Brandon Sorbom

This account is verified. Learn more

@BrandonSorbom

Chief Science Officer at @CFS_Energy

Joined February 2024

33 Following 265 Followers 75 Posts

Latest posts 5

Brandon Sorbom @BrandonSorbom Nov 2

For many years, a @CFS_energy crew has been going to APS-DPP, a plasma physics conference that’s central to the business of fusion. This year, you’ll hear something new during our talks and poster sessions: more discussion about the details of operating SPARC, our fusion demonstration machine.

SPARC is now about 80% done. We expect to turn it on and reach an initial operational milestone called first plasma next year. That means heating atoms enough to strip off their electrons, turning them into a cloud of electrically charged particles — a plasma — that we can control with magnetic fields. After that we’re going to sprint to hit the milestone of Q>1, which means the fusion process will produce more power than we use to heat the plasma.

None of this is easy. But #SPARC is designed to reach performance levels well above Q>1, and that gives us options for the best way to reach Q>1. For details, check our blog post — the link is in the comments.

#FusionEnergy

Brandon Sorbom @BrandonSorbom Oct 22

Through the CHIPS and Science Act, CFS and the United States have an opportunity to benefit from new semiconductor industry innovation. @CFS_energy and the U.S. government announced a letter of intent for an $85 million award aimed at advances that’ll make fusion machines better.

Why is this notable? Because semiconductor technology will only become more important as fusion matures. Many parts of our everyday world run using semiconductors — from the chips in your cell phone to the power semiconductors that make electric vehicles work. This proposed award from the U.S. Department of Commerce stands to pull in new improvements from the semiconductor world.

Specifically, the award would help innovation in areas including power electronics, radio frequency plasma heating, controller chips, robotic maintenance equipment, and artificial intelligence to assist with plasma control. And that would translate to better fusion power plants on the grid as soon as possible, and a better domestic supply chain to support that effort.

#FusionEnergy

Brandon Sorbom @BrandonSorbom Oct 8

We’re getting another useful tool in our fusion toolkit with a Genesis Mission award from the U.S. Department of @ENERGY. Through the program, @CFS_energy will lead a group of U.S. labs, universities, and companies to use artificial intelligence and digital twins to help catalyze commercial fusion energy work.

We already have work underway to use AI to improve how our SPARC fusion machine will work, but this Genesis Mission Phase II award will help us expand and deepen that work — for example by tapping into decades of historical fusion data and marshaling the power of DOE supercomputers to improve AI models. Our partners in the effort are five National Laboratories, four businesses, and two universities.

Brandon Sorbom @BrandonSorbom Oct 1

Fun fact: I couldn’t fit inside the @MIT fusion machine that helped chart the @CFS_energy path to commercializing fusion energy. That’s because that machine, a tokamak called Alcator C-Mod, used a compact design that turns out to be really important. Smaller fusion machines cost less to build, and that translates directly into more economical fusion power.

Over two decades of research at PSFC, C-Mod helped blaze the trail that we’re now following to fusion energy at Commonwealth Fusion Systems. It showed that a compact tokamak with high magnetic fields — like our SPARC demonstration machine and ARC power plant — has the superior performance and flexibility we need to bring fusion energy to the grid.

All the way up to C-Mod’s last day of service 10 years ago, the tokamak was advancing the fusion state of the art. Over a series of pulses on Sept. 30, it showed multiple paths to achieving high plasma pressure — a key measurement since raising the plasma pressure increases the fusion power a lot.

Even though I couldn’t fit inside C-Mod, the machine was a big part of my grad school years at PSFC. I and many others are now putting that knowledge to good use bringing fusion to the world’s electrical grids.

Brandon Sorbom @BrandonSorbom Sep 30

Since CFS’ earliest days, I worked to ensure a supply of the high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tape that’s critical to our fusion machine magnets. We successfully built a supply for our 2021 TFMC prototype magnet test, then for the SPARC fusion demonstration machine that we’re assembling today, and now we’re working to build that for our ARC fusion power plants, too.

That’s why our announcement today that @CFS_energy agreed to purchase more than 10,000 kilometers (3 GA-m) of HTS tape from Fujikura Ltd. — the largest single HTS purchase order — is a big deal. Bringing commercial fusion energy to the world requires not only breakthrough science and engineering, but also a global industrial base that can manufacture critical components at scale.

Fujikura is an important partner in our global supply chain, and this order will support the expansion of its HTS manufacturing capacity. That’s the kind of investment we need as we move from building our SPARC demonstration machine to deploying our ARC power plants.

My thanks to the team at Fujikura for working with us to build this important industrial capability.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems Verified account @CFS_energy Sep 30

Fusion energy is often discussed as a matter of plasma physics, funding, and machine design, but bringing commercial fusion to the grid also requires a global industrial base that can manufacture critical components at scale.

Today CFS took an important step toward meeting that need, announcing an agreement to purchase more than 10,000 km (3 GA-m) of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tape from Fujikura Ltd. It’s the largest single purchase order for HTS tape, a critical component of our breakthrough magnets.

This news is important evidence that our fusion industrial supply chain is taking shape. Our order allows Fujikura to invest in new manufacturing capacity for the long term, stepping up in our global network of more than 1,000 suppliers across 30 countries.

We already built a supply chain for our SPARC fusion demonstration machine, but this agreement helps secure HTS tape for our next chapter: building ARC power plants, starting with our first at the Fall Line Fusion Power Station in Virginia. The ARC effort is moving ahead with design, technology development, and commercialization work like applying to connect that first ARC plant to the grid with PJM Interconnection, the largest U.S. wholesale electricity market.

View quoted post on X