As 2025 nears, a look back at ten of this year's highlights.
Across the 1 keV threshold
In April, Physical Review Letters published measurements from Zap’s FuZE device of 1-3 keV plasma electron temperatures, the equivalent of up to 37 million degrees Celsius. Generating fusion at electron temperatures above 1 keV, hotter than the center of the sun, is an important threshold that only a few types of device have accomplished. FuZE became the simplest, smallest, and lowest-cost device to join the club.
Not just hot
Soon after the paper in PRL, Zap collaborators from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory published a complementary article about the plasma pressure profiles measured in FuZE. Plasma pressure, the combination of temperature and density, serves as a better measurement of fusion conditions than temperature alone. Measurements linked the expected performance, based on simulation and modeling, to FuZE’s observed neutron yield.
More plasmas, more neutrons
Our fusion devices FuZE and FuZE-Q have already produced over 10,000 plasmas in 2024 – nearly double their 2023 output. Both devices also improved their record neutron yields, with FuZE-Q achieving single-shot neutron production above 5x109 (5 billion neutrons), triple last year’s high-water mark. Zap’s fusion devices operated and generated fusion reactions almost daily throughout the past 12 months, with multiple upgrades along the way.
Upgraded FuZE-Q’s power bank. Twice.
Early this year we commissioned a new power supply for FuZE-Q, significantly increasing its peak power capability. Just this month we upgraded it again, doubling FuZE-Q’s operating voltage. The new pulsed power system is currently being commissioned, setting the stage for investigating new physics territory and higher fusion energy yields in 2025.
Dawn of a new Century
The successful commissioning of Century in June marked a major milestone in our development of fusion power plant technologies. Century combines three key enabling technologies: repetitive pulsed power, plasma-facing liquid metal walls, and resilient electrodes. The platform has already successfully completed multiple runs of over 1,000 pulses at 0.1 Hz.
Heavy metal on loop
Six months after it began operating, Century received a dramatic upgrade with a first-of-its-kind 40-foot-long liquid metal loop that contains two tons of melted bismuth. Air-cooled heat exchangers will remove the intense plasma heat absorbed by the circulating liquid metal. See the installation of the new system last month.
Fusion policy wins: Washington HB1924 and the U.S. ADVANCE Act
The integration of fusion development into state and federal policy frameworks made big strides this year, paving the way for commercialization. Our home state of Washington formally recognized fusion as clean energy through HB 1924. On the national level, the ADVANCE Act passed with a bipartisan 88-2 vote, establishing a firm separation of federal fusion energy regulations from nuclear fission.
A new round of capital
In October, we announced the close of $130 million in fresh funding, accelerating our progress and supporting our parallel development of both fusion plasma performance and power plant enabling systems technologies.
Expanding our global support
Notably, the new round included strategic international investments from Plynth Energy (United Arab Emirates), Mizuho Financial Group (Japan) and Xplor Ventures (Thailand). Nikkei covered Mizuho’s investment, and the significance of the UAE funding was recognized in an official statement from the White House.
Thinking different
This month, GeekWire named Zap Cofounder and Chief Scientist Uri Shumlak one of its “Uncommon Thinkers,” a mantle given to a small number of inventors, scientists and engineers in the Pacific Northwest who are driving positive change through advancing transformational technologies.
“It’s incredibly rewarding, and I can think of no larger impact that you could possibly make than by trying to solve fusion energy,” Shumlak told GeekWire.
All in
Excitement about fusion development continues to grow, as evidenced by recent stories from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist.
Emerson Collective, one of Zap’s new investors, shared a talk that explains their motivations for investing in fusion and the ways it will transform society. If you’re reading Zap’s year-in-review, you probably already get it, so do us a favor and tell a friend. We look forward to sharing more of our successes in 2025!
