Type One Energy

Type One Energy is a University of Wisconsin–Madison spin-off pursuing the optimized stellarator path to commercial fusion. In early 2025 the company published the world's first fully self-consistent stellarator pilot-plant physics basis — six peer-reviewed papers in the Journal of Plasma Physics covering its Infinity Two design. A partnership with the Tennessee Valley Authority sets the stage for siting at an existing utility location.

Use modern AI-optimised coil geometry to deliver the steady-state advantages of a stellarator with tokamak-class confinement — sited next to existing TVA grid infrastructure.

Global electricity demand is entering an unprecedented growth phase driven by AI infrastructure, data centers, transport electrification, industrial decarbonization, water desalination, and advanced manufacturing. Solar suffers intermittency, wind capacity-factor variability, natural gas carbon emissions, conventional nuclear cost and deployment speed, and batteries energy-density and duration limits. The world requires a new source of clean, dispatchable baseload energy. Fusion represents the ultimate energy source — the challenge is making it commercially practical.

Stellarators achieve plasma confinement through complex 3D-shaped magnetic coils rather than plasma current. They run steady-state and are immune to the disruptions that threaten tokamaks. Until recently, the manufacturability of 3D coils made stellarators uncompetitive — modern AI optimization and HTS conductors have changed the calculus.

Deuterium-tritium fusion releases ~80% of its energy as 14.1 MeV neutrons, which deposit their kinetic energy in a surrounding blanket. The heat drives a conventional steam (Rankine) or supercritical-CO₂ (Brayton) turbine.

The most thoroughly understood fusion fuel cycle, highest cross-section at achievable temperatures, and proven back-end engineering (steam turbines are 19th-century technology). Trade-offs: neutron-induced materials damage, tritium handling, ~33–40% Carnot-limited efficiency.

Steady-state operation eliminates the duty-cycle losses of pulsed devices, and siting at existing TVA generation locations reuses transmission interconnect, cooling, security and grid services — collapsing project finance risk.

Stellarators as the workhorse architecture of commercial fusion.

Deliver a stellarator pilot plant on the existing US utility grid.

• Manufacturing tolerances of complex 3D HTS coils
• Divertor heat handling in non-axisymmetric geometry

1. 2024

   Acquired the Princeton/Lockheed Martin Compact Stellarator IP

2. Early 2025

   Infinity Two physics basis published in JPP

3. 2025

   77 K HTS magnet test completed at MIT

4. 2025

   TVA partnership for pilot plant siting