TAE Technologies and Black Moon Energy Corporation (BMEC) have signed a strategic agreement for the supply and commercialization of helium-3 as fuel for nuclear fusion. Announced on August 5, 2026, from Foothill Ranch, California, the deal establishes a prospective He-3 procurement option and a framework for joint commercial development.
The core of the agreement is straightforward: BMEC will supply helium-3 to TAE, giving the California-based company an alternative to the deuterium-tritium cycle that most other fusion developers rely on. TAE argues that its approach — based on a field-reversed configuration — is compatible with multiple fuel cycles, a flexibility few others in the sector can claim. The agreement does not guarantee immediate fuel delivery, but lays the legal and commercial groundwork to access it once fusion technology is ready for industrial scale.
TAE CEO Michl Binderbauer said the deal “can facilitate our path to power production by providing an alternative fuel supply option.” On BMEC’s side, CEO David Warden emphasized that the collaboration helps build a commercial framework for next-generation energy systems. The two companies position themselves as complementary: one develops the reactor, the other builds the fuel supply chain.
On the technical and industrial front, TAE is already in advanced preparation for its first commercial fusion plant, called Da Vinci. The reactor is designed to generate 50 megawatts electric and is expected to begin operations in 2031, with the site to be announced by year’s end. Follow-on plants are already conceived to scale between 350 and 500 MWe. TAE has built six generations of fusion machines over nearly three decades of research; the latest, called Norm, is the most advanced testbed before Da Vinci.
Helium-3 is rare on Earth but present in significant quantities on the lunar surface, where millennia of solar wind have deposited it in the regolith. Black Moon Energy Corporation is a private company focused on the extraction and monetization of lunar resources. Over the next five years, BMEC plans to conduct a robotic reconnaissance mission to the Moon to gather experimental data in preparation for large-scale commercial He-3 production. Helium-3 is also in demand for quantum computing, security systems, and medical diagnostics, broadening the company’s potential market well beyond fusion alone.
The agreement comes against the backdrop of a broader corporate transaction: TAE is pursuing a merger with Trump Media & Technology Group (Nasdaq: DJT), with the goal of closing the deal by the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals. If completed, TAE would gain access to public financial markets and new resources to accelerate the development of its plants. The BMEC deal strengthens the credibility of the industrial project at this pivotal moment.
The key challenge that remains is the availability of helium-3 at commercial scale — still an open question. But the existence of a formal agreement between an advanced fusion company and a specialist lunar extraction operator signals that the He-3 fusion value chain is beginning to take concrete shape. If Da Vinci comes online on schedule and BMEC’s robotic missions yield useful data, the 2030s could see the first real-world tests of an energy cycle powered by fuel mined from the Moon.
