Chevron invests in Google-backed nuclear fusion group pursuing ‘perfect power’

Chevron has invested in Google-backed nuclear fusion start-up TAE Technologies in the latest sign of the fast-growing interest in the potential of the energy technology to deliver safe zero-emissions power.

The US oil major invested in TAE alongside Google and Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation as it raised $250mn to fund the sixth-generation of its fusion research reactor in California, the company said on Tuesday.

The prospect of combining atomic nuclei to generate power has excited scientists for more than 60 years but has only started to attract significant private investment in the past decade, as efforts to limit global warming by cutting emissions have gathered pace.

Private fusion companies have raised at least $2.8bn in the past 12 months, bringing the total private sector investment to date to $4.8bn, according to the latest study of the industry published by the Fusion Industry Association last week.

Michl Binderbauer, TAE’s chief executive, said the “calibre and interest” of the investors was a testament to the progress the California-based company had made.

Founded in 1998, TAE, which employs about 400 people, is hoping to generate electricity by fusing a hydrogen proton with boron. While most scientists agree that combining the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium is the most viable route to commercial power, TAE argues that its approach, if successful, would provide an even safer source of energy.

The planet has abundant potential reserves of deuterium, tritium, hydrogen and boron, but while tritium is mildly radioactive, boron is not. It can also be easily mined, whereas tritium has be extracted from lithium and then regenerated in the fusion reaction.

“There are so many benefits to being able to use boron as a fuel that we feel it’s really the path to perfect power,” Jim McNiel, TAE’s chief marketing officer, told the Financial Times.

Unlike nuclear fission when atoms are split, none of the fusion reactions produce significant radioactive waste, making all of the processes currently under development a potential source of safe, near limitless carbon-free electricity. Fusion companies say a small cup of the fuel could power a house for hundreds of years.

But while scientists have been fusing atomic nuclei since the 1950s, no group has been able to generate more energy from a fusion reaction than the systems consume.

TAE says the main aim of its sixth-generation reactor is to achieve that outcome, a milestone known as net energy gain, with a view to delivering commercial power by 2030, earlier than many of its competitors.

“The first company to get to net energy is going to substantially dictate what the near term future of fusion looks like,” McNiel said, comparing it to “putting a man on the moon” for the first time.

Chevron’s investment was made by its Technology Ventures unit, which has also backed the Seattle-based fusion start-up Zap Energy. It brings the total funding raised by TAE to date to $1.2bn and follows similar bets by other oil and gas companies seeking to diversify their energy portfolio and reduce their carbon emissions.

Italy’s Eni and Norway’s Equinor have both invested in Boston-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems, whose funders also include Tiger Global Management and Bill Gates.

“TAE — and fusion technology as a whole — has the potential to be a scalable source of no-carbon energy generation and a key enabler of grid stability as renewables become a greater portion of the energy mix,” said Jim Gable, president of Chevron Technology Ventures and vice-president of innovation.