Last week, Zap Energy announced their new, integrated nuclear future as the first company to simultaneously pursue two tracks for nuclear power: fusion, an unproven but promising technology that smashes light atoms together to produce energy, and fission, the better-known nuclear pathway that already powers reactors around the globe by splitting heavy atoms.
To support these dual objectives, Zap has named Zabrina Johal as CEO, succeeding company co-founder Benj Conway, who is transitioning to president.
“Fission and fusion are two expressions of the same underlying physics,” Conway said in a statement. “This isn’t a pivot — by integrating them into a single platform, we can move faster, reduce risk, and build a more enduring company.” Rather than treating fission and fusion as separate industries, we see them as two points along the same technological continuum; sharing many of the same materials, engineering challenges, supply chains, and industrial capabilities.
Zap has been developing its nuclear plan over the past year and is looking to develop microreactors that roughly share the physical dimensions of its planned fusion device. The company’s approach builds on technology from the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II), developed and tested over decades at U.S. national laboratories. The strategy was later adopted by Toshiba for its 4S (Super-Safe, Small and Simple) reactor, though that project fizzled in the post-Fukushima climate that turned hostile to nuclear power — despite the fact the 4S design itself was unrelated to the Fukushima reactor technology.
Zap said it is now revitalizing the Toshiba design, which includes a 10-megawatt microreactor cooled by liquid sodium that can run for decades without refueling. The approach is attractive in part because Zap’s fusion device uses liquid lithium, which behaves similarly to sodium. “Zap’s approach is to build common technical foundations — materials, liquid metal systems, high power density design, and neutron environments — once and apply them across both fission and fusion,” the company said. The startup is confident that customers are hungry for both varieties of nuclear energy.
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