Commonwealth Fusion Systems is counting on magnets for near-term revenue

Commonwealth Fusion Systems said Thursday it will sell high-temperature superconducting magnets to Fusion realitythe second in a series of deals that indicate the company will rely heavily on its magnet technology in the coming years to generate much-needed revenue.

“It is the largest deal of this type to date for CFS,” Rick Needham, the company’s chief operating officer, told reporters by phone.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems, or CFS, formerly Sell ​​magnets for WHAM experience at the University of Wisconsin, with which the startup Realta collaborates closely. The physics behind WHAM underpins Realta’s approach to fusion energy, which is known as a magnetic mirror reactor.

In a magnetic mirror, the plasma is confined to a shape that resembles two two-liter soda bottles joined at the base. At each end, powerful magnets strike the plasma and force it back toward the center. Weaker magnets surround the middle of the bottle shape.

To make a stronger reactor Rialta backed by Khosla You’ll only need to widen the middle section, and because those magnets are less powerful, they’re cheaper. It is assumed that kilowatt-hour costs will decrease as the size of Rialta’s reactors increases.

CFS is pursuing another form of magnetic confinement fusion called a tokamak. In a tokamak, D-shaped magnets emit strong fields to keep the plasma rotating in a donut-like shape inside. Over the years, the company has improved its magnets in an effort to put electrons on the grid from Arc, its future commercial reactor. It is scheduled to be built in Virginia.

The existence of both CFS and Realta stems from the same magnet. CFS was founded in 2018 after scientists at MIT realized that a new class of commercially available high-temperature superconductors could support the design of a viable tokamak. Realta was founded a few years later when physicists at the University of Wisconsin “saw that there was a new, game-changing technology that would enable us to go back to the[magnetic]mirror and take advantage of those engineering advantages that that concept had,” said co-founder and CEO Kieran Furlong.

In addition to the Realta and WHAM deals, CFS has also licensed its high-temperature superconducting magnet technology to One type fusionwhich is working on a third type of reactor design known as a stellarator. While the latest deal doesn’t involve CFS building an actual magnet for the company, it could one day do so, Christine Dunn, head of external communications at CFS, told TechCrunch.

These deals will help CFS repay its investments in magnet manufacturing. The startup spent seven years and hundreds of millions of dollars building a factory capable of producing a high-temperature superconducting ribbon designed to fusion energy specifications. So far, these materials have been used to build the company’s experimental reactor, which will not be operational until later this year. There will be a gap until work on the commercial-scale Arc power plant begins in earnest. These deals keep the factory running between them.

“With the Spark project now 70% complete, the timing was perfect to begin supporting Realta with our magnet manufacturing,” Needham said.

Since Realta and Type One are pursuing different reactor designs, it is clear that CFS does not view them as direct competitors at this time. In the market, there is a divergence between Realta and CFS, with the former initially focusing on industrial applications that need large amounts of heat.

To date, CFS has raised nearly $3 billion – A A big chunk of all the project dollars Raised by fusion startups. This puts the company in an enviable position, giving it the means to build key facilities such as its magnet factory before competitors can. The startup offers these deals as a service to the broader fusion industry, making available technologies that would otherwise cost multi-million to replicate. This is certainly true, but it also gives her access to more venture capital, even if indirectly.