Recently, Chen Rui, CEO of Startorus Fusion, was interviewed by Thecapital to tell readers about the technological changes and business routes of Startorus Fusion.
Chen Rui frankly said that controlled nuclear fusion is a story of taking on the world, which is unlikely to be commercialized in the short term and needs more long-term exploration. At the same time, it is also a race with a known end point. Strugglers in this field all over the world know that the goal of controlled nuclear fusion is inexhaustible energy, but in this unknown field, how to choose the path to the end is another difficult problem.
After 20 years of research and development, on the basis of high temperature superconducting spherical Tokamak with strong magnetic field, the compact reconnection controllable fusion technology scheme characterized by short pulse repetition operation and plasma current self-magnetic field reconnection heating has been adopted, which is expected to achieve efficient, stable and economical fusion energy output in a relatively compact size. This innovative technological route provides Chen Rui with the strength and motivation to optimistically talk about the 10-year contract of controlled nuclear fusion.
Up to now, six rounds of experiments have been completed, which has significantly improved the performance of spherical Tokamak plasma. The plasma current is doubled, the plasma electron temperature is increased by more than 2 times, and the maximum electron temperature is more than 1.2 keV. Self-developed fusion derivatives have also moved from the laboratory to the stage of commercial application.
The next-generation fusion-grade apparatus CTRFR-1 is in a critical period of research and development, and the exploration of plasma frontier physics and the research and development of high-temperature superconducting process engineering are being carried out simultaneously, and solid stage results have been achieved. In the future, Startorus Fusion will continue to explore the optimal path to achieve the goal, and on this basis, achieve commercial landing and taking on the world of the commercialization of controlled nuclear fusion.
Here comes the exclusive report:
I believe many people have seen the Marvel movie Iron Man. Have you ever wondered what the “nuclear reactor” that provides power for Tony is? In fact, this reactor uses nuclear fusion technology to continuously provide electricity to the battle armor to maintain the high energy consumption demand of the battle armor. In people’s imagination, the future of controlled nuclear fusion technology is just as described in the movie-bringing inexhaustible energy to mankind.
In fact, this technology, which exists in science fiction movies, is becoming the focus of global pursuit of hard technology.
As early as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States achieved “nuclear fusion ignition” and repeated many times, the global nuclear fusion commercialization process continued to attract social and capital market attention.
In 2023, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of the State Council of China launched the action of launching the future industry, making it clear that the field of controlled nuclear fusion is an important direction of future energy. The controlled nuclear fusion innovation consortium composed of 25 central enterprises, research institutes and universities was also established at the end of the year.
Nuclear fusion refers to the release of huge energy when light nuclei such as deuterium and tritium combine into heavier nuclei such as helium. Controlled nuclear fusion, known as “artificial sun”, has always been regarded as an important way to solve the energy problem and as the “ultimate energy” of mankind.
Startorus Fusion is one of the representative commercial controlled nuclear fusion companies in China.
Founded in October 2021, Startorus Fusion is committed to building a commercial controllable fusion reactor, devoting itself to miniaturization, commercialization and rapid iteration of controllable fusion energy apparatus, and focusing on growing into the world’s top fusion energy technology enterprise integrating R&D, design, operation and maintenance.
In June 2022, Startorus Fusion completed several hundred million yuan of angel round financing, which was jointly invested by Shunwei Capital, Kunlun Capital, CASSTAR and other domestic well-known investment institutions; in March 2024, Startorus Fusion completed several hundred million yuan of Pre-A round financing, which was led by Shanghai Intellectual Property Fund, followed by Huacheng Venture Capital, and continued by the previous shareholders CASSTAR and MSA Capital.
It is worth mentioning that in July last year, the SUNIST-2 fusion experimental apparatus, designed by Tsinghua University and jointly constructed by Startorus Fusion and Tsinghua University, was completed and the plasma was successfully lit. Up to now, six rounds of experiments have been completed by Startorus Fusion, which has significantly improved the performance of spherical Tokamak plasma. The plasma current is doubled, the plasma electron temperature is increased by more than 2 times, and the maximum electron temperature is more than 1.2 keV.
Recently, Chen Rui, CEO of Startorus Fusion, was interviewed by Thecapital, telling us about the technological iteration and business routes of Startorus Fusion.
Chen Rui told us that controlled nuclear fusion is a business story to take on the world, and it is unlikely to be commercialized in the short term, and it needs more long-term exploration. At the same time, it is also a race with a known end point. Strugglers in this field all over the world know that the goal of controlled nuclear fusion is inexhaustible energy, but in this unknown field, how to choose the path to the end is another difficult problem.
