Week 22 of 2023

Three nuclear energy innovation news!

💡 Three nuclear energy innovation news this week!

FOCUS ON FUSION!

🍩 Munich-based Proxima Fusion, a spin-out from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, raises a 7M€ pre-seed round from UVC Partners, Plural Platform, Wilbe, and HTGF. It builds upon the experience gained with the W7-X and the latest computing & manufacturing techniques to develop an advanced stellarator.

🌞 The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) awards a total of 46M$ to eight fusion energy companies, namely Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Focused Energy Inc., Princeton Stellarators, Realta Fusion, Tokamak Energy, Type One Energy Group, Xcimer Energy Corporation, and Zap Energy. This funding covers the first 18 months of projects that may last up to 5 years, with a total funding of 415M$.

🧲 General Atomics (US) and Tokamak Energy (UK) sign a memorandum of understanding to cooperate high temperature superconducting (HTS) technology for fusion energy and other industry applications.

🎓 Paper of the week: "Achievement of ion temperatures in excess of 100 million degrees Kelvin in the compact high-field spherical tokamak ST40", Nuclear Fusion (2023). https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1741-4326/acbec8

👇 Did you spot anything else? Let me know!

(illustration by Hugo Lara from Révolution Energétique, using Midjourney)