Digital Press Kit

Some companies are exploring different fuels as well as different designs. California-based TAE Technologies, which has been in business since 1998, is building a nuclear reactor that’s designed to fuse hydrogen with boron-11 by colliding plasma “smoke rings” inside a long, cigar-shaped chamber. This setup would need to hit temperatures even higher than those in tokamaks. But if scaled-up versions work, they could generate electricity without the neutron fusillade.

Our current domestic electrical grids are woefully inept to integrate necessary renewable energy sources. The answer to solving this problem lies within a new approach to energy use: one that focuses on optimizing the way customers and their technologies interact with the grid. 

Reporting on challenges with tritium fuel for fusion, Science notes TAE Technologies has “decided to simply forgo tritium” to “use plain hydrogen and boron.” TAE’s hydrogen-boron fusion will “require higher temperatures than [deuterium-tritium], but the [company thinks] that’s a price worth paying to avoid tritium hassles” and produce the cleanest, safest fusion reaction.