‘Clean Energy’ Nuclear Fusion Start-up gets Investment from Chevron
When it comes to alternative energy sources, perhaps the ‘Holy Grail’ of this arena is research into Nuclear Fusion – the energy source of the stars. But trying to duplicate the internal processes that occur in the core of our Sun, in a controlled and sustainable environment here on Earth has a lot of challenges.
One company focusing on overcoming these challenges, with a somewhat new and innovative approach, is Seattle, Washington based Zap Energy. This week the 2-year-old start-up got a financial boost from petroleum giant Chevron in the form of a Series A funding investment.
credit: Zap Energy
If it seems ironic that one of the world’s largest producers of fossil fuels is investing money into a company at the other end of the clean energy spectrum, its nothing new.
Chevron, and other companies like it, understand the limited nature of fossil fuel resources. The energy sources of tomorrow are evolving and the company is making these strategic investments to make sure that they remain a leading producer of energy in the future.
“We see fusion technology as a promising low-carbon future energy source,” said Barbara Burger, president of Chevron Technology Ventures. “Our Future Energy Fund investment in Zap Energy adds to Chevron’s portfolio of companies we believe are likely to have a role in the energy transition.”
Current nuclear energy power plants rely on a process of nuclear fission. This process takes the heat released by splitting the atoms in heavier elements, like uranium, into smaller ones. The heat energy boils water, and produces steam, which is used to turn electrical generators. The downside to this process is that it leaves behind tons of radioactive waste.
Nuclear fusion is a much different process. In the core of every star, including our Sun, the lightest element (Hydrogen) is compressed by the enormous gravitational forces until the atoms combine to produce Helium. As hydrogen atoms are squeezed into heavier helium, they also give off a lot of heat energy as a byproduct.
This process however, does not product any radioactive materials. It’s a very clean and efficient process which uses the most plentiful resource in the universe to create energy.
The challenge of recreating the power of the stars in a controlled environment is keeping the reaction contained at such high temperatures. Current approaches rely on using incredibly powerful electro-magnets, lasers or ion streams to contain the reaction. Each of which has its own problems.
So far, no one has been able to maintain a sustained fusion reaction that produces enough energy to off-set the amount of energy needed to power the containment method to create the reaction in the first place.
Zap uses a new approach: “By stabilizing the plasma with a sheared flow—that is, with plasma flowing at different velocities at different radii—the high-temperature, high-density reactive medium can be confined long enough for the fusion reactions to occur.”
The company believes they are on track to achieve an energy ‘break even’, and eventually positive output with their approach.
Zap will be using the money from the investment to continue to refine its approach to solving the challenges ahead, and add members to its research efforts.
This round of funding by Chevron into Zap Energy, is actually the 10th time in the last 2 years that the company has helped to fund research and development of alternative energy.
Other clean energy areas which have received financial help from the Chevron fund include wind, solar and geothermal.
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