By Eli Chavez
Nuclear fusion has seen increased investment within the past five years due to its promise of an inexhaustible, clean energy source. One fusion startup that’s testing its technology in the greater Boston area has taken a step in the race toward the first commercially viable fusion reactor.
Type One Energy, a fusion startup founded in 2019, is one of several trying to attain the goal of combining two atoms to create energy in a sustainable way. The Tennessee-based startup conducts fusion experiments in Woburn, and recently found success with its magnet design.
To make it work, Type One Energy operates at extremes. The facility produces temperatures of minus-321 degrees Fahrenheit — colder than the coldest night ever recorded in Antarctica. At these temperatures, their specially designed cables can carry electrical currents that are 30 to 60 times stronger than a car battery without resistance or energy loss.
The extreme cold is necessary to balance the other part of what fusion requires — containing matter heated to over 100 million degrees, hotter than the sun’s center.
To deal with the extreme temperatures, the startup uses what’s known as a “non-planar” magnet, which bends and curves rather than stays in a flat plane, like traditional planar magnets used for fusion. The curved magnets create a more stable environment for the super-hot matter needed to strip electrons and expose the nucleus of an atom to prepare it for fusion.
Type One Energy’s tests mark the first time any company has successfully built and tested this type of curved magnet using advanced superconducting materials, according to co-founder and VP of systems engineering David Anderson.
“Ours is, not by any stretch, the first superconducting magnet, but it is the very first high-temperature superconductor stellarator magnet,” Anderson said.
The large investments in fusion stems from the promise of a virtually inexhaustible energy source that could potentially revolutionize how energy is created worldwide.
In 2023, Type One announced an $81 million seed round with backing from investors like Bill Gates and a series of grants from the Department of Defense.
Fusion startups nationwide have seen increased investment from private and public backers as each startup races to be the first to achieve fusion. In 2023, the US Department of Energy announced awards totaling $46 million to eight fusion startups nationwide, including Boston-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems as well as Type One Energy.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems appears to be ahead in the race to nuclear fusion. In 2021, CFS raised a $1.8 billion Series B round, with backing from Tiger Global Management LLC.
With more than $2 billion in funds since its inception in 2018, Commonwealth Fusion Systems has distanced itself from its competitors. In late 2024, the company announced plans to build the world’s first grid-scale commercial fusion power plant in Virginia, marking a big step for both the MIT spinout and the global clean energy industry.
Anderson calls it a “friendly competition,” and while he wants Type One Energy to get there first, he says, “we’re rooting for everybody.”
“The bottom line is, we all want somebody to succeed because fusion is just too important for the human race,” he said.