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IEEE Spectrum: Acceleron Banks on Muons for Colder Fusion
https://spectrum.ieee.org/colder-muon-fusion-energyAcceleron Banks on Muons for Colder Fusion The startup has raised US $24 million to pursue a plasma-free approach to fusion
03 DEC 2024
Edd Gent is a Contributing Editor for IEEE Spectrum.
Fusion power has experienced a renaissance in recent years, with billions of dollars in private investment flowing into the field. Acceleron Fusion is the latest startup to take a swing at this challenging nuclear-energy technology, banking on a novel approach that uses beams of heavy subatomic particles called muons to achieve fusion at much lower temperatures.
The company, based in Cambridge, Mass., is designing a plant that will rely on muon-catalyzed fusion, a phenomenon first observed in the 1950s. Its reactor will work by firing a beam of muons at a pellet of nuclear fuel kept under extremely high pressure. Using this approach, Acceleron’s plant could operate below 1,000 °C—not exactly “cold” fusion, but not nearly as hot as other strategies such as magnetic confinement or inertial confinement.
These other fusion approaches require temperatures in the millions of degrees to heat fuel until it becomes a plasma. The plasma must be contained using extremely powerful magnets or lasers, which are complex and power hungry, so being able to do without them is a significant benefit for Acceleron’s lukewarm approach to fusion. “It adds a great amount of technical simplicity and engineering flexibility,” says Ara Knaian, electrical engineer and CEO and cofounder of Acceleron.
…
Acceleron’s approach is to first try to slash the energy required to produce muons, in part by piggybacking on improvement in accelerator efficiency. This has jumped from around 20 percent in the 1980s to 50 percent today, Knaian says, and the U.S. Department of Energy targets 75 percent for next-generation accelerators. Acceleron is also designing a novel muon source that should produce the particles for considerably less energy. The company’s computer simulations suggest that inducing electrical and magnetic fields inside the target could help collect and focus the particles much more efficiently. “That’s the area where we think we could have the biggest contribution,” says Knaian.
…
https://www.acceleron.energy/03 DEC 2024
Edd Gent is a Contributing Editor for IEEE Spectrum.
Fusion power has experienced a renaissance in recent years, with billions of dollars in private investment flowing into the field. Acceleron Fusion is the latest startup to take a swing at this challenging nuclear-energy technology, banking on a novel approach that uses beams of heavy subatomic particles called muons to achieve fusion at much lower temperatures.
The company, based in Cambridge, Mass., is designing a plant that will rely on muon-catalyzed fusion, a phenomenon first observed in the 1950s. Its reactor will work by firing a beam of muons at a pellet of nuclear fuel kept under extremely high pressure. Using this approach, Acceleron’s plant could operate below 1,000 °C—not exactly “cold” fusion, but not nearly as hot as other strategies such as magnetic confinement or inertial confinement.
These other fusion approaches require temperatures in the millions of degrees to heat fuel until it becomes a plasma. The plasma must be contained using extremely powerful magnets or lasers, which are complex and power hungry, so being able to do without them is a significant benefit for Acceleron’s lukewarm approach to fusion. “It adds a great amount of technical simplicity and engineering flexibility,” says Ara Knaian, electrical engineer and CEO and cofounder of Acceleron.
…
Acceleron’s approach is to first try to slash the energy required to produce muons, in part by piggybacking on improvement in accelerator efficiency. This has jumped from around 20 percent in the 1980s to 50 percent today, Knaian says, and the U.S. Department of Energy targets 75 percent for next-generation accelerators. Acceleron is also designing a novel muon source that should produce the particles for considerably less energy. The company’s computer simulations suggest that inducing electrical and magnetic fields inside the target could help collect and focus the particles much more efficiently. “That’s the area where we think we could have the biggest contribution,” says Knaian.
…