The United States will work with other governments to accelerate efforts to make nuclear fusion a new source of carbon-free energy, the US climate envoy said John Kerry said Tuesday, marking the latest of many U.S. announcements over the past week aimed at combating climate change.
Nuclear fusion fuses two hydrogen atoms together to produce a helium atom and a lot of energy – which could be used to power cars, heat and cool homes and other things that are currently often powered by fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas . That makes fusion a potentially major solution to climate change, which is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Yet fusion is still a long way off, while other clean technologies such as wind and solar energy are currently in use and can be expanded.
“We are getting closer to a fusion-driven reality. And at the same time, significant scientific and technical challenges do indeed exist,” Kerry said in Dubai for UN climate talks. “Careful thought and thoughtful policy will be critical to navigating this.”
Researchers have been trying for decades to harness the reaction that powers the Sun and other stars — an elusive goal because it requires such high temperatures and pressure that it easily extinguishes.
Kerry wants to accelerate that in hopes of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, a benchmark set by the international community. He urged countries to come together to “harness the power of fundamental physics and human ingenuity in response to a crisis.” The strategy outlines five areas for international partnerships: research, the supply chain and the future market, regulation, workforce issues and public engagement. Kerry spoke at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Forum.
The United States and Britain announced a partnership in November to accelerate the global development of fusion energy, and the United States last year released its own vision for the research needed over the next decade. In southern France, 35 countries are working together on an experimental machine to harness fusion energy, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale, carbon-free energy source. That project was plagued by delays and cost overruns. On Friday, Japan and Europe said they were launching the world’s largest fusion reactor.
Both China and Russia are partners in ITER, and China in particular is moving aggressively to promote fusion research and development, said Andrew Holland, general manager of the Fusion Industry Association.
“We’re trying to build a global group to get there before the Chinese so that the Chinese don’t dominate another new technology,” he said.
Before leaving for Dubai, Kerry put on a hard hat and toured Commonwealth Fusion Systems in Devens, Massachusetts, a company racing to design, build and deploy fusion power plants.
Until now, all nuclear energy has come from nuclear fission reactors that split atoms – a process that produces both energy and radioactive waste. The global nuclear industry launched an initiative at COP28 in which countries must pledge to triple this type of nuclear energy by 2050. More than 20 have already signed up, including the United States and the host of this year’s talks, the United Arab Emirates.
Fusion does not produce the radioactive waste of nuclear fission. According to the Fusion Industry Association, more than $6 billion has been invested so far in a global race to make it a practical and potentially limitless energy source. There are now more than 40 merged companies worldwide with more than 80% of investments in the United States. Thirteen of these companies were created in the past year and a half.
According to the association, Commonwealth Fusion Systems has raised the most, more than $2 billion.
Like the 35-nation effort, the Commonwealth is trying to create fusion within what is called a tokamak. The donut-shaped machine uses powerful magnets to trap and insulate a plasma so that it is hot enough for the fusion reaction to take place and stays hot longer.
A year ago, in a major breakthrough using a different technology at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, scientists succeeded for the first time in developing a reaction that produced more energy than was used to ignite the reaction. the so-called net energy gain. Their process uses lasers.
Physicists around the world consider the doughnut-shaped machines to be the most promising type of magnetic fusion device.
Tokamaks have become larger for better performance. Commonwealth Fusion was founded in 2018 by researchers and students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Using breakthroughs in superconducting magnet technology combined with science from their own compact tokamak, the MIT group set out to build a magnet that could withstand high temperatures and create very strong magnetic fields, using little electricity.
Their hope is to build a smaller, cheaper unit faster, to make fusion commercially viable for the first time, said Professor Dennis Whyte, co-founder of Commonwealth and head of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center.
“If nuclear fusion becomes economically competitive, we will have solved energy for humanity forever. It’s like, of course, you’re going to go after that,” he said in an interview. “The push that comes from both climate change and energy security means that this certainly seems like the right time to take the big step to get there.”
The company and the university work closely together. In 2021, they turned on their superconducting electromagnet and demonstrated a record-breaking magnetic field, making it the strongest fusion magnet of its kind. Whyte said he knew then that fusion had changed forever.
But despite the hype, reliable and cheap nuclear fusion energy is still a pipe dream, says Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear energy safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington. Fusion is far less likely than other alternatives to be brought to market in a timeframe that would help prevent the worst impacts of climate change, he said. Lyman said the huge price tag could also deprive promising alternatives, such as renewable energy, of resources they need to thrive.
Still, 19 merger companies believe they will deliver power to the grid before 2035, the Fusion Industry Association said in July.
Commonwealth is designing its first power plant, which it calls “ARC,” to connect to the grid in the early 2030s.
ARC is intended to produce approximately 460 megawatts of electricity. About 60 of those would be used to run the plant, for a net output of about 400 megawatts, enough to power tens of thousands of homes. According to the company, it is expected to cost about $1 billion to $2 billion and fit in a space the size of a basketball court.
To that end, Commonwealth says it will build and test a prototype tokamak it calls SPARC, hoping to enable it in late 2025 or early 2026.
CEO Bob Mumgaard said he thinks clean energy from fusion can decarbonize heavy industries, which are major emitters of greenhouse gases.
“That’s our future game, it’s the really hard things, the things that take you to zero,” he said in an interview.
Along the walls of Commonwealth runs a pattern of white dots at waist height, one for each of the 10,000 fusion power plants they say the world will need by 2050. Mumgaard said it’s a daily reminder that the world uses a lot of energy, most of it. from fossil fuels, and that must change.
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