Copernicus, the nuclear fusion reactor that could save the world

Nuclear fusion manages to join atoms to create new elements, emitting a large amount of clean energy, without radioactive waste (unlike what happens with fission). It is the process carried out by stars, factories of elements that emit practically unlimited energy.

To reproduce nuclear fusion, a lot of pressure is necessary, bringing the atoms together a lot so that the phenomenon occurs. In stars, this is easy, because they are so large that gravity itself “pushes” the atoms, merging them with others, thus generating energy, but on Earth it is necessary to resort to human ingenuity.

The fact is that we have already talked about nuclear fusion on several occasions, and I will do it again today with news that helps us to be more optimistic about the future of this technology.

TAE Technologies has just announced new investments to build the Copernicus reactor, investments attracted after reaching 75 million degrees Celsius in the plasma necessary for the operation of the reactor, as well as unprecedented real-time control.

Fusion reactors need to use magnetism, plasma, very high temperatures… it’s not easy, but TAE, a pioneer in the field of hydrogen and boron fusion, believes that they will be able to produce enormous amounts of carbon-free electricity thanks to a reactor that will be built in a million square meters, in Irvine, California.

One thing is to produce clean fusion and another is to market it, and now we are already with the second objective. TAE already created the Norman reactor in 2017, and they managed to take it to 30 million degrees. Over time, they upgraded it to 75 million degrees, and now they’ve decided it’s time to build another one from scratch with all the experience the Norman reactor has given them over the last five years.

TAE has raised a total of $1.2 billion so far, and they will continue to work to find a long-term solution to global electricity demand. In this latest round of financing, it obtained 250 million from investors including Chevron, Google, Reimagined Ventures, Sumitomo Corporation of Americas and TIFF Investment Management.