Zap Energy

The U.S. Department of Energy has been investing in fusion for decades through the Office of Science (SC) Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program to establish the scientific foundations for a fusion energy source. Recently, DOE Under Secretary for Science and Innovation Dr. Geri Richmond joined U.S. Representative Rick Larsen, the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Rian Bahran, Ph.D. and Jonathan Barr, plus several of the nation's leading experts in fusion, including Drs. Jean Paul Allain, Scott Hsu, Tammy Ma (LLNL), Matthew Gomez (SNL), and Thomas Weber (LANL) for a tour of Zap Energy's integrated systems development and fusion facilities in Everett, Washington. The visit highlighted Zap being a former ARPA-E awardee and one of the awardees of the new Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program – an innovative new public-private partnership that brings together privately funded fusion companies and our national laboratories and universities to resolve key scientific and technological challenges that must be overcome to realize preliminary engineering designs for fusion pilot plants. Fusion has the potential to generate primary energy with no carbon emissions that could be used to generate electricity, as well as to power hydrogen production, industrial processes, carbon capture, desalination, and more. DOE is committed to bridging fundamental fusion research with applied research and the needs of the growing U.S. fusion industry, supporting the U.S. Bold Decadal Vision for Commercial Fusion Energy and as described in the DOE Fusion Energy Strategy 2024 and the FES Building Bridges vision document. https://lnkd.in/gr3HUPtP

Emerson Collective’s #ClimateScienceFair is all about curiosity, climate optimism, and engaging the public in energy solutions — the perfect place to get people excited about #fusion! The fair is free and open to the public, Sept 21-23 in NYC with Friends of the High Line, so we hope to see you there. Find more info on the event and and all the participants at https://lnkd.in/eKr7szmd.

This week we had a visit from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Under Secretary for Science and Innovation Geraldine Richmond (she's an Oregon duck, but we don't hold it against her), U.S. Representative Rick Larsen, OSTP's Rian Bahran, Ph.D. and Jonathan Barr, plus several of the nation's leading experts in fusion, including Drs. Jean Paul Allain, Scott Hsu, Tammy Ma, Matthew Gomez and Thomas Weber. We're glad to be on our way to hitting milestones as part of the U.S. Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program and are encouraged by the work the DOE and OSTP are doing to find synergies between public and private fusion efforts.

As in past years, we recommend reading this annual report all the way to the end.

A new publication, led by our collaborators at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, details the first measurements of plasma pressure profiles inside of #FuZE. This is the third in a series of three papers that highlight gold-standard Thomson scattering data and each provides insights that show increasing performance for SFS Z-pinches, and in doing so bring us closer to a platform for fusion energy that's practical and commercially appealing. As lead author and Zap collaborator Clément Goyon explains in this writeup from LLNL: “The ability to accurately measure and understand plasma conditions is crucial for optimizing fusion performance and advancing this transformative energy technology." The results were supported by an ARPA-E funded diagnostics collaboration, and taken as a set of three papers (each linked below), the results form a fantastic data set we've been building on since it was first collected. Paper one (Banasek et al.) describes the methodology and initial intermediate plasma temperature measurements; paper two (Levitt et al.) is our recent PRL showing elevated electron temperatures up to 1-3 keV coincident with neutron production; and finally this third paper (Goyon et al.) shows both electron temperate and density measurements, enabling the measurement of plasma pressure profiles and better understanding of triple product performance. 1. https://lnkd.in/gyf3NU2M 2. https://lnkd.in/g_R_Q5Ag 3. https://lnkd.in/g5eDK3Wv

Pleased to host Washington Governor Jay Inslee, members of his staff, State Representatives Mary Fosse and Julio Cortes, and officials from the Department of Health at our facilities in Everett today. Under Governor Inslee our state has emerged as an international focal point of fusion development, and earlier this year he became the third governor to sign legislation formally recognizing fusion as a source of clean energy and providing incentives tied to its development. #Fusion #FusionPower #CleanEnergy

If you follow our team, hopefully you won't be surprised to hear that we stand behind the principles outlined in this recent letter from Commonwealth Fusion Systems. Publishing peer-reviewed results is critical at this stage, and in our own best interests at that.

Thank you SF Deep Tech Week for giving Zap's Derek Sutherland a chance to help spread the word about our fusion energy developments (and, if you look closely, a platform to educate the audience on "sausage" and "kink" plasma instabilities).

It was great time participating in this event and sharing what we are working on Zap Energy! Thanks for the invite. #fusion #deeptech

Last week ARPA-E held their annual #fusionenergy meeting here in Seattle, providing the opportunity to update the broader fusion community on our progress and take a short break from R&D to give a few visitors a peek inside the lab.