Zap Energy

Fusion energy companies pursuing conven­tional tokamak designs are stymied by the size, cost, complexity, and energy demands of the magnets tradi­tion­ally used to trap fusion plasma inside their donut-shaped reactors. Zap Energy is betting on an alternative method called the Z‑pinch effect, in which a filament of energized deuterium-tritium gas forms its own tubular magnetic field. An effect called sheared flow stabi­liza­tion keeps the filament stable. After extensive modeling and simulation, the company generated its first plasmas in 2022.