Avalanche believes the fusion energy industry must think smaller

Nuclear fusion conjures images of massive reactors or clusters of dozens of large lasers. Avalanche co-founder and CEO Robin Langtry believes smaller is better.

For the past several years, Langtry and his colleagues at Avalanche have been working on what is essentially a desktop version of nuclear fusion. “We use small scale to learn quickly and iterate quickly,” Langtry told TechCrunch.

Fusion energy promises to supply the world with huge amounts of clean heat and electricity, if researchers and engineers can solve some vexing challenges. At its core, Fusion Force seeks to harness the power of the sun. To do this, fusion startups must figure out how to heat and compress the plasma long enough so that the atoms within the mixture fuse, releasing energy in the process.

Fusion is a notoriously unforgiving industry. Physics is challenging, materials science is cutting-edge, and energy requirements can be enormous. Parts must be precisely machined, and the gauge is usually very large to avoid a rapid firing experience.

Some companies, like Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), use large magnets to contain the plasma in a donut-like tokamak, while others compress fuel pellets by shooting them with powerful lasers. However, an avalanche uses an electrical current at very high voltages to pull plasma particles into orbit around the electrode. (It also uses some magnets to keep things organized, though they’re not as powerful as a tokamak.) As the orbit narrows and the plasma accelerates, particles begin to bump into each other and merge.

This approach has won the approval of some investors. Avalanche recently added another $29 million in an investment round led by RA Capital Management with participation from 8090 Ventures, Congruent Ventures, Founders Fund, Lowercarbon Capital, Overlay Capital and Toyota Ventures. To date, the company has raised $80 million from investors, a relatively small sum in the world of mergers. Other companies have raised several hundred to a few billion dollars.

Space-based inspiration

Langtry’s time at Jeff Bezos-backed space technology company Blue Origin influenced how Avalanche approached the problem.

“We’ve found that using this kind of ‘new space’ approach to SpaceX is that you can iterate very quickly, you can learn very quickly, and you can solve some of these challenges.” said Langtry, who worked with co-founder Brian Riordan at Blue Origin.

Reducing its size allowed the avalanche to accelerate. The company has been testing changes to its devices “sometimes twice a week,” which can be difficult and expensive with a large device.

Currently, the Avalanche reactor is just nine centimeters in diameter, although Langtry said the new version will grow to 25 centimeters and is expected to produce about 1 megawatt. That “will give us a big boost in quarantine time, and that’s how we’ll actually get plasma that has a chance of being Q>1,” he said. (In fusion, Q refers to the ratio of energy input to energy output. When it is greater than one, the fusion device is said to have exceeded the break-even point.)

These trials will be conducted at Avalanche’s FusionWERX, a commercial testing facility that the company also leases to competitors. By 2027, the site will be licensed to handle tritium, a hydrogen isotope used as fuel that is critical to many emerging nuclear fusion plans to produce energy for the grid.

Langtry would not commit to a date when he hopes Avalanche will be able to generate more power than its fusion devices consume, a major milestone for the industry. But he believes the company is on a similar timeline to competitors such as CFS and Sam Altman-backed Helion. “I think there will be a lot of really exciting things happening in nuclear fusion in 2027 to 2029,” he said.