Hot Nuclear Fusion developers bag $267 million in investment
Three hot nuclear fusion companies attracted $267 million in venture capital investment in recent months.
Britain’s Tokamak Energy received $87 million (£67 million), Canada’s General Fusion received $65 million, and America’s Commonwealth Fusion Systems raised $115 million, Business Insider reports. Thus investors including Bill Gates, Jack Ma, Jeff Bezos, and former Capri-Sun owner Dr. Hans Peter Wild think fusion is commercially viable.
Tokamak Energy claims its ST40 spherical tokamak reactor can achieve temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius by 2025 by using high-temperature superconductors (HTS). Furthermore, Tokamak claims it could have a commercial hot fusion reactor generating electricity for the grid by 2030.
Tokamak CEO Jonathan Carling says his company will use the £67 million to achieve the 100 million degree temperatures. The $87 million besides over $100 million in previously raised funds
Why Billionaires are Investing in Fusion
Billionaires such as Wild; and David Harding of Winton Capital Management, are investing in fusion companies because fusion could theoretically generate vast amounts of electricity while creating no greenhouse gases or radiation.
Hence, you could power our entire civilization with little pollution by harnessing fusion. Fusion companies could make vast amounts of money because fusion could replace nuclear fission, coal, oil, natural gas, solar, wind, and many other forms of power in electric generation.
Experts; however, disagree on the speed at which we can develop fusion. Theoretically, hot nuclear fusion is possible, but we will have to solve many problems to make it a reality.
Will Hot Nuclear Fusion Work?
For example, nobody knows if you can contain plasma that is hotter than the sun here on Earth. Current fusion reactors are so hot designers think they will need to use powerful semiconductors to generate magnetic fields to contain the plasma.
They are using magnetic fields because the plasma is so hot it could melt almost any material. Unfortunately, nobody knows if we can generate and maintain a stable magnetic field strong enough for fusion.
Moreover, generating temperatures of over 100 million degrees Celsius is difficult. Tokamak Energy admits its ST40 fusion reactor has only generated temperatures of 15 million degrees Celsius. However, 15 million degrees Celsius is could be hotter than the core of the sun, Tokamak claims.
Fusion reactors need to generate temperatures over 100 million degrees to create plasma by fusing deuterium and tritium particles. Without plasma there is no fusion and no energy.
Investors and speculators need to watch fusion companies because they could disrupt the energy industry. Plus, I think fusion is more probable than many think because of who is investing in it.
Nuclear fusion could generate vast amounts of energy and money
I cannot imagine billionaires such as Gates, Ma, and Bezos investing in fusion if they did not think they could make money from it.
Remember, Gates correctly predicted the value of software and operating systems for computers. Plus, Ma and Bezos correctly forecast the value of e-commerce. All three men founded companies with incredible value.
The company Gates co-founded; Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) had a $1.27 trillion market capitalization on 22 January 2020. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) had a market cap of $935.068 billion on the same day. Meanwhile, Alibaba Holdings (NYSE: BABA), Ma’s company had a market cap of $598.399 billion on 22 January 2020.
Given the history of the companies those men founded, we need to pay close attention to nuclear fusion. If it works nuclear fusion could generate vast amounts of energy and money.
