Our investment in Renaissance Fusion
The idea of fusion power has been on the minds of scientists since the 1940s. The idea is to confine small atomic nuclei (such as isotopes of hydrogen) and make them so hot that they fuse together into bigger nuclei, while releasing energy in the process. Stars and our sun are powered this way - but harnessing the same process on earth has proven to be more difficult than anticipated, even after decades of research. A long running joke is that fusion power is 30 years away - and will always be.
Yet, at Positron Ventures we are convinced that this time, things are different. Underlying technologies such as high temperature superconductors (HTS) are improving. Increases in computing power make simulations possible. Fusion is rapidly moving from slow public projects to nimble private companies, with more than 30 startup companies now developing new fusion technologies.
Renaissance Fusion works on the concept of a stellarator - a type of magnetic confinement device that was invented in the 1950s. In theory, a stellarator should be easy to operate once built; with inherent stability and no current in the plasma. However, actually building such a device turned out very difficult - so was abandoned in favour of the donut-shaped tokamak design.
Renaissance Fusion is founded by Francesco Volpe, a scientist who has worked for decades on stellarators and realised that three main problems stand in the way of building a commercially viable stellarator reactor: the problem of neutron radiation (which among other things damages the device), the problem of size (large reactor size require too much capex) and above all the problem of design/manufacturing complexity.
Renaissance Fusion has made breakthroughs in all three areas:
First, they get rid of the problem of radiation by using a shielding of liquid metal that absorbs neutrons (and conveniently can transport the heat generated too).
Second, the size of the device can be drastically reduced with HTS magnets - for which they found an entirely novel manufacturing approach - by directly depositing and then patterning layers of HTS material on a cylinder.
Third - they came up with a highly simplified design and manufacturing process - by moving the complexity from the surface (which is now cylindrical) to the current pattern - which can be easily created with lasers.
Obviously, as with any deep tech startup, the road ahead is going to be challenging. But we couldn't be more excited to accompany Francesco and his team on this journey. Imagine, in the not too distant future, we may be powering our homes with clean and affordable electricity from a Renaissance Fusion stellarator. How cool would that be.
Read more about Renaissance Fusion in TechCrunch.
