Will the Startups have long been hunted down by an obstinate question: will technology work?
But now, with a power of net-post-positive merger which is no longer the fabric of science fiction, a new generation of startups has been based on more banal questions: can reactors be built for less money? How can maintenance be simpler? The answers could make the difference between profitability and failure.
Francesco Volpe hopes they will be, at least. The founder and CTO of Renaissance merger has been studying merger for decades. He was inspired by various projects over the years, which has led to a unique vision of a merger reactor design which attracts the attention of investors.
Renaissance has raised an A1 series of 32 million euros, said the company exclusively in Techcrunch. The Tour was led by Crédit Mutuel Impact Environmental and lonely revolution Fund with the participation of LowerCarbon Capital. The startup plans to use these funds to build a demonstrator which should prove the basic parts of its new design.
Fusion with a twist
The fusion power promises to generate large quantities of electricity specific from an abundant source of fuel. Most merger startups continue one of the two approaches: inertial containment, where lasers compress fuel pellets to ignite fusion pulses, and magnetic confinement, where large corral magnets plasma in long -term fusion reactions.
The stellar, the genre that Volpe designs, belong to this last camp. They are defined by their apparently random twists and turns which are supposed to stabilize the plasma by working with its whims rather than to fight against them. A major experience in Germany has proven the validity of the concept, but its convoluted magnets were difficult to make.
The Renaissance based in Grenoble has decided to simplify the Stellarator. It is not the only company to try to do so – Thea Energy is another – and its approach mixes rather than reinventors.
The design of the startup reactor looks like a polygon of segmented tubes, each decorated with engravings that resemble lines on a topographic map. But the lines are not fried; Instead, they delimit super conductive magnets (HTS) at high temperature that define the original contours of plasma inside.
“I really wanted to simplify them at the bare minimum,” Volpe at Techcrunch told Volpe.
The first simplification – the segmented tubes – was inspired by his superior research using Wendelstein 7 -As, an experimental stellarator.
“When you look at this from the top, you somehow recognize a pentagonal form,” he said. “So I thought, why don’t we push this to the limit. Let’s literally make cylinders – not approximate cylinders, but real cylinders. »»
Other reactor conceptions use cylinders, but they tend to shape plasma in the shape of a donut, not the radical curves that define a stellarator. To give its design the necessary twists and turns, Volpe relied on the work of a Spanish colleague, who printed 3D a scaffolding to guide cheap and flexible cables in the form of a stellar. The cables were much easier to make than the complex magnets of most stellar, but the 3D printing part was not entirely as marketable.
Volpe simplified the idea. Rather than reproducing the complexity of the plasma in three -dimensional magnets, he flattened them. The renaissance design tubes will be covered with large HTS magnet leaves. In this coating, a laser will graze a series of thin and winding lines that surround the tube. These lines will separate a magnet from the next.
At the points where the superconductive stripes are wider, the magnetic field will be stronger. They will grow stronger against plasma in the tube. When the material is thinner, the magnetic field will be lower, allowing the plasma to inflate. The exact shape of the plasma will be determined by advanced computer simulations.
To protect the tubes from neutrons that come out of the fusion reaction, the Renaissance will bathe the interior with liquid lithium. To ensure that the liquid flows against the wall and does not flow on the plasma, the company applies an electric current to liquid metal, which gives it a magnetic field which will attract it towards powerful magnets outside the tubes. Suspended in the liquid, the small spheres containing molten lead absorb part of the neutron bombing. The liquid cover will also make a triple service by reproducing more fuel for the reactor and transferring heat to steam turbines.
Magnetic carpet
Volpe said the Renaissance is on the right track to produce large HTS “carpet” in the coming months. A demonstrator, which will integrate the tubular HTS magnets and the liquid lithium walls, should be ready by the end of 2026. Volpe hopes that the startup can build a complete stellarator in the early 2030s, a chronology similar to other fusion startups.
Volpe hopes that the demonstrator will prove that the concept is superior to the sum of its parts, each of which was promising by themselves, but could open the way to a cheaper fusion reactor. “You connect the points. This is the essence of inspiration, ”said Volpe.
