The private fusion sector has seen some significant growth over the past couple of years, attracting over $3 billion in investment spurred in part by a major breakthrough in fusion energy late last year. A recently formed partnership between a Santa Fe-based engineering startup and a New York firm could help the New Mexico company break into that expanding sector.
Woodruff Engineering Inc., a company based at 2778 Agua Fria St. in Santa Fe that builds pieces of equipment like magnetic field coils and pulsed power systems, signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate with Canyon Magnet Energy Inc., an engineering and testing company based in Long Island, New York.
The "strategic partnership" between the two startups will allow the companies to "work as a team" in designing, testing and, eventually, manufacturing some of the complex technical parts used for fusion research and development, like high-temperature superconducting cables and magnets, said Honghai Song, Ph.D., the founder of Canyon Magnet Energy.
Those components are part of the fusion supply chain, which, according to a Fusion Industry Association report, was worth over $500 million in 2022. The fusion industry is still in its very early stages, though, with companies not expected to begin delivering fusion power to the grid until the end of the decade or the middle of the next decade.
Still, research and development in fusion energy requires parts suppliers and testers. That's why Simon Woodruff, Ph.D., Woodruff Engineering's president, called the partnership a "no-brainer."
"We thought, 'How do we enhance the probability of us getting into this space?'" Woodruff said about the fusion industry. "We're very interested, we've got a lab and we're quite keen to build things and test things. Honghai [Song] has the design expertise, the testing expertise and the sensor and diagnostic expertise, so it's just a natural fit."
Woodruff launched Woodruff Scientific Inc. in 2005 and moved the company to New Mexico in 2017. Woodruff Engineering, which formed in August 2023, is being spun out from Woodruff Scientific, Woodruff said.
That's because Woodruff, who has studied at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom and at the University of California Berkeley's Department of Nuclear Engineering, wants to turn Woodruff Scientific into what he's calling the "New Mexico Energy Technology Incubator," or NMETI.
The incubator would facilitate the creation and growth of new businesses in the energy sector, including fusion energy, Woodruff said. He wants to set up the incubator at the south end of the Santa Fe Community College campus.
Part of the incubator would include manufacturing capabilities for companies like Woodruff Engineering, as well as for other firms, to use, Woodruff added. He said several other high-temperature superconducting tape manufacturers — another component used in fusion systems — are interested in standing up manufacturing in New Mexico.
Although he didn't provide any company names, he said an announcement about those efforts could come "in the very near future."
A large design and manufacturing facility could be built as part of NMETI by late 2024, Woodruff said. That facility, once operational, could be used to build components designed by Woodruff Engineering in collaboration with Canyon Magnet Energy.
But to get those design, testing and manufacturing capabilities up and running, the two companies would need more money. Song, who incorporated Canyon Magnet Energy earlier this month as a rebrand from his former company, Deepsapce Technologies LLC, said between $3 to $5 million in seed capital would be needed to help scale operations.
That money would be used to buy additional equipment and raw materials, Song said.
In the long term, Woodruff and Song said they hope to generate revenue by selling the components they design and manufacture to fusion companies. However, because of some testing capabilities that Canyon Magnet Energy has in-house, the startups can also bring in money through partnering on instrumentation and control testing.
The end goal, according to both Woodruff and Song, is to break into the fusion market. There are around 45 fusion companies worldwide currently, Woodruff said; he added the two startups are talking with about half a dozen of those companies at the moment.
