The New Accelerator Driving Commercial Fusion: Money

More than 30 private companies are working on commercial fusion development. Success may finally be within sight.

Practical nuclear fusion as a power source has been a scientific and engineering goal for 60 years. Despite billions of dollars and decades spent working the problem, however, commercial power generation always seems to be half a decade away. Giant, expensive, government-funded and university-led research programs have produced vast amounts of useful knowledge, but is big science the only way toward moving to a point where engineers can take over? With some 35 private companies now using venture capital to create prototypes of practical commercial reactors, the finish line may finally be in sight. Jim Anderton comments. 

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I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for fusion energy. Who wouldn’t be? Fusion promises unlimited energy, an inexhaustible source of fuel and little to no nuclear waste.  

Scientists and engineers have been chasing fusion for 70 years and have been working on commercial applications for over 30 years. The trouble is that fusion is 50 years away, and always has been. Is there anything that anyone can do to keep the finish line from receding toward the horizon, the way it does with current fusion technologies?  

I think we’re about to find out.  

After decades of government-funded, university-driven fusion research, multiple private companies, well-financed, are cutting metal right now with the goal of building prototype power reactors. The difference is important, because for decades, large fusion programs like the National Ignition Facility and the multinational ITER project have been focused on the first steps; namely, understanding and controlling plasmas, and validating theories around important factors such as ignition and stability.  

That’s all good but has two major disadvantages: it is slow and incredibly expensive. Advancing the planet’s understanding of atomic science is a good thing, but it’s a substantially different thing from engineering a commercial power reactor.  

The first commercial fission reactors were built 60 years ago with a far weaker understanding of the physics than exists today. Plus, they were built on principles derived from military reactors of a decade earlier which were producing heat and transmuted fissionable materials with an even weaker understanding of the underlying science. Why didn’t they wait until they fully understood the physics? Because military needs dictated that America and Russia not spend three or four decades trying to understand nuclear fission perfectly before attempting it.  

It seems to me that that’s where we have been with fusion for a long, long time. For years, there were only two approaches: confine a plasma on a toroidal magnetic field in a high vacuum or implode a target pellet with extremely powerful laser beams. Both approaches had one thing in common: they require enormous amounts of apparatus and money.  

Then energy became important again with global warming, and some private equity stepped in. Suddenly, with commercial investment, there are multiple alternative technologies under development that are truly unique.  

General Fusion is building a prototype that mechanically impacts a vessel full of liquid metal to create a converging spherical shockwave to create fusion. Commonwealth Fusion Systems use the familiar tokamaks, but in a considerably scaled-down form and using new high temperature superconductors to cost-effectively generate the staggering magnetic fields needed for containment. TAE Technologies are combining magnetic containment and particle accelerator methods. Tokamak Energy is using a spherical tokamak, also with high temperature superconductors.  

To date, over 4.7 billion dollars has been spent by private investment in commercial fusion, according to a Fusion Industry Association report. And there are now 35 private companies working on commercial fusion. So, when do we get there?  

We still don’t know, but there are reasons to believe that it won’t take 50 years. The main reason is that there are now multiple and different approaches to achieving commercially viable fusion power, and hedging bets is always a good idea. But I think the most important is that there is now private capital behind the effort, capital that needs to see a return on investment.  

The giant, nationally funded research programs will generate a large amount of very useful research, but they can succeed in that effort without ever actually producing a commercially viable power reactor. For them, the journey is the finish line. For the smaller players, the goal is to become the Apple or Alphabet of renewable energy.  

Everyone wants fusion—environmentalists, governments, and a small but growing pool of private investors. The real accelerator here isn’t about subatomic particles; it’s cash.  

Written by

James Anderton

Jim Anderton is the Director of Content for ENGINEERING.com. Mr. Anderton was formerly editor of Canadian Metalworking Magazine and has contributed to a wide range of print and on-line publications, including Design Engineering, Canadian Plastics, Service Station and Garage Management, Autovision, and the National Post. He also brings prior industry experience in quality and part design for a Tier One automotive supplier.