Zap Energy

Company Description

Zap Energy is building a low-cost, compact and scalable fusion energy platform that confines and compresses plasma without the need for expensive and complex magnetic coils. Zap Energy’s fusion reactor leverages a breakthrough method of confining and compressing plasma called a sheared-flow-stabilized (SFS) Z pinch. In Z-pinch fusion, a line of plasma carrying an electrical current generates its own magnetic field that “pinches” the plasma until it’s hot and dense enough for fusion to occur. SFS then helps sustain the plasma by suppressing instabilities that have plagued historical attempts at Z-pinch fusion.

Z-pinch has long been an appealing way to achieve nuclear fusion, but for many years researchers considered Z-pinch’s plasma instabilities to be an insurmountable challenge. The Zap Energy team has shown through both simulation and experiment that sheared flows can stabilize fusion plasmas, and that the stability should extend to a commercially viable scale. Zap Energy also marked a critical engineering milestone by creating the first plasmas in FuZE-Q, the company’s new prototype designed to reach the long-sought target of Q=1, where the process of nuclear fusion inside a plasma yields more energy than was consumed to create it.