Report calls for U.S. nuclear fusion pilot plant by 2040s
Themain criticism about nuclear fusion has been that its vast potential as a commercial source of energy has always been just out of reach.
But a group of the nation’s top fusion scientists and researchers just issued a report to the Energy Department that calls for the U.S. to build a fusion pilot plant by the 2040s. The report by the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee was two years in the making.
“What really emerged strongly from this is a real sense that the fusion energy science portfolio should really pivot towards an energy mission, and the realization of that mission is the development and operation of a fusion pilot plant in the 2040s,” said Wayne Solomon, who served as a committee co-chair. “That (target date) is a line-in-the-sand-type of thing.”
The report charts a strategic path for the U.S. as it seeks to develop nuclear fusion as a virtu-plasma ally limitless source of carbonfree energy.
Nuclear fusion differs from fission, which is the process used in commercial nuclear power plants. Fission splits the nuclei of atoms to create power; fusion causes hydrogen nuclei to collide and fuse into helium atoms that release tremendous amounts of energy — essentially releasing the same amount of energy that powers stars.
Fusion technology was critical in the development of the hydrogen bomb in the 1950s, but a peaceful, commercial application for fusion as a source of energy has attracted scientists for decades.
While operators of fission plants have to cope with radioactive spent fuel, or waste, that is left behind, the half-life of most radioisotopes contained in fusion is lower than 10 years. And the components activated in a fusion reactor are low enough to be recycled or reused within 100 years.
When any disturbance occurs during the fusion process, the cools within seconds and the reaction stops, thereby preventing the risk of a meltdown or accident.
“It really has a lot of potential to address humankind’s energy needs, now and into the future, at a level that probably nothing else can actually do,” said Solomon, who is also the director of science and technology for Magnetic Fusion Energy at General Atomics, a San Diego company.
But no commercial fusion reactors exist. In fact, fusion power has been generated only for very short periods in the laboratory.
In addition to the call for a pilot plant in the 2040s, the committee recommends experimental facilities to better understand plasma science and technology.
What’s plasma? At the extreme temperatures needed for nuclear fusion, electrons are separated from nuclei and a gas becomes a plasma — an ionized state of matter. Fusion energy and plasmas are inextricably linked, with a fusion reactor requiring a “burning plasma” that is confined and controlled at its core.
Advancements in plasma science have been made at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility that General Atomics operates as a contractor for the Energy Department. At DIII-D, a doughnutshaped metal vacuum chamber called a tokamak is surrounded by incredibly powerful magnets. Fuel consisting of hydrogen isotopes can be converted into plasma by heating the fuel to more than 150 million degrees.
The Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee report calls for building on what will be learned at ITER.
“Now is the time to move aggressively toward the deployment of fusion energy,” the report said.