Two new public-private collaborations with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) aim to hasten the development of fusion technology, the same fusion energy that powers the sun and stars. 

The collaborations bring PPPL into a one-year partnership with Princeton Stellarators Inc. (PSI), a start-up cofounded by physicist David Gates, former managing research physicist at PPPL. The stellarator is one of two main systems with which scientists around the world are seeking to capture and control fusion energy as a clean and abundant source of power to generate electricity and mitigate climate change. 

The two collaborations, one involved in heating plasma to million-degree temperatures and the other using high-fidelity computer codes to promote plasma stability, will lead to “a new, radically simplifying system that allows for a more practical and cost-effective approach to fusion," said Gates.