Commonwealth Fusion Systems: Ben Byboth, Head of Power Business and Strategy Alex Creely, Head of Tokamak Operations
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Speaker Biographies
Alex Creely is the Head of Tokamak Operations at Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), leading operational planning for the world's first net-energy fusion device, the SPARC tokamak. Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Alex studied Mechanical Engineering at Princeton University as an undergraduate before completing his Ph.D. in Applied Plasma Physics at MIT. He has worked on fusion devices around the world, including the Alcator C-Mod tokamak at MIT, the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Germany, and the Large Helical Device at the National Institute for Fusion Science in Japan.
Ben Byboth is the Head of Power Business and Strategy at CFS. Ben has extensive experience in power generation and electric utility operations. A US Navy Veteran, Ben has an undergraduate in Nuclear Engineering Technology from Thomas Edison State University and a Masters in Business Administration from Tulane University. He has operated nuclear fission power plants, improved fossil plant operations, built new business models for distributed energy, and led innovation practices and grid modernization for fortune 500 electric utility companies.
Abstract
Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) was spun out of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center to leverage decades of fusion research and combine it with the innovation and speed of the private sector. Supported by the world's leading investors in breakthrough energy technologies, the CFS team is uniquely positioned to deliver the fastest path to commercial fusion energy. CFS has assembled a world-class team to design and build fusion machines.
At the core, CFS builds fusion devices called tokamaks. Tokamaks confine the power of stars in the form of plasma with magnetic fields creating conditions to support fusion power. CFS has developed novel magnet technology allowing smaller and more efficient fusion devices, and thus a viable path to economical fusion power. Our commercial power plant model, called ARC, will transfer the energy from fusion reactions to drive commercial processes, including steam production and electricity generation. We are currently constructing SPARC, a demonstration tokamak that incorporates our magnet technology into a tokamak. We anticipate SPARC will be the first fusion device to create more power from fusion than the energy input into the plasma.
Fusion power is a zero-carbon, inherently safe energy source with widely available fuel. The fuel is isotopes of hydrogen, derived from water and lithium, and the exhaust is helium. There is no possibility of an uncontrolled chain reaction or decay heat requiring emergency cooling that could result in a meltdown. There is no long-term high-level activated waste that would require multi-generational storage and management. The safety of the power plants allow them to be constructed near population and load centers on relatively small footprints and avoid expensive transmission systems. As a flexible resource, fusion has the capacity to react dynamically on the grid and support intermittent generation sources. Finally, favorable regulations will allow development and construction at scale will enable ARC to be a financially viable energy source within the next decade.
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Zoom Link: https://utexas.zoom.us/s/96867307180
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