The vision of Startorus Fusion is to find the nearest path to the end point, and on this basis, to achieve commercial landing and take on the world of the commercialization of controlled nuclear fusion.
Focus on This Area for 20 Years
to Specialized in Spherical Tokamak Routes
What changes will controlled nuclear fusion bring to the world?
Chen Rui told Thecapital that controlled nuclear fusion is widely regarded as the ultimate energy source. If controlled nuclear fusion is realized, its fuel will be unlimited and its emissions will be clean and zero carbon emissions. Unlike the fission, controlled nuclear fusion is inherently safe.
From this point of view, controlled nuclear fusion can provide nearly unlimited energy for human beings. When human beings have endless energy, the solution to many problems will be completely overturned. Chen Rui gave us several examples, such as the production of staple food, the existing production methods of staple food occupy a very large area of land. With the support of fusion energy, we can build three-dimensional plant factories with artificial light sources and air conditioning systems to control temperature and humidity, or directly synthesize starch in chemical plants. The production of staple food will no longer be a planting industry, but a manufacturing industry that is not subject to geographical restrictions and can be replicated on a large scale. Fusion energy will also disrupt the aerospace industry, and fusion-based fusion rocket engines can easily reach 30000 seconds, 100 times more than existing rocket engines, including Starship Raptor 2. Driven by fusion engines, human beings will land on Mars and even more planets at a much faster speed than starships and become a real interstellar civilization.
From Chen Rui’s answer, it is not difficult to see that the realization of controlled nuclear fusion will bring great benefits to human society.
This trend has promoted the rapid development of controlled nuclear fusion industry. According to the report Global Fusion Industry 2023 released by the American Fusion Industry Association in July 2023, the number of global fusion companies has increased from 33 in 2022 to 43, demonstrating the activity and diversity of the industry. The United States ranks first with 25 companies, and global fusion companies have raised more than $6.2 billion, an increase of about $1.4 billion, or 27%, over 2022.
From the domestic point of view, this year, the term “new quality productivity” has been written into the government work report for the first time, and has become a key word of public concern and practice. Under this background, controlled nuclear fusion technology, as a frontier emerging technology in the field of new energy, is regarded as an important development direction of new quality productivity. As a clean energy with high quality, high density and zero carbon emission, nuclear fusion is not only expected to provide us with almost unlimited energy, but also has little impact on the environment, which is one of the key technologies to achieve sustainable development and “double carbon” goals. This also adds another fire to the development of controlled nuclear fusion.
At present, Startorus Fusion and other companies are actively exploring the possibility of commercial fusion reactors to contribute to China’s nuclear fusion industry.
According to Chen Rui’s introduction, Startorus Fusion is a very typical transformation project of scientific and technological achievements in universities. “Our entire team has been engaged in controlled fusion research for 20 years before we founded the company on October 13, 2021”, he said, “Frankly speaking, we should be the first team in China to work on the spherical Tokamak route.”
Members of Startorus Fusion have been working on the spherical Tokamak route for 20 years, and have accumulated profound technology in this field. In July 2023, the SUNIST-2 fusion experimental apparatus, designed by Tsinghua University and jointly constructed by Startorus Fusion and Tsinghua University, was completed and the plasma was successfully lit. Up to now, six rounds of experiments have been completed by Startorus Fusion, which has significantly improved the performance of spherical Tokamak plasma. The plasma current is doubled, the plasma electron temperature is increased by more than 2 times, and the maximum electron temperature is more than 1.2 keV.
According to Chen Rui, spherical Tokamak is simply a miniaturized Tokamak apparatus. In the past 80 years of controlled fusion research, Tokamak, as a magnetic confinement path, is the most mainstream and widely studied route, which has been adopted by many scientific research institutions and enterprises, including large-scale projects such as ITER and JET. However, traditional Tokamak apparatus are usually bulky and expensive. At present, the largest Tokamak apparatus made by human beings is 30-40 meters in diameter. The diameter of the SUNIST-2 spherical Tokamak apparatus in Xi’an is only about 3 meters.
As a smaller apparatus, the cost of capital and space use will be more economical, and for commercial companies such as Startorus Fusion, this low-cost apparatus will be more advantageous. Of course, the smaller apparatus does not mean simpler, but more sophisticated technical requirements, need to face more engineering and technical challenges.
The 50-Year Law Becomes a 10-Year Covenant
The 50-Year Law Becomes a 10-Year Covenant
Chen Rui said that the total investment of the spherical Tokamak apparatus of Startorus Fusion is about 150 million yuan, which is far lower than other Tokamak apparatus. But this apparatus can only heat the plasma to 17 million degrees Celsius. At present, a new apparatus with a diameter of about 6-8 meters is being designed and manufactured by Startorus Fusion to continuously improve the data indicators through apparatus iteration, and ultimately achieve fusion conditions.
