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Zap Energy
Zap Energy is an American privately held company that aims to commercialize fusion power through use of a sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch. The firm is based in Seattle Washington, with research facilities nearby in Everett and Mukilteo, Washington. The firm aims to scale their technology to maintain plasma stability at increasingly higher energy levels, with the goal of achieving scientific breakeven and eventual commercial profitability.
The conceptual basis for the technology was developed at the University of Washington led by Uri Shumlak. Zap Energy formed following the positive initial results achieved by an experimental device named Fusion Z-pinch Experiment (FuZE) as part of the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) ALPHA program. The firm was co-founded by British entrepreneur and investor Benj Conway (President, CEO), with technologist Brian A. Nelson (Chief Technology Officer), and physicist Uri Shumlak (Chief Science Officer).
A pinch effect occurs when a current flowing in a conductor produces an inward-directed force, squeezing the conductor. The conductor in pinch fusion is a plasma of fusion fuel (in magneto-inertial fusion it may be an imploding liner). The current is induced using either an external magnet, or directly applied by electrodes in a reaction chamber. The device's relative simplicity led many researchers around the world to build pinch systems.
In early experiments, pinch systems were found to be unstable and the plasma was quickly forced into the walls of the reaction chamber, cooling and quenching the plasma so that fusion does not occur. This led to the development of stabilized pinch machines, most notably ZETA in the United Kingdom. At first, it appeared these designs were free from the instabilities of the earlier devices. However, further investigation showed that new microinstabilities were just as effective at destroying confinement as the earlier, larger, instabilities had been. With no obvious solution to these new class of problems, major research on the classic pinch devices ended by the early 1960s.
The idea of using the flow of the plasma as an added stabilizing force emerged in the 1990s. In this concept, the pinch is developed such that the plasma flows at different, faster speeds at increasing distances from the center of the plasma column, with the outer layers being about ten times as fast as the center. The magnetic field created by the pinch current is a function of both the density and speed of the charges. This causes the resulting pinch field to be non-linear across the plasma column. This surpasses the growth rate of the kink, sausage and interchange instabilities. The exact conditions that need to be reached to stabilize the pinch is an open area of research.
Zap Energy's technical origins rely on the work of Dr. Uri Shumlak at the University of Washington, starting in 1995. The university built three experimental machines to test the flowing pinch:
The Shumlak lab developed custom tools to measure their plasmas.
Zap Energy was founded in 2017 as a research spin-off from the Fusion Z-pinch Experiment (FuZE) research team at the University of Washington and collaborations with researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Zap Energy then built a next generation fusion core, FuZE-Q (2021–present at Zap Energy). Zap achieved their first fusion reaction as a business in 2018, but in November 2021, Livermore National Laboratory provided an independent and more precise measurement of neutron production inside the flowing pinch, proving that the machine can do fusion with deuterium fuel. The effort was led by ARPA-E, where the agency organized fusion teams to support private fusion companies.
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Zap Energy
Zap Energy is an American privately held company that aims to commercialize fusion power through use of a sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch. The firm is based in Seattle Washington, with research facilities nearby in Everett and Mukilteo, Washington. The firm aims to scale their technology to maintain plasma stability at increasingly higher energy levels, with the goal of achieving scientific breakeven and eventual commercial profitability.
The conceptual basis for the technology was developed at the University of Washington led by Uri Shumlak. Zap Energy formed following the positive initial results achieved by an experimental device named Fusion Z-pinch Experiment (FuZE) as part of the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) ALPHA program. The firm was co-founded by British entrepreneur and investor Benj Conway (President, CEO), with technologist Brian A. Nelson (Chief Technology Officer), and physicist Uri Shumlak (Chief Science Officer).
A pinch effect occurs when a current flowing in a conductor produces an inward-directed force, squeezing the conductor. The conductor in pinch fusion is a plasma of fusion fuel (in magneto-inertial fusion it may be an imploding liner). The current is induced using either an external magnet, or directly applied by electrodes in a reaction chamber. The device's relative simplicity led many researchers around the world to build pinch systems.
In early experiments, pinch systems were found to be unstable and the plasma was quickly forced into the walls of the reaction chamber, cooling and quenching the plasma so that fusion does not occur. This led to the development of stabilized pinch machines, most notably ZETA in the United Kingdom. At first, it appeared these designs were free from the instabilities of the earlier devices. However, further investigation showed that new microinstabilities were just as effective at destroying confinement as the earlier, larger, instabilities had been. With no obvious solution to these new class of problems, major research on the classic pinch devices ended by the early 1960s.
The idea of using the flow of the plasma as an added stabilizing force emerged in the 1990s. In this concept, the pinch is developed such that the plasma flows at different, faster speeds at increasing distances from the center of the plasma column, with the outer layers being about ten times as fast as the center. The magnetic field created by the pinch current is a function of both the density and speed of the charges. This causes the resulting pinch field to be non-linear across the plasma column. This surpasses the growth rate of the kink, sausage and interchange instabilities. The exact conditions that need to be reached to stabilize the pinch is an open area of research.
Zap Energy's technical origins rely on the work of Dr. Uri Shumlak at the University of Washington, starting in 1995. The university built three experimental machines to test the flowing pinch:
The Shumlak lab developed custom tools to measure their plasmas.
Zap Energy was founded in 2017 as a research spin-off from the Fusion Z-pinch Experiment (FuZE) research team at the University of Washington and collaborations with researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Zap Energy then built a next generation fusion core, FuZE-Q (2021–present at Zap Energy). Zap achieved their first fusion reaction as a business in 2018, but in November 2021, Livermore National Laboratory provided an independent and more precise measurement of neutron production inside the flowing pinch, proving that the machine can do fusion with deuterium fuel. The effort was led by ARPA-E, where the agency organized fusion teams to support private fusion companies.