Google is going into partnership with nuclear fusion company Tri Alpha energy, to work on clean energy technology.
By partnering, the two companies have developed a complex algorithm to speed up the fusion process and improve plasma generation. This innovation is the important ingredient needed in energy technology.
Named, ‘Optometrist Algorithm’, it aims to combine high powered computation with human judgement to find solutions to complex problems.
Ted Baltz, part of Google Accelerated Science Team, said in a post from Google that dealing with nuclear fusion is even beyond the capacity of Google-level resources. Thus, the importance of the two companies joining together to develop the technology and combine computer learning methods with human knowledge.
With Google’s help, Tri Alpha Energy’s C2-U machine has shown faster process than ever, carrying out operations that took a month in just a few hours. The joint effort to innovate technology has also reduced energy losses by 50%.
To test out their creation, the C2-U machine ran an experiment ever eight minutes to see if it behaved as it was predicted to, and holds a promising result as it created more energy than it consumes.
A newer version of the machine, named ‘Norman’, has now been created. Norman is much more powerful, achieving its first plasma earlier this month.
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Google stated, in a blog post, they use plasma physics to solve complex engineering problems and have been trying to get a breakthrough with the research they’ve carried out so far. The aim is to reach a ‘breakeven’ point, allowing companies to produce more energy than they consume. Following this, the goal is to provide a large source of zero carbon energy.
For both Google and Tri Alpha Energy, the end goal is the same: to work to achieve a clean energy technology. As climate change has proved a difficulty, environmentally, and the necessity to cut carbon emissions has become more important, the need for a clean, safe, limitless energy is apparent more now than ever before.
Nuclear fusion technology firms have waited a long time and invested billions of dollars to this moment of breakthrough technology.
Google is up against a selection of other groups following the same dream to be the one to make the full breakthrough. Their largest competitor is Iter, a project located in the south of France. Other competitors are within Europe, as well as a handful around the world.
