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A Shanghai start-up is seeking to raise $500mn to develop cheaper next-generation nuclear fusion technology, as China races with the west to crack the problem of commercialising the groundbreaking clean energy.
Nuclear fusion — where hydrogen isotopes fuse after being heated to extreme temperatures, releasing energy — has for decades held the potential to provide bountiful emissions-free electricity with no long-lived radioactive nuclear waste.
Energy Singularity, founded in 2021, has been developing a small-scale tokamak, a machine expected to be at the heart of fusion power plants.
The Chinese start-up is one of at least 45 companies in around 13 countries working to commercialise nuclear fusion, using diverse technological approaches and fuel sources, according to the US-based Fusion Industry Association.
However, the technology is still nascent and experts say there is still no guarantee fusion power plants will be realised. Many machines developed to date have barely generated enough energy to boil a kettle.
Ye Yuming, Energy Singularity’s chief operating officer and co-founder, said the company’s approach had been inspired by work being done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and its spinout Commonwealth Fusion Systems.
The US engineers there have been developing a small-scale tokamak using high-temperature superconducting (HTS) material to encase a plasma of the isotopes heated to temperatures hotter than the sun.
“Our judgment was this is more of an engineering problem than a scientific problem,” Ye told the Financial Times, adding: “All tokamaks are based on the same physics to realise fusion energy. But through the innovation of the HTS magnet, we can reduce the size of the machine significantly, so we can reduce the cost significantly.”
While Ye believes that rival US groups enjoy “a much more favourable” funding environment, Energy Singularity expects to be able to leverage China’s deep supply chains for key fusion materials, including the HTS material. The company said about 95 per cent of the materials for its first device, the Honghuang 70 or HH70, were locally made, highlighting the “long-term accumulation” of advantages in Chinese nuclear power technology.
“We have a cost advantage on materials, on staff, everything . . . we think the cost in China would be at least 50 per cent lower than building the same kind of machine in the US,” Ye said.
Still, he noted that there “may be some scientific uncertainty” as the technology advances towards ever stronger magnetic fields.
Energy Singularity raised around $110mn to develop the HH70, whose first operations were announced in June. Institutional backers included HongShan and Lanchi Ventures — the former China units of US venture capital groups Sequoia Capital and BlueRun, respectively.
The start-up has grown to about 135 employees and is targeting around $500mn in future fundraising rounds as it tries to develop its next-generation nuclear fusion device, the HH170, by 2027. It is set to be larger, generating significantly more power, and the company hopes to move to commercialise the technology before 2035.
Ye is confident of raising the money from local investors despite a backdrop of US-China tensions which has hammered the funding environment.
“Yes, $500mn is challenging for sure, but it is not totally out of reach if we work hard,” he said.
Beyond the private sector, Energy Singularity was “in dialogue” with state-backed groups over potential investment, Ye said.
The group has collaboration contracts signed with Chinese institutions and universities, including the Southwestern Institute of Physics, Shanghai Jiaotong University and Lanzhou University.
However, the private sector appeared to be moving faster towards making nuclear fusion a commercial reality, he said.
“We designed and built and operated our first machine within just two years. That is a significantly shorter [timeframe] than any universities or research institutions typically need to build a tokamak.”
Ye, a Tsinghua University graduate, co-founded the company with former Peking University classmates Yang Zhao and Dong Ge, who went on to study at Stanford University and Princeton University respectively, as well as Li Zhuyong, a former professor of electrical engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Additional reporting by Wenjie Ding in Beijing
