An interview with Chris Mowry, CEO of Type One Energy

On the partnership with Commonwealth Fusion Systems:

Commercial Fusion: How does your partnership with Commonwealth Fusion Systems differ from CFS’s past magnet deals (with the University of Wisconsin, for example)? Can you talk about that broadly? 

Chris Mowry: The relationship we have with CFS is really a manufacturing relationship. The underlying technology there was developed by MIT, the HTS cable technology called VIPER. We have exclusive rights to that technology for stellarators as part of this relationship. Starting with the MIT / CFS VIPER technology, we've modified it, tested it, and are basically designing our own magnet technology. Once we are comfortable with it, we'll engage in a build-to-print manufacturing relationship with CFS.

So  it's quite a bit different than the University of Wisconsin deal. As long as we use VIPER-based technology, we hope that CFS has the ability to manufacture our magnets.

On the partnership with the Tennessee Valley Authority:

Commercial Fusion: Type One had worked with the Tennessee Valley Authority in the past, before the larger cooperative agreement was announced in February. How has that relationship changed over time?

Chris Mowry: So the original Project Infinity was between Type One, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Oak Ridge National Lab, and the state of Tennessee. That was around deploying our design verification test bed Stellarator prototype at the retired Bull Run fossil plant, in partnership with the TVA. That was started in 2023, and we formalized that agreement early last year. We've been working together on that since then, and that’s still a piece of this relationship.

What's happened since then is, the TVA has become more comfortable with Type One Energy’s technology pathway. We've now expanded it to include the development of an actual TVA fusion power plant. We will jointly develop the project plan with them and support them in their process of selecting a site, the regulation, support with structured financing, and then the detailed execution plan for the project. So ultimately, the decision about timing around when to start construction is up to them, because it's going to be their plant, not ours. 

On the partnership with Pine Island New Energy Partners:

Commercial Fusion: My understanding is that you're helping the Pine Island team do due diligence, source deal flow, that sort of thing. Can you talk more about that? How do you square that long-term private equity development play with the stated timelines we've talked about that are a little bit tighter?

Chris Mowry: A fundamental thesis here is that we’ve identified a pathway that doesn't need any fundamentally new technology development. We have a pathway that fits within best available materials today. 

To better understand the relationship with Pine Island, you can look at HTS tape suppliers. There are existing manufacturers, but they don't make enough tape, and they don't make it fast enough. And so that's where growth equity comes in. All of these companies have revenue, so why should I use my investor dollars to mature that supply chain when you have a private equity market already in place?

And obviously it's going to help us, but it's also going to lift everybody up. And that's a good thing.

On stellarator design:

Commercial Fusion: There are a lot of criteria to choose from when selecting a specific stellarator design shape—alpha particle loss, coil complexity, quasi symmetry, all of that. Can you talk briefly about which constraints your team was most concerned about when you were putting this together? 

Chris Mowry: The team's viewpoint originally when we got started on this thing was that this would be a QH machine. But one of the things that we're fortunate enough to have access to are some of the world's fastest supercomputers at Oak Ridge National Lab. Our chief science officer, John Canik comes from the lab, we have great relationships there—the lab is a partner in Project Infinity.

We have access to the Summit and now the Frontier exascale supercomputers, because you need to be able to run full 3D modeling and simulation. After tens of thousands of those kinds of simulations, we ended in a baseline, and that's QI. There'll be additional details coming out about that soon.

On development timelines:

Commercial Fusion: Infinity One was discussed for 2025. What’s the timeline for the prototype fusion power plant, Infinity Two?

Chris Mowry: The primary mission we have here is to directly design the power plant. As you go through a structured engineering design process, you have stage gates or phases, right?

Typically, in the energy and power industry, which is where I come from, you're going to be in a position to execute an EPC contract once you've completed and verified a preliminary design. Our goal is to have a verified preliminary design for the pilot power plant by 2029.

How do you verify the design? Some components, like magnets, we can test as individual components. But there are certain features of our power plant design that we want to test on an integrated platform. Infinity One is not a stepping stone to infinity Two. It is a design verification test bed.

So, the goal is to have that operational in 2029, so we can use it to actually verify the design of Infinity Two.

On Type One’s hiring roadmap:

Commercial Fusion: What does your hiring roadmap look like as you enter this next phase of commercialization? Does the team have to change? What are your thoughts there?

Chris Mowry: We're pushing a couple hundred people at this point, and I think the core leadership is in place across all the relevant areas. What we're really doing now is building out the teams in these specific functional areas that we care about, from power plant engineering to field operations, maintenance, basic design engineering, expertise in the blankets, etc.

Our premise is that we can go find people who've done this before and that this is a way to de-risk the enterprise.

On proposed power plant output:

Commercial Fusion: Other stellarator developers have discussed one gigawatt power plants.  I know Infinity Two was planned for 350 megawatts. Can you talk about why you’re opting for a lower output plant?

Chris Mowry: That's an interesting comment. If you're a company filled with fusion scientists, you are naturally going to gravitate toward a one gigawatt power plant. But we're not a science project. This is a power plant, right? And when you think about a power plant, output is just a starting point.

One of the things that differentiates Type One is that we have a brain trust in the fusion science and engineering side that I would say is unparalleled. That is complemented by people who have a lifetime's worth of experience in designing, building, operating, and maintaining power plants. We need people who understand the power industry and how you make an economically viable power plant, not just from an overnight cost and size perspective, but from an operability, a maintainability, a deployability perspective.

And when you factor all those things in, you don't come up with one gigawatt.

On breeding tritium:

Commercial Fusion: How does Type One Energy plan to breed tritium? What sort of blanket technology are you guys using?

Chris Mowry: We have a helium-cooled ceramic breeder technology, and, there'll be more news coming out about that shortly. There are actually some special things around that which we have proprietary IP on, but fundamentally, we think we have a solution that fits within this timescale. I'll leave it to subsequent announcements here to fill in some of the white space. 

On fundraising plans:

Commercial Fusion: I know you did a seed extension that closed in July of last year. A lot of early stage fusion companies have done subsequent rounds within a year of closing their last priced round. So what does that timeline look like for you?

Chris Mowry:   One of the sayings in the venture space is, “early money is expensive money.” You want to have multiple financing rounds as you step up the ladder of value creation and demonstrate progress on whatever development program you have. So of course we have multiple rounds and typically you wouldn't see multiple years between financing. On the other hand, it's inefficient to continuously raise money at all times. So there's some balanced sweet spot there.

I don't want to get on the record here in public, in the details, but let's just say, we're not reinventing how to finance a venture-backed business here.