Episode 45 | Fusion Founder | TAE Technologies





Following Episode 20's nuclear fusion episode, I knew I wanted to speak to a private company about the challenges of developing a technology in a for-profit environment, when the commercial product may not be available for decades.

Steve Dean, my guest from Episode 20, connected me with TAE Technologies (formerly Tri-Alpha Energy), an Orange County, California-based nuclear fusion company. TAE was founded in 1998, but has only recently been public about their technological breakthroughs. Their co-founder and current CEO, Dr. Michl Binderbauer, says that was by design because he admits nuclear fusion has often over-promised and under-delivered in the past.

Michl was just a student when he and co-founder Dr. Norman Rostoker developed what would become the field-reversed configuration (FRC) design TAE is known for. Dr. Rostoker passed away in 2014 and TAE's latest "Norman" machine is named in honor of him.

Rather than the fat donut-shaped Tokamak design, the FRC is longer and certainly more compact. The FRC's plasma particles have been described as a "smoke ring."

Dr. Binderbauer says there is a fusion measurement called Beta, a measure between the pressures in the magnetic field and in the gas that is "cooked" (plasma). A Tokamak's ratio is about 10% vs. 90% for FRCs.

The company also switches up the chemical recipe for plasma. Whereas most fusion technologies use a Deuterium (2H)/Tritium (3H) combination to make Helium, TAE's FRC system uses Boron-11 (11B) and Hydrogen.

I am fascinated about how a company like TAE can operate in the commercial world, when most companies live and die by quarterly earnings. This is made possible three ways:

  1. Dr. Binderbauer describes its business model as a "money-by milestone shop," whereby additional funding is brought on my reaching certain goals. They completed first plasma on a machine in 2015, another plasma milestone with the Norman machine in 2017, and are planning a proto-commercial device called "Copernicus" in the early 2020s.
  2. TAE has spun off its boron technology into the for-profit TAE Life Sciences in early 2018. Their Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) is a new form of targeted chemotherapy.
  3. TAE has a rock star Board of Directors, consisting of such figures as former GE CEO Jeff Immelt, former Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, and former DOE Secretary Ernie Moniz. Michl admits this board could be a little intimidating at first, but their Rolodex of financial and expert resources has been critical to the company's success.

I pushed Michl to reveal what his "commercialization date" milestone is, and while he wouldn't reveal an exact date, he walked us through the steps to commercialization, which could be as soon as the next 10 years. We sure are looking forward to it!

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