Close Menu
TechBrunchTechBrunch
  • Home
  • AI
  • Apps
  • Crypto
  • Security
  • Startups
  • TechCrunch
  • Venture

Subscribe to Updates

Subscribe to our newsletter and never miss our latest news

Subscribe my Newsletter for New Posts & tips Let's stay updated!

What's Hot

A flock of Whitney Wolf burns out – and bounces back

May 10, 2025

Five Things We Learned from WhatsApp vs. NSO Group Spyware Litigation

May 10, 2025

Google I/O 2025: What to expect including Gemini and Android 16 updates?

May 9, 2025
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
TechBrunchTechBrunch
  • Home
  • AI

    OpenAI seeks to extend human lifespans with the help of longevity startups

    January 17, 2025

    Farewell to the $200 million woolly mammoth and TikTok

    January 17, 2025

    Nord Security founder launches Nexos.ai to help enterprises move AI projects from pilot to production

    January 17, 2025

    Data proves it remains difficult for startups to raise capital, even though VCs invested $75 billion in the fourth quarter

    January 16, 2025

    Apple suspends AI notification summaries for news after generating false alerts

    January 16, 2025
  • Apps

    A flock of Whitney Wolf burns out – and bounces back

    May 10, 2025

    Google I/O 2025: What to expect including Gemini and Android 16 updates?

    May 9, 2025

    Epic Games and Spotify Test Apple's new app store rules

    May 9, 2025

    X Timeline is not updated for many users

    May 9, 2025

    AppFigures: Apple earned more than $10 billion from its US App Store commission last year

    May 8, 2025
  • Crypto

    Stripe unveils AI Foundation model for payments, revealing a “deeper partnership” with Nvidia

    May 7, 2025

    Movie Pass explores the daily fantasy platform of film buffs

    May 1, 2025

    Speaking on TechCrunch 2025: Application is open

    April 24, 2025

    Revolut, a $45 billion Neobank, recorded a profit of $1 billion in 2024

    April 24, 2025

    The new kids show will come with a crypto wallet when it debuts this fall

    April 18, 2025
  • Security

    Five Things We Learned from WhatsApp vs. NSO Group Spyware Litigation

    May 10, 2025

    FBI and Dutch police seize and shut down hacked router botnets

    May 9, 2025

    Florida bill calling for encryption backdoors for social media accounts failed

    May 9, 2025

    Korean telephone giant SKT data breaches timeline

    May 8, 2025

    Powerschool paid the hacker ransom, but now the school says it's being forced

    May 8, 2025
  • Startups

    7 days left: Founders and VCs save over $300 on all stage passes

    March 24, 2025

    AI chip startup Furiosaai reportedly rejecting $800 million acquisition offer from Meta

    March 24, 2025

    20 Hottest Open Source Startups of 2024

    March 22, 2025

    Andrill may build a weapons factory in the UK

    March 21, 2025

    Startup Weekly: Wiz bets paid off at M&A Rich Week

    March 21, 2025
  • TechCrunch

    OpenSea takes a long-term view with a focus on UX despite NFT sales remaining low

    February 8, 2024

    AI will save software companies' growth dreams

    February 8, 2024

    B2B and B2C are not about who buys, but how you sell

    February 5, 2024

    It's time for venture capital to break away from fast fashion

    February 3, 2024

    a16z's Chris Dixon believes it's time to focus on blockchain use cases rather than speculation

    February 2, 2024
  • Venture

    A comprehensive list of 2025 tech layoffs

    May 9, 2025

    One of Elon Musk's longtime VCS is suing his former employer after allegedly fired

    May 8, 2025

    Sequoia leads a $1.5 billion tender offer for sales automation startup clay

    May 8, 2025

    Bosch Ventures is turning attention to North America with a new $270 million fund

    May 8, 2025

    A comprehensive list of 2025 tech layoffs

    May 7, 2025
TechBrunchTechBrunch

Without this company's technology, future fusion power plants may never operate.

TechBrunchBy TechBrunchJuly 18, 20244 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Telegram LinkedIn Tumblr WhatsApp Email
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Telegram Email


Fusion proponents have long promised the idea of ​​using the same reaction as the sun's energy source to produce nearly limitless energy on Earth. Today, fusion's biggest hurdle is ensuring that a fusion power plant will produce more electricity than it needs to run. The second is ensuring that there is enough fuel to run it.

Many fusion reactors are designed to run on a mixture of two isotopes of hydrogen: deuterium and tritium. (A typical hydrogen atom has no neutrons; a deuterium atom has one neutron, and a tritium atom has two.) While deuterium is abundant in ocean water, tritium is so rare that it essentially has to be manufactured.