For plasma heating, Chen Rui explained that the realization of controlled fusion is similar to the process of “boiling water”.
It is known that the common way to boil water is to use a stove and add a ring of firewood outside to heat it up, which is basically the case with all traditional schemes. In the field of controlled nuclear fusion, of course, firewood is not really used, but through radiation apparatus or particle wave heating, which simply means injecting high-energy particles, so that high-energy particles collide with low-energy particles to raise the temperature.
Another scheme is to remove the firewood outside and generate energy heating through “self-friction” between the internal particles, which is the unique magnetic reconnection heating technology of Startorus Fusion. Magnetic energy is generated by the current of plasma, which can be converted into kinetic energy of plasma through the process of magnetic reconnection to achieve plasma heating. This way of heating can be seen as the plasma increasing its temperature through its internal “self-friction”. Additional auxiliary heating equipment can be omitted, and the heating cost is greatly reduced.
Although the process is more complex than the traditional scheme, it has strong confidence in this technical scheme for Startorus Fusion, which has 20 years of research and development experience.
There is an interesting “50-year law” in the field of controlled nuclear fusion, which simply means that it will always take 50 years to achieve controlled nuclear fusion.
The origin of this law is closely related to its development history. In the 1950s and 1960s, the upsurge of controlled nuclear fusion broke out. The successful explosion of the hydrogen bomb, the product of fusion technology, has given people confidence in the realization of controlled nuclear fusion. But the fact is that long-term scientific research has not made a breakthrough in controlled nuclear fusion. Over time, people lost confidence in controlled nuclear fusion, and the “50-year law” was born.
To this, Chen Rui expresses optimistically: “In the angle of nowadays, I feel ‘forever 50 years’ may not be true, say a bit optimistically even, need 10 years only perhaps.”
In the past 20 years of research and development, Startorus Fusion has mastered the above breakthrough technologies in the field of controlled nuclear fusion, such as spherical Tokamak, magnetic reconnection heating technology, short-pulse repetitive operation (continuous repetitive magnetic reconnection in a mode similar to multi-stroke internal combustion engine), high temperature superconductivity (high temperature superconductivity provides a key technology to break the bottleneck of compact fusion reactor).
This innovative technological route also provides the strength and motivation for Chen Rui to speak optimistically about the 10-year Covenant.
The story of the commercialization of controlled nuclear fusion
For a long time, any hard technology has a problem on the surface: commercialization landing. There has been a view that the more difficult the technology is, the more difficult it is to complete the commercial landing.
Chen Rui said frankly that controlled nuclear fusion is a cause that needs a long time to invest, even if it is optimistic, it will take 10 years. In this decade, it may need nearly 10 billion yuan of investment, such a long cycle, such a large investment, how to obtain capital support is particularly important.
In Chen Rui’s view, mastering their own hematopoietic capacity is a major advantage in attracting capital.
Chen Rui said that the construction of the commercial demonstration reactor is expected to start at the end of 2027 or the beginning of 2028, and will be completed within 3-5 years. The goal is to demonstrate a fusion reactor that can output electric energy around 2030.
This is also a key point for Startorus Fusion to gather energy. After the successful construction of the commercial demonstration reactor, Startorus Fusion will enter the real commercialization stage, and the fusion technology will be applied to the actual power production.
At present, there are two kinds of important technical achievements in the transformation of Startorus Fusion. One is the diagnostic system, which is crucial to the control of plasma in controlled nuclear fusion, so it is necessary to understand the energy, temperature and density of plasma. Simply put, it is necessary to capture some very small signals in a very complex electromagnetic environment. It sounds like a very challenging thing, and the isolation amplifiers and hardware integrators involved in the process are all independently developed by Startorus Fusion. These apparatus can be used not only in the field of controlled nuclear fusion, but also in other complex fields of science and technology.
At present, such products have also entered the stage of market promotion, Chen Rui revealed that last year’s orders for diagnostic products were about one million.
Another kind of technology transformation is high-temperature superconducting magnet, which is one of the most critical technologies to promote commercial fusion, and has a great impact in medical, scientific computing and other fields. The income of Startorus Fusion in magnet technology this year will probably be tens of millions.
Chen Rui further said that diagnosis and high temperature superconductivity are just the beginning of the story of the commercialization of Startorus Fusion. In the future, Startorus Fusion will focus more on the commercialization of fusion and continue to expand commercial boundaries.
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