In the nuclear fusion race, teams all hope that this complex technology will create a low-carbon, stable power supply or energy source. Does the hydrogen-boron fusion technology of TAE Technologies in the United States have an opportunity to increase temperature by as much as 10 fold by 2030?
Nuclear fusion research is long and complicated. In order to build an energy device on Earth that is comparable to that of stars, scientists have developed a variety of nuclear fusion methods, including "laser-confined nuclear fusion" and "magnetically-confined nuclear fusion (tokamak)." Of note is hydrogen-boron fusion which has the advantage of not producing neutrons and therefore no radioactive waste.
Founded in 1998, TAE Technologies was sponsored by late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the Rockefeller family, and Goldman Sachs. It has raised more than US$1.2 billion, with long-term partners including Google, Chevron, and Sumitomo Corporation of Americas. This technology is different from the tokamak nuclear fusion technology that looks like a doughnut. In addition to the appearance of the fifth-generation Norman, TAE nuclear fusion equipment is also developing towards a sixth-generation hydrogen boron nuclear reaction, Copernicus.
TAE will build the Copernicus Reactor at its approximately 100,000-square-foot facility in Irvine, California. The fifth-generation Norman has performed quite well, with the original goal of setting plasma temperature to 30 million degrees Celsius but TAE has proven to be able to sustain plasma at 75 million degrees Celsius, allowing the company to get ahead of schedule.
However, the company's goal is not just 100 million degrees Celsius, it's 1 billion degrees Celsius, but the challenge of this technology is that boron is a larger atom than tritium and its core has more positive charges, so in a magnetic confinement design, you need more energy to fuse If nuclear fusion temperature requirements are already higher, than hydrogen-boron fusion requires temperatures as high as 200 times the core of the sun, close to 3 billion °C.
However, the hydrogen-boron fusion power plant will not suffer from thermal runaway and furnace core dissolution problems. TAE CEO Michl Binderbauer said that hydrogen-boron is not radioactive and is safer than nuclear fission, but the entire industry is still working hard to form a regulatory framework with the government that is fair and is reassuring to the public.
The United Kingdom promulgated regulations related to nuclear fusion last year. The government believes that this technology is different from nuclear fission, so different regulations are required. The Nuclear Energy Regulatory Commission of the United States has been holding hearings in the past year to discuss whether nuclear fusion power plants should be strictly reviewed like nuclear fission.
With the same review specifications, the commercialization of nuclear fusion may take another 10 years and the cost will also increase. So where does the cost of commercial hydrogen boron nuclear fusion fall? Assuming all goes according to plan, nuclear fusion power plants have the opportunity to enter the energy market in the early to mid-2030s to support the grid for renewable energy.
Binderbauer said, “the cost of gas-fired power generation in the United States is about 1 to 2 cents per kilowatt-hour. While nuclear energy with higher safety is more expensive, about 10 to 15 cents per kilowatt-hour while the team's first-generation power plant is expected to fall between 6 and 7 cents."
（Image：TAE）