy could represent a pressure release valve for Singapore, providing clean, domestic, always-on power and unleashing unprecedented regional economic growth. Next week our CEO and Co-founder Kieran Furlong will head to Seoul for FusionX:Korea, a high-level summit connecting global fusion leaders, supply chain partners, and investors to drive commercial progress, and then to Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW) to take part in the Singapore-U.S. Forum, a platform to catalyze international economic cooperation and policy unity on fusion in the ASEAN region. We’re excited to get back on the ground in Singapore and continue building the relationships in the Asia-Pacific and ASEAN regions that will be critical to delivering viable commercial fusion energy to the places that need it most. #FusionX - FusionX Group - US-ASEAN Business Council - U.S. Department of Commerce

🚨🚨🚨 WE'RE HIRING🚨🚨🚨 Realta Fusion is in the market for four elite new fusioneers to supercharge our physics and engineering work. https://lnkd.in/eWk99Gnr We’re looking for the following people to join our growing team in Madison: 🔧 A gear-head Mechanical Engineer who can design and develop our primary and secondary mechanical fusion components and subsystems; 💻 A galaxy-brained Theoretical & Computational Scientist who can match our modeling and simulation work with our experimental data on the axisymmetric magnetic mirror; ⚡ A live-wire Electrical Engineer who can help design, assemble, test, and iterate on our high voltage and power transmission systems; and ☃️ A cold-as-ice Senior Cryogenics Engineer who can lead the design, development, and operation of our advanced cryogenic systems. To anyone who thinks they have what it takes to make fusion real, throw those hats in the ring.

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science released its Fusion Science & Technology (FS&T) Roadmap last week, a strong signal of the department’s earnest commitment to putting all the pieces of the fusion energy commercialization puzzle together. One exciting Easter Egg found in the report is the specific acknowledgement of the pressing need for a volumetric neutron source (VNS), a test stand that could meet the requirements of three distinct but equally critical FS&T facilities outlined in the report within one single device. A VNS could serve as a: ⚛️ Fusion Prototypic Neutron Source (FPNS);  🏗️ Blanket Component Test Facility (BCTF); and a  🧪 Fuel Cycle Test Facility (FCTF). The VNS as a single test stand would provide several orders of magnitude more testing volume for bombarding blanket components and other materials with ample fast neutrons than what is cumulatively available across all fusion machines on planet earth today. Further, the VNS would allow fusion companies to test all parts of their fuel cycle system technologies to create a continuously operational deuterium-tritium fuel cycle that can efficiently breed, extract, process, and inject tritium back into fusion plasmas. The magnetic mirror, Realta Fusion’s specific approach to fusion, is essentially a linear, cylindrical magnetic bottle with no complicated twists and turns that is uniquely suited to providing the required level of testing volume and amount of fast neutrons the industry will need access to as they look to test and validate their own blanket components, materials, and fuel cycle system designs. The VNS is not a power plant. It’s three fusion machines in one that is purpose-built to unlock the construction of commercially viable fusion power plants for the benefit of all humankind. Building the three separate facilities listed above could cost as much as $4 billion dollars. A VNS that performs all three functions could be built for a fraction of that cost, representing an incredible value for the investment. The DOE supports it, the industry needs it, and Realta Fusion is prepared to build it. 

We recently brought that patented Realta Fusion energy to a local elementary school fun run to take full advantage of the warm weather before it starts to get a bit nippy up here in Wisconsin. One of our co-founders, University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Oliver Schmitz, was on hand with his daughter to get the legs pumping and soak up some of the remaining sunshine. Realta Fusion are on a mission to unlock the limitless potential of humanity while addressing the threat of climate change, and it’s an important part of our culture to stay eternally focused on the impact we can have on our planet and on those who will inherit it from us, like the students who participated in this event. Thank you to Oliver for representing Realta Fusion on the day, letting us share these photos, and reminding us all why we do what we do and who we do it for. 

Earlier this week the fusion industry gathered in Washington, DC to share our collective progress toward viable commercial fusion energy and identify new opportunities to work together to get there sooner than anyone could on their own. Realta Fusion's VP of R&D Derek Sutherland and Co-founder and CSO Prof. Cary Forest were in attendance at the Fusion Industry Association’s U.S. Fusion Forum speaking on a panel about the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program and how private companies, labs, and universities can collaborate to make fusion energy real on a timescale that will matter. Our Experimental Scientist Elliot L. Claveau and Head of External Affairs Robb Hughes were also on site to give the community a taste of the magnetic mirror and our compact, scalable, modular – CoSMo fusion™ – approach to delivering grid-scale electricity and industrial heat and power. Fusion comes in many flavors, from commercial fusion power plant developers and national laboratories to supply chain companies and policymakers, and many more with a vested interest in seeing the industry move forward. Seeing us all together in one space is meaningful, and we thank the FIA for providing the platform. The energy is palpable. The momentum is real. The time is now.

