By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON, Dec 18 (Reuters) – Scientists and companies have been trying for decades to harness fusion energy, the process that fires the sun, to generate electricity on Earth.
A $6 billion deal announced on Thursday to merge U.S. President Donald Trump’s social media firm Trump Media and Technology Group with Google-backed TAE Technologies is the latest development in the industry that is a long way from commercialization.
WHAT IS FUSION?
Fusion energy, the process that fires the sun and stars, occurs when light atoms, such as hydrogen isotopes, are forced together to fuse under extreme pressure and temperatures to release huge amounts of energy.
Today’s nuclear reactors are fired by nuclear fission, in which atoms are split to release energy.
Physicists at companies and in national laboratories are racing to replicate fusion reactions in hopes of producing electricity expected to be low in pollution and long-lasting radioactive waste. If successful, fusion could one day help meet demand for power which in the United States is rising for the first time in decades on artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and manufacturing.
Backers, including TAE and Commonwealth Fusion Systems hope to build plants to begin sending power to the grid in the late 2020s to early 2030s.
WHAT ARE THE HURDLES?
Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Lab in 2022 briefly achieved for the first time a net energy gain from a fusion experiment using lasers. The lab has replicated the breakthrough since, but the energy output of the experiments is tiny compared to the energy that fired the lasers in the first place.
The brief fusion reactions that physicists have achieved so far would need to occur continuously and over the long term in order to generate reliable electricity.
Fusion companies also need to develop materials and plants that could withstand continuous neutron bombardments over the long term. In order to become a widespread power source, fusion would likely have to replace existing electricity infrastructure.
WHAT ARE THE TECHNOLOGIES?
Most fusion companies are either trying to drive fusion reactions using lasers or large magnets. TAE plans to use magnets and neutral particle beams, not lasers, for fusion.
WHICH COUNTRIES ARE MOVING ON FUSION?
The United States is home to 29 fusion developers, the UK has four, while China, Germany and Japan are among countries that have three, according to the U.S.-based Fusion Industry Association, or FIA.
China appears to be building a large laser-ignited fusion research center, similar to the fusion facility at Lawrence Livermore, in Mianyang. That development could aid nuclear weapons design and work exploring power generation.
WHICH PUBLICLY TRADED COMPANIES ARE INVESTING?
FIA said earlier this year that fusion companies have received nearly $9 billion in private funding.
Several firms such as Chevron, Siemens Energy, Nucor and Google’s Alphabet have invested in fusion companies.
Helion Energy, a startup backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SoftBank’s venture capital arm, said in July it had started construction on a site for a planned nuclear fusion power plant that will supply power to Microsoft data centers by 2028.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Andrea RIcci )
