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with Future Ventures (Saenko), Khosla Ventures (Vinod), Lowercase Capital (Sacca) and Breakthrough Energy Ventures (Gates, Bezos and Ma).

Here is a little video of my visit with my daughter as we crawled all over their record-setting Alcator-C reactor.

From today’s announcement: “Leveraging decades of MIT-led research, CFS will produce first-of-its-kind high temperature superconductor magnets to build smaller and lower-cost fusion power plants. CFS in collaboration with MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center will use these magnets to build SPARC by 2025 and demonstrate net energy gain from fusion for the first time in history. SPARC will pave the way for the first commercially viable fusion power plant called ARC, which will produce fusion power onto the grid.”

“We have been looking for the right clean energy investment opportunity in fusion for the past 20 years,” said Steve Jurvetson, CEO of Future Ventures. “We wanted a company that was ready to make a business of fusion and we have finally found it with Commonwealth Fusion Systems. The hard science from which their approach is based has been proven by this team as well as leaders in the field around the world. With some clever engineering, CFS is ready to harness the power of the solar cycle to change the world and usher in the era of clean baseload energy generation for the betterment of all.”

Maryanna Saenko started a PhD at MIT, birthplace of CFS, and led this investment for Future Ventures. And practical fusion has been a holy grail for me for many years. It just so happens that the very first investment I ever made in a private company was in a novel nuclear fusion company, back in 1995.

More on the CFS approach, and congrats to CFS Chief Scientist Brandon Sorbom for being selected to the MIT Tech Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35.

4 responses to “CONGRATS to Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) on closing their $115M Series A round”

  1. Energy in… That big boy up there is a copper conduit that carries 2500 Amps! The energy storage for each fusion cycle is an unusual design space in power and energy density. They spin up a huge flywheel for 10 minutes and then dump that potential energy it into an electric generator. It’s like having 2000 Tesla P100 battery packs discharging rapidly, but for only 10% of their charge.

    It takes 250 megawatts just to power up this generation of magnet (before the high-temperature semiconductors entered the picture). The foil covers some hefty coaxial power cables.It’s Take Your Daughter to a Nuclear Reactor dayOnly fair, as my son and I went to a couple 10 years ago when she was too young to go. Nuclear Fusion Reactor^ more on this big boy.

    And then I look a look into the belly of the beastThe Reactor Core of Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS)

  2. They fired up the control panel for us… I tried to channel a Homer Simpson moment, Doh! MIT's Alcator C-Mod Tokamak — Control Panel for Nuclear FusionAnd the Microwave Energy InjectorMicrowave Energy Injector for Commonwealth Fusion Systems

  3. And a new article in the Washington Post
    ‪Wish upon a synthetic star!

    “Fusion is the process that occurs in stars, such as our sun, producing helium — and staggering amounts of energy. Fusion has tantalized researchers because it would provide a safe, clean and limitless source of energy, with no threat of meltdown.

    The availability of fusion energy would be a monumental breakthrough in the battle against climate change." —MIT PSFC Director Dennis Whyte ‬

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