DEVICE • Fusion eyed as carbon-free source of energy
just keep going,” Buttery said. “We have all these eager scientists that are waiting to see how they can use all these upgrades and learn more about how to make fusion work.”
Finding a way to harness fusion’s vast potential has been a journey that has spanned decades.
Its promoters say the technological breakthrough needed to construct commercial fusion reactors would transform the energy sector by offering an almost infinite supply of power that emits no greenhouse gases.
Nuclear fusion is not to be confused with nuclear fission, the process used to generate electricity in nuclear power plants such as the now-shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. Unlike fission reactors, fusion leaves behind no longlived or highly dangerous radioactive waste.
But a long-running joke in the industry says commercial fusion is always 30 years away. Fusion technology developed the hydrogen bomb in the 1950s but as an energy source, fusion power has been generated only for short periods in the laboratory and no commercial reactors exist.
But with scientists and policymakers keen on finding carbon-free sources of power, fusion has garnered more attention.
The DIII-D facility has been instrumental in the design of ITER, a gigantic multinational fusion project under construction in France. ITER, pronounced “eater,” will not produce a working power plant but the experiment is designed to show whether fusion technology can be commercially viable.
General Atomics is in the process of fabricating and shipping six modules that will be inserted into the heart of the ITER facility.
Two of the modules that will make up what’s called ITER’s Central Solenoid — the world’s most powerful magnet — have already been delivered to the project’s site in southern France. A seventh module will also be shipped, acting as a spare.
“We’re very confident (the ITER project is) going to work because it’s a scaled up version of what we’re doing here at DIII-D,” Buttery said. “So we think its very much a doable reality.”
Others have been much more skeptical.
ITER has been hampered by cost overruns and
delays. The project’s director-general, Bernard Bigot, said last fall the target for “first plasma” will not occur in 2025 as previously expected because of global disruptions due to the pandemic. Bigot expressed confidence the project’s target to attain full fusion power project by 2035 can be met.
The latest price tag for ITER is $22 billion.
Some have complained that the money going to ITER will siphon funding for other clean energy projects, with a Green Party member of the European Parliament calling the project a “financial
chasm” and a “scientific chimera.” Others doubt whether the amount of power ITER expects to produce will be offset by the amount the project consumes.
Nonetheless, a number of private fusion companies are attracting big money from investors.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a spinoff of research done at MIT, has raised $4 billion since its founding in 2018. Last month it announced raising $1.8 billion, the largest funding round ever for a nuclear fusion company. Investors include
Bill Gates and George Soros.
One month earlier, a fusion company near Seattle called Helion announced a funding round of $500 million.
In Foothill Ranch near Irvine, TAE Technologies is the world’s largest private fusion energy company and last year the company touted producing stable plasma at more than 90 million degrees Fahrenheit in a compact reactor design.