Avalanche thinks the power industry needs to think smaller

Nuclear fusion conjures up images of large reactors or banks of many large types. Avalanche co-founder and CEO Robin Langtry thinks smaller is better.

For the past few years, Langtry and his colleagues at A flood they have been working on what is essentially a desktop version of nuclear fusion. “We’re using smaller sizes to learn faster and read faster,” Langtry told TechCrunch.

Fusion power promises to give the world more heat and electricity, if researchers and engineers can solve some of the problems. At its core, the combined force seeks to harness the power of the Sun. To do this, fusion starters must know how to heat and squeeze the plasma for a long time so that the atoms inside the fusion fuse, releasing energy during that time.

Fusion is a notoriously unforgiving business. Physics is complex, material science is advancing, and energy requirements can be huge. Components must be precisely designed, and the scale is often too large to avoid rapid fire testing.

Some companies such as Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) are using large magnets to contain plasma in donut-shaped tokamaks, others are compressing fuel pellets by firing them with powerful lasers. Avalanche, however, uses an electric current at a very high voltage to pull plasma particles into a path around an electrode. (It also uses some magnets to keep things moving, though not as strong as a tokamak.) As the passageway tightens and the plasma flows faster, the particles begin to breed and clump together.

This strategy has won over investors. Avalanche recently raised a $29 million round of investment led by RA Capital Management with participation from 8090 Ventures, Congruent Ventures, Founders Fund, Lowercarbon Capital, Overlay Capital, and Toyota Ventures. To date, the company has raised $80 million from investors, a very low in the world synthesis. Some companies have raised several hundred dollars to a few billion dollars.

Inspiration from space

Langtry’s time at Jeff Bezos-backed space tech company Blue Origin influenced Avalanche’s approach to the problem.

“We’ve realized that using this SpaceX ‘new space’ approach is that you can read faster, you can learn faster, and you can overcome these challenges.” said Langtry, who worked with co-founder Brian Riordan at Blue Origin.

The deficit allowed the Avalanche to accelerate. The company has been trying to change to his devices “sometimes twice a week,” something that can be difficult and expensive with a large device.

Currently, the Avalanche controller is only nine inches across, though Langtry said the new model grows to 25 centimeters and is expected to produce about one megawatt. He added that, “it will help us to stay in confinement, and that’s how we’ll get plasmas that have a probability of being Q > 1.” (In integration, Q refers to the ratio of on and off. When it is greater than one, the integrated device is said to have passed through the junction.)

That testing will take place at Avalanche’s FusionWERX, a commercial testing facility that the company also leases to its competitors. By 2027, the facility will be licensed to use tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that is used as fuel and is essential for many of the group’s proposed fusion power plants.

Langtry wouldn’t commit to a day when he hopes the Avalanche will be able to generate more energy than its combined equipment consumes, an industry priority. But he thinks the company is on par with rivals such as CFS and Sam Altman-backed Helion. “I think there will be a lot of exciting things happening in 2027 to 2029,” he said.