TAE Technologies’ Norm machine can create, heat and stabilize an FRC plasma using only neutral particle beams — a first in fusion research history that charts a path toward more efficient and more cost-effective commercial fusion power.
source.image: AE Technologies
To make fusion energy work commercially, scientists need to create plasma—a super-hot form of matter—and keep it stable for long periods. TAE uses a method called Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC), a type of magnetic confinement, as the foundation for its fusion technology.
An FRC-based machine can achieve up to 100x more fusion power output as a typical tokamak of the same magnetic field strength and plasma volume. In addition to the FRC’s self-confining properties, this approach lends itself to a simpler, linear fusion machine that is much less complicated to construct, less costly to build and run, and easier to maintain.
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Their experimental results, published in Nature Communications, show that TAE has created a simpler way to generate and control plasma. This makes the process more efficient, less complicated, cheaper, and faster to develop into a practical energy source.