“Right now there's only 20 kilograms of tritium in the world,” Kyle Schiller, CEO of Marathon Fusion, told TechCrunch. It takes a few kilograms to run a single commercial-scale power plant, meaning there's only enough tritium in the world for about 12 of them. His quietly operating startup thinks it has a solution to the problem.

Currently, the world's tritium supply is a waste byproduct of the few nuclear power plants that use nuclear fission, which has been used as an energy source since the mid-20th century. Assuming scientists can use nuclear fusion to produce practical electricity on Earth, the first fusion power plants will use this source. Future nuclear reactors will rely on the first fusion power plants being designed to produce additional fuel.

“Deploying a fusion device is this doubling process,” says Marathon CTO Adam Rutkowski. “You breed enough tritium to sustain the steady-state consumption of the device, but you also need to breed excess tritium to power the next reactor.”

This breeding occurs when neutrons released during the fusion reaction collide with the lithium layer, releasing helium and tritium, which are then pumped out of the core, where they are filtered out. Some of the tritium is reinjected into the reactor, while the rest is stored as fuel for other reactors.

There is existing equipment for this task, but it's only good for experimental work. Though efficient and effective, experimental reactors are run for short periods of time and don't have the processing power needed for a commercial power plant. To reach that level, the filtration system would need “orders of magnitude improvement,” Schiller said.

That's where Marathon wants to get in. The company is working to improve on a 40-year-old technology called “super permeation,” which uses solid metals to filter impurities from hydrogen.

Here's how it works: First, hydrogen and other substances that need to be filtered are turned into a plasma, but at temperatures that aren't as hot as those inside a nuclear reactor. Using the pressure of the reactor's exhaust gases, they are forced against a metal membrane, which allows hydrogen (including tritium) to pass through and blocks everything else. As a nifty side effect, the membrane also compresses the hydrogen on the other side.

“The whole idea here is to get maximum throughput as quickly as possible,” Rutkowski said.

Rutkowski and Schiller have been working on this problem for a few years, with early support from the Department of Energy's ARPA-E and Breakthrough Energy Fellows programs. Marathon recently raised $5.9 million in a seed round, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. The round was led by 1517 Fund and Anglo American, with participation from Übermorgen Ventures, Shared Future Fund and Malcolm Handley.

Marathon said it had received letters of intent from two fusion startups, Commonwealth Fusion Systems Inc. and Helion Energy Inc., which have raised $2 billion and $607 million, respectively.

Marathon's bet may seem premature, given that commercial fusion power is still years away (if at all): after all, only one fusion experiment has ever broken even in a scientific sense, after facility overhead, something a commercial power plant can't do.

Schiller disagrees that his company is too ahead of its time: “Over the last decade or so, we've been continually amazed at how quickly we've advanced. [with fusion] “It's over,” he says. “You'll wake up one morning and break even and really wish you'd started sooner.”



Source link

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email

Related Posts

7 days left: Founders and VCs save over $300 on all stage passes

March 24, 2025

AI chip startup Furiosaai reportedly rejecting $800 million acquisition offer from Meta

March 24, 2025

20 Hottest Open Source Startups of 2024

March 22, 2025

Andrill may build a weapons factory in the UK

March 21, 2025

Startup Weekly: Wiz bets paid off at M&A Rich Week

March 21, 2025

Wayve CEO shares his key elements for scaling autonomous driving technology

March 21, 2025

Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

Top Reviews
Editors Picks

7 days left: Founders and VCs save over $300 on all stage passes

March 24, 2025

AI chip startup Furiosaai reportedly rejecting $800 million acquisition offer from Meta

March 24, 2025

20 Hottest Open Source Startups of 2024

March 22, 2025

Andrill may build a weapons factory in the UK

March 21, 2025
About Us
About Us

Welcome to Tech Brunch, your go-to destination for cutting-edge insights, news, and analysis in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cryptocurrency, Technology, and Startups. At Tech Brunch, we are passionate about exploring the latest trends, innovations, and developments shaping the future of these dynamic industries.

Our Picks

A flock of Whitney Wolf burns out – and bounces back

May 10, 2025

Five Things We Learned from WhatsApp vs. NSO Group Spyware Litigation

May 10, 2025

Google I/O 2025: What to expect including Gemini and Android 16 updates?

May 9, 2025

Subscribe to Updates

Subscribe to our newsletter and never miss our latest news

Subscribe my Newsletter for New Posts & tips Let's stay updated!

© 2025 TechBrunch. Designed by TechBrunch.
  • Home
  • About Tech Brunch
  • Advertise with Tech Brunch
  • Contact us
  • DMCA Notice
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.