Thea Energy lands $20M federal grant to build its magnets for fusion reactors

Thea Energy 获得 2000 万美元联邦拨款，用于制造核聚变反应堆磁体

For hard-tech startups, manufacturing is a pricey endeavor. Now, Thea Energy has a leg up courtesy of a Department of Energy grant. The fusion power startup told TechCrunch Monday that it has received a $20 million award from ARPA-E to help manufacture its modular high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets. 对于硬科技初创公司而言，制造是一项昂贵的工程。如今，Thea Energy 在美国能源部拨款的帮助下获得了一大助力。这家核聚变初创公司周一向 TechCrunch 表示，已获得美国能源部高级研究计划局（ARPA-E）的 2000 万美元资助，用于制造其模块化高温超导（HTS）磁体。

HTS magnets are costly but important components in any magnetic confinement reactor, one of the two main ways startups are attempting to harness fusion power for commercial purposes. In magnetic confinement reactors, powerful magnetic fields contain and compress plasma, helping to heat the particles until the fuel can fuse and release large amounts of energy. 高温超导磁体是任何磁约束反应堆中昂贵但至关重要的组件，而磁约束是初创公司尝试将核聚变能源商业化的两种主要途径之一。在磁约束反应堆中，强大的磁场用于约束和压缩等离子体，帮助加热粒子，直到燃料发生聚变并释放出大量能量。

Thea’s reactor is based on a design known as a stellarator. Stellarators look like inner tubes that have been twisted and squeezed in ways that help it confine the plasma more effectively. Most stellarators use magnets that are built to mimic those twists and turns, which makes them expensive to manufacture. Thea 的反应堆基于一种被称为“仿星器”（stellarator）的设计。仿星器看起来像是一个经过扭曲和挤压的内胎，这种形状有助于更有效地约束等离子体。大多数仿星器使用的磁体都是为了模拟这些扭曲和转弯而制造的，这使得它们的制造成本非常高昂。

To minimize manufacturing costs, Thea uses fewer variants. The 12 large magnets that do the heavy lifting are made from four different templates, and the more than 300 smaller magnets used to fine tune the plasma are all identical. They’re arrayed around the periphery of the reactor, similar to how pixels are distributed across a computer display. The small magnets are controlled by software, an arrangement that should allow for more forgiving construction tolerances, which could lower costs, Thea says. 为了最大限度地降低制造成本，Thea 减少了磁体的种类。承担主要约束任务的 12 个大型磁体仅由四种模板制成，而用于微调等离子体的 300 多个小型磁体则完全相同。它们排列在反应堆的外围，类似于像素在计算机显示器上的分布方式。Thea 表示，这些小型磁体由软件控制，这种布局允许更宽松的施工公差，从而有望降低成本。

Thea is among the top funded fusion power startups, having raised $100 million in May on top of a $20 million Series A it raised in 2024. Like many of its peers, Thea has plans to build a commercial-scale fusion power plant in the mid-2040s. Thea 是资金最雄厚的核聚变初创公司之一，继 2024 年筹集 2000 万美元 A 轮融资后，又于今年 5 月筹集了 1 亿美元。与许多同行一样，Thea 计划在 2040 年代中期建造一座商业规模的核聚变发电厂。