Posted on 05/28/2025 6:00:48 AM PDT by Red Badger
Infinity Two utilizes stellarator fusion technology, proven for stable, continuous, large-scale operation by experiments such as the W7-X machine.
Infinity Two's design is uniquely based on the world's sole implementable, peer-reviewed fusion power plant physics. - Type One Energy
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Type One Energy, a US-based firm, has successfully completed the first formal design review for its “Infinity Two” stellarator fusion reactor power plant.
The advanced design, targeting 350 megawatts (MW) of electricity for the grid by the mid-2030s – enough to power tens of thousands of homes – is now one step closer to realization, particularly in support of a potential project with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
The progress on the Infinity Two fusion reactor design, coupled with the collaboration with TVA, is already attracting attention from the global energy industry.
“Several prominent energy utilities and industrial companies have expressed an interest in Infinity Two and participation in Type One Energy’s deployment of its first-generation fusion power plant technology,” said the firm in a press release.
Rigorous review of the fusion reactor design
This achievement marks the first time a fusion power plant design aiming for such a substantial output has passed an independent technical review. This signals a critical turning point in the race for commercial fusion energy.
The Infinity Two concept is uniquely based on the world’s only implementable, peer-reviewed physics basis for a fusion power plant, recently published in the Journal of Plasma Physics.
The rigorous design review board was chaired by Type One Energy’s Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Thomas Sunn Pedersen, and included prominent external experts such as Dr. George H. “Hutch” Neilson from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and Dr. Paolo Ferroni from Westinghouse Electric Company.
Dr. Neilson lauded the project, stating, “It is the first serious fusion power plant design that I’ve seen. The work they’ve done to date provides a sound foundation for continued design development of what could be the first system to produce net electricity from fusion.”
The successful review confirms that Infinity Two’s technology, architecture, performance, and reliability requirements align with the expectations of TVA and the broader global energy market for a first-of-a-kind commercial fusion power plant.
Efficient design for commercial viability
The Infinity Two architecture is grounded in stellarator fusion technology, which has uniquely demonstrated stable, continuous steady-state operation at a large scale in experiments like the W7-X machine.
“I think it is important that the Type One Energy team is taking a comprehensive plant-level approach to develop their technology which includes a description of all necessary systems, not just the plasma core,” explained Dr. Ferroni.
Type One Energy’s proprietary design aims for a compelling two-year power plant operating cycle, separated by 30-day planned maintenance outages, utilizing existing materials and enabling technologies.
The company has also leveraged a partner-rich commercialization program, with firms like Atkins-Realis assisting in designing systems and structures beyond Type One Energy’s core stellarator focus.
“Our ability to efficiently architect the initial Infinity Two design in an efficient, partner rich manner reaffirms our commitment to pursuing the lowest risk, shortest schedule, path to a commercially viable fusion power plant,” said Christofer Mowry, Chief Executive Officer for Type One Energy.
“The energy industry needs more reliable, clean, power generation technology that can meet the rapidly increasing demand for electricity and we are delivering a commercially compelling solution.”
Only 20 years away...
Just a decade away. /sarc off
And the 30 million acre Gulf of America wind farm........?
NTSA.
“Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done, and why. Then do it.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
“Everything is impossible until someone does it.” ― Robert A. Heinlein
As my electrodynamics prof told me back in 1971, commercial fusion is only 10 years away.
Why don’t they just go to the Sun and scoop up some material that is already undergoing fusion to power a reactor? They could use something like a giant spoon. It might get too hot so they might need to do it at night.
Not saying that it’ll absolutely never happen, just that the time never seems to arrive. That’s why I’m skeptical of these predictions. Some day one might come true, but I’ll believe it when it actually happens.
> That’s why I’m skeptical of these predictions. <
And you are correct to do so. Some of these companies are on the right track. Others are just overly optimistic. And then there are the companies that are running stock pump-and-dump schemes.
Time will tell.
(No disrespect meant to the original poster. The more viewpoints we get, the better.)
So far actual fusion has just been a fleeting laboratory experiment and no where near to a sustained source of power for commercial use. There have been predictions that fusion power is just a few years away for the last 30 years. Maybe someday, but not likely in the near future
“Just a decade away. /sarc off”
Drat, beat me to it.
Direct detection of Gravity waves was something that once was ‘Only 20 years away’. Einstein believed it would never be achieved. In 2015 it was achieved.
Nobody seems to realize that THIS is not some laboratory experiment. They are actually building a fusion reactor that will provide power to the grid. The TVA is involved, and global power providers are very interested in its design...............
What's next? "From here to Infinity and Back"? Our enthusiasm for wordsmithed phrases of promise have made the American version of language quite disingenuous and contradictory at times.
Well, I achieved in in 1993, but would THEY listen to me?............NOOOO-OOOOO-OOOO-OOO!.........Phooey on them and their Nobel Prizes!~~~~~~~~..........
“maybe someday, but not likely in the near future”.
I read ITER in France has been pushed back 6 years because the French nuclear safety outfit decided it had too much radioactivity and might be dangerous for the workers. I say if they want to work there, let them. We let people jump out of airplanes with guns and stuff like that. I used to wear a radioactivity dosimeter badge at work, if it turned blue you left some uranium in your pocket by mistake.
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
― George Orwell, 1984
“The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink”
― George Orwell, 1984
“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself — that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.”
― George Orwell, 1984
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