Commonwealth Fusion Systems announced Thursday that it would sell high-temperature superconducting magnets to Reality Fusionthe second in a series of deals that suggest the company will rely heavily on its magnetic technology in the coming years to generate much-needed revenue.
“This is the largest transaction of its kind to date for CFS,” Rick Needham, the company’s chief commercial officer, said in a phone call.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems, or CFS, formerly sold magnets to the WHAM experience at the University of Wisconsin, with which fusion startup Realta collaborates closely. The physics behind WHAM underpins Realta’s approach to fusion energy, known as the magnetic mirror reactor.
In a magnetic mirror, the plasma is confined in a shape that resembles two 2-liter soda bottles connected at the base. At each end, powerful magnets strike the plasma and push it back toward the center. Weaker magnets surround the middle of the bottle shape.
To make a more powerful reactor, Realta, supported by Khosla it would be enough to enlarge the central section, and since these magnets are less powerful, they are less expensive. Costs per kilowatt hour are expected to decrease as the size of Realta’s reactors increases.
CFS studies another form of magnetic confinement fusion called tokamak. In a tokamak, D-shaped magnets project powerful fields to keep the plasma circulating in the shape of a donut inside. Over the years, the company has perfected its magnets with the aim of putting electrons from Arc, its future commercial-scale reactor, on the grid. should be built in Virginia.
The existence of CFS and Realta arises from the magnets themselves. CFS was founded in 2018 after MIT scientists realized that a new class of commercially available high-temperature superconductors could support a viable tokamak design. Realta was founded a few years later when physicists at the University of Wisconsin “saw that there was a new technology, a turning point that would allow us to return to present times.” [magnetic] mirror and take advantage of the technical advantages of the concept,” said co-founder and CEO Kieran Furlong.
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In addition to the agreements with Realta and WHAM, CFS has also licensed its high-temperature superconducting magnet technology to Type 1 fusionwhich is working on a third type of reactor called a stellarator. While this latest deal doesn’t include CFS building actual magnets for the company, it could lead to that one day, Christine Dunn, CFS’s external communications manager, told TechCrunch.
These agreements will help CFS recoup its investment in magnet manufacturing. The startup spent seven years and hundreds of millions of dollars building a factory capable of producing high-temperature superconducting magnets designed to fusion power specifications. So far, this sum has been used to build Sparc, the company’s demonstration reactor, which will not come online until later this year.
“With Sparc now 70% complete, it was an excellent time to start supporting Realta in manufacturing our magnets,” Needham said.
Since Realta and Type One are pursuing different reactor designs, CFS apparently does not view them as directly competitive at this time. In the market, Realta and CFS are even further apart, with the former initially focusing on industrial applications requiring large amounts of heat.
To date, the CFS has raised nearly $3 billion – an amount a large portion of all risk dollars raised by merger startups. This puts the company in an enviable position, giving it the means to build key facilities like its magnet factory before its competitors can. The startup presents these agreements as a service to the broader fusion industry, making available technologies that would cost millions to replicate. That’s certainly true, but it also gives it access to even more venture capital investment, even if in a roundabout way.
Updated 1:45 p.m. ET: The CFS manufacturing facility makes HTS magnets, not tape, and it will not remain idle but will make additional magnets for Sparc. The article also misstated Rick Needham’s role as COO; he is CCO.
Tim De Chant is senior climate reporter at TechCrunch. He has written for a wide range of publications, including Wired magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Ars Technica, The Wire China, and NOVA Next, where he was a founding editor.
De Chant is also a lecturer in MIT’s graduate science writing program, and he received a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, during which time he studied climate technologies and explored new business models for journalism. He received his doctorate in environmental science, policy and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his bachelor’s degree in environmental studies, English and biology from St. Olaf College.
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