Zap Energy lands $5M federal grant and ‘vote of confidence’ in pursuit of fusion power
Summary
Sustainability: News covering the rapidly growing climate tech sector, funding in the space and other areas of innovation to protect our planet. Fusion offers the potential to create the power of the sun right here on Earth, said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm in a statement.While the DOE funding amount isnt massive, its greater significance is the vote of confidence, the engagement at the national level, said Uri Shumlak, Zap co-founder and chief scientist.Research news: The challenge with fusion is producing more energy from the process than it takes to create it, a target called breakeven or Q=1.Fusion researchers and companies mark various milestones on the route to breakeven and there is some variability in how the Q measurements are made. The methodology will be published in a peer-reviewed, scientific journal next week.Zap set a goal of reaching breakeven this year, though Shumlak admitted on Wednesday that the time frame is going to be challenging.But achieving commercial energy production by the end of the decade is tenable, he said. Zap was co-founded by University of Washington professors Shumlak and Brian A. Nelson, with technology developed in collaboration with researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The milestone was reached at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratorys National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California.In early May, Microsoft and Helion Energy announced a historic agreement in which the fusion company pledged to begin operating a commercial plant by 2028 and the software company committed to buying the electricity that it generates.