When it comes to fusion energy development, ITER is not the only player. Laser-mega Joule, also located in France; JET, in the UK; and the National Ignition Facility, in California, are other publicly funded efforts. Efforts exist in Korea and Japan as well. Even more exciting, perhaps, is the attention fusion is receiving from the private sector. The number of start-ups working on fusion has ballooned from a handful to twenty in the last decade. These firms are rushing to show proof-of-concept, which means they’ve built a reactor that produces more energy than it consumes to start the reaction.
One of the most promising startups is Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), an MIT spin-off based in Boston. It is building SPARC, a small prototype reactor that uses proprietary superconducting magnets. These magnets double the field strength (which is used to hold the reaction in place), and produces eight times the power of a same-sized reactor. CFS has received over $100 million in venture funding, some of which came from notable billionaires Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson. Other startups have raised even more funding. TAE Technologies has received over $800 million from investors.
Once proof-of-concept has been achieved, the winning firm will build a demonstration plant. Such a plant will cost between $50 and $500M and take an estimated ten years to build. If successful, the firm will then go public or be bought by a major corporation experienced in nuclear plant construction, such as General Electric or France’s EDF Energy. CFS hopes to show proof-of-concept by 2025 and build a demonstration plant within fifteen years.
So there are multiple paths forward toward fusion energy. It’s not clear which, if any, will work, but the intellectual attention and financial confidence being exhibited gives one an optimistic view that it could be achieved within our lifetimes, or at least in time to address global warming.
Reference:
Akshat Rathi, “In search of clean energy, investments in nuclear-fusion startups are heating up” Quartz, 26 September 2018, retrieved from https://qz.com/1402282/in-search-of-clean-energy-investments-in-nuclear-fusion-startups-are-heating-up/
Jonathan Shieber, “A Boston startup developing a nuclear fusion reactor just got a roughly $50 million boost,” TechCrunch, 27 July 2019, retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/27/a-boston-startup-developing-a-nuclear-fusion-reactor-just-got-a-roughly-50-million-boost/
Wikipedia, “ARC fusion reactor,” retrieved 21 May 2020 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARC_fusion_reactor
Plasma Fusion Lab at MIT, http://www.psfc.mit.edu/sparc