It’s always a treat (but never a trick) when we get to work with Stellar Tech Girls to empower young girls to find their place in the STEAM community. As Spooky Season approaches, we encourage our friends in the Madison area to act now and get a ticket for an aspiring scientist or engineer in their life to a hands-on session where kids can learn about energy, wire an electrical circuit, and design their own light-up Halloween decoration that they get to take home! Thank you, Stellar Tech Girls CEO Marina Bloomer, for standing up another creative and engaging opportunity for young girls. Bonus: attendees at this workshop will get a chance to meet our stellar (see what we did there?) scientists Ishita Agarwal and Maria Stefaniak, who have graciously volunteered to support the program. Happy early Halloween! https://lnkd.in/etg5u2Bu

Creating a hot, dense, and stable fusion plasma is one thing, but finding the right materials to wrap around it is another challenge altogether. Today, we move $19 million closer to addressing the second part. https://lnkd.in/eUZCyGYF The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced the recipients of the Fusion Innovation Research Engine (FIRE) Collaboratives program, which included a $19 million award for the University of Wisconsin-Madison and partners from academia, national labs, and industry to conceive, manufacture, and comprehensively test fusion blanket components. The FIRE award is led by Realta Fusion Co-founder and UW-Madison Associate Professor Ben Lindley, whose expertise in nuclear engineering and engineering physics will be critical to validating the performance of lead-lithium and lithium-beryllium fluoride under the intense heat and magnetic field conditions associated with fusion energy. As a partner to UW-Madison on this project, Realta Fusion’s Research Operations Manager Craig Jacobson will lead our work exploring the cooling performance of lead-lithium on the WHAM experiment. Congratulations to Ben and Craig on this award, a massive boost to testing and validating the materials the entire industry will need to move fusion forward.

This summer we announced exciting peer-reviewed results from our theory team, published in the Cambridge University Press Journal of Plasma Physics. One paper, led by our theory team lead Sam Frank, established the computational basis for predicting plasma performance in a magnetic mirror fusion machine and estimated a scientific energy gain of Q>5 or higher in a tandem configuration. A second paper, led by our University of Wisconsin-Madison collaborator Aaron Tran, marked significant progress in the characterization of plasma instabilities associated with the magnetic mirror. This article from the The Daily Cardinal dives deep into the results of these papers with Sam, Aaron, and Realta Fusion scientist Kai Shih, whose contribution to our theory work has been critical to increasing the fidelity with which our computational models match the real-world data we’re gathering from WHAM, our experimental reactor. https://lnkd.in/eiBEMpwv That's how we de-risk the physics of the magnetic mirror so we can go out and actually build the machines we need to power the future. (H/T to Sonia Bendre at the Daily Cardinal for her outstanding work on this piece.)

📣📣📣 Attention founders, funders, innovators, researchers, and anyone else with an interest in growing the fusion energy ecosystem: come join us tonight for Nuclear Night at Climate Week NYC! 🚨 🚨 🚨 TO REGISTER: https://lnkd.in/ea6z-mQs Realta Fusion CEO and Co-founder Kieran Furlong will be speaking along with Matt Loszak at Aalo Atomics, Greg Piefer at SHINE Technologies, Justin Cohen at Maritime Fusion, Charles Swanson at Thea Energy, and Adriel Barrett-Johnson at X-energy. Thank you to Alumni Ventures US Strategic Tech Fund (an Alumni Ventures Fund) for bringing everyone together to help build the future of clean, reliable energy.

Fusion was the hot topic on Capitol Hill yesterday, as the Energy Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology held a hearing entitled “Igniting America’s Energy Future: The Promise and Progress of Fusion Power.” The fusion community was represented by University of Wisconsin-Madison Assistant Professor Dr. Steffi Diem, Commonwealth Fusion Systems Co-Founder & CEO Dr. Bob Mumgaard, Pacific Fusion Co-Founder & President Dr. Will Regan, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory Director of Fusion Energy Division Dr. Troy Carter. These four passionate advocates for fusion made several things clear on the day: ⚛️ Fusion energy is the way forward, and data centers are one of the most important applications for fusion 🏁 We’re in a race to the finish line with China, who are mobilizing faster at scale on fusion than the US 💰 We need a one-time infusion of $10B in government support to stand up the fusion-enabling technologies - such as a volumetric neutron source for materials testing – that will help the entire industry move forward so we can all go out and build our power plants 🏗️ Regional partnerships, fusion hubs, and workforce development programs are pieces of the puzzle we cannot ignore And a special thank you to Steffi for the shout-out to Realta Fusion, one of three University of Wisconsin-Madison fusion spinouts – or four, if you ask Representative (and physicist) Bill Foster – and one of the eight private companies who comprise the DOE Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program.