Nuclear fusion company says it will make carbon
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Nuclear fusion company says it will make carbon-
It sounds like science fiction.
At a laboratory in Vancouver, Canada, scientists donning red coats are working to recreate the scorching, 100-million degree conditions inside the core of our sun. They use a two-story-high, octopus-like metal apparatus to collapse walls of silver liquid metal over hydrogen atoms, fusing the particles together and releasing heat. This heat is then turned into carbon-free energy.
Yes, it can work, but there's still a long, long way to go before this technology might end up powering your home. For over half a century, humanity has invested brilliant minds and billions of dollars to crack the fusion equation. Even so, the fusion dream remains largely mired in far-off future conceptions of what could be.
But to General Fusion CEO Chris Mowry, this work is no longer fictional Hollywood futurism. "Our goal is the opposite of futuristic," he said.
SEE ALSO: Elon Musk has finished building the biggest battery in the worldMowry and his team want these nuclear fusion reactors to replace the coal and gas plants powering today's energy-hungry cities. Such an ambitious feat, however, has proven elusive since the 1950s when people first tried to create practical science out of the theoretical notion of controlled fusion.
For over half a century, humanity has invested brilliant minds and billions of dollars to crack the fusion equation.
Harnessing energy from the collision and fusion of hydrogen atoms has historically been undertaken by massive, government-funded programs, like those in Russia, Japan, Europe, and the United States. The U.S., for instance, completed the $3.5 billion National Ignition Facility in 2009, a lab the size of three football fields that employs a giant laser to blast hydrogen atoms with 192 high-energy beams.
This program -- however impressive -- is nowhere near generating energy for the masses.
But with modern advancements, Mowry says the dream of affordable nuclear fusion that powers our homes, phones, and cars is now realistic.
It's hard to overstate just how much that would change the world.
"I think fusion is kind of the holy grail of energy," said Scott Hsu, a fusion researcher at the U.S. government's Los Alamos National Laboratory. On top of creating an immense amount of energy, Hsu noted that fusion also doesn't suffer from the many drawbacks of existing energy sources. Fusion runs on seawater (the source of hydrogen), doesn't leave behind radioactive fuel rods, and produces no carbon gases -- the source of Earth's warming.
The holy grail certainly isn't here yet, but General Fusion believes it's within reach -- much closer than most everyone else.
"Fusion is real," said Mowry. "All you have to do is look at the sun. This is really just a process of making an artificial star. It’s hard, but it's not impossible."
To create an artificial star, General Fusion isn't relying upon a revolutionary new idea. Mowry explained that the company is "re-imagining" nuclear fusion technology from 50 years ago.
"It’s kind of the SpaceX moment," he said, referencing the fact that Elon Musk didn't fundamentally change decades of rocket science. "Elon brought private industry innovations and enabling technologies to reimagine rocket science in a more cost-effective and practical way."
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable General Fusion hopes to do the same -- but on a planet plagued by the accumulation of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. This means ditching the fossils fuels -- specifically oil, coal, and natural gas -- that power our lives. Renewables like wind and solar farms figure prominently in the decarbonization of our energy, but we'll likely need another reliable source of clean energy to power our growing metropolises -- something we can flip a switch and turn on.
"[Wind and solar] cannot by themselves solve it any practical or economic way," said Mowry. "Having a source of energy that is effectively manufacturable is something that’s really important."
"The transition from an academic reactor to a real reactor is not a hill or a valley of death. It’s a steep Everest followed by multiple valleys of death."
Energy experts -- especially those who study how to decarbonize the planet -- welcome this nuclear fusion research.
"I applaud [General Fusion's] enthusiasm," said Ahmed Abdulla, who researches the political economy of carbon-free technologies at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy. "We need as many of these energy miracles as possible."
But Abdulla tempers his optimism.
He notes there are considerable hurdles ahead which can cripple such an emergent technology: Getting government support, proving to governments that the technology is safe and secure, and ensuring there's "an appetite" or social acceptability for nuclear fusion.
"The transition from an academic reactor to a real reactor is not a hill or a valley of death. It’s a steep Everest followed by multiple valleys of death," said Abdulla.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable There is also the looming question of cost. Any sort of new nuclear technology is a hugely expensive endeavor. Even nuclear fission (as opposed to fusion) reactor technologies -- which are based upon proven technologies that have been providing energy to much of the world for over half a century -- have nearly prohibitive costs, explained Abdulla. A new fission plant costs between $5 billion and $15 billion to build.
"It's always an order of magnitude more expensive than you think," he said. "The reality is bleaker than first order assumptions would make you believe."
General Fusion seems undaunted by these realities. It's preparing to embark upon a five-year "pre-commercial demonstration program." If this proves the viability of their fusion, "you could have fusion energy putting electricity on the grid by the next decade," said Mowry.
This is a bold timeline, but Mowry cites the financial backing of General Fusion's investors -- which includes Jeff Bezo's Bezos Expeditions -- as support for their fusion reactor's realistic potential.
"The fact that we’re able to raise capital says the timelines can withstand the scrutiny of due diligence."
"The fact that we’re able to raise capital says the timelines can withstand the scrutiny of due diligence," he said.
Fusion experts, like Los Alamos' Hsu, aren't necessarily sold on this timeline, but do recognize that General Fusion has the potential to power cities sooner than some might suppose.
"I would say, if everything goes perfectly, I do think that fusion on the grid could be possible in a reasonable timeframe," said Hsu. "Certainly less than the 30 to 50-year timeline that has made fusion the butt jokes in the energy industry."
To make nuclear fusion competitive -- meaning cheaper than a coal or gas-powered plant -- the company knocked down a technological barrier that has long derailed fusion projects: Creating 100 million-degree fusion reactions without destroying the machine.
"You can’t make a power plant if you have to replace the guts of it every couple weeks," said Mowry.
So they use liquid metal. A nuclear fusion reaction can bake apart liquid metal, but the stuff rapidly reforms. Yes, it's something like the legendary T-1000 in Terminator II. Similar to the pistons in a diesel engine, the fusion reactor's giant pistons press down about once a second, forcing the liquid metal to compress and fuse hydrogen together. In this moment, the same reaction that happens deep within stars -- nuclear fusion -- occurs, and heat is absorbed by the liquid metal, sparing the walls of the machinery.
From here, General Fusion employs a process that transfers this heat into nearby water, not too different than the radiator in a car. This super-heated water turns to steam, and turns electricity-producing turbines the same way a coal or gas plant does.
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable Again, the allure of nuclear fusion is that it produces no carbon -- and its other byproducts are minimal.
"The main product is helium that goes in party balloons," explained Mowry. He notes there is "some short-lived low-level waste that you might have in a hospital," but importantly, nothing on the scale of waste from nuclear fission reactors.
"There’s no spent fuel rods that sit around for hundreds of thousands of years," he said.
In the coming decade, General Fusion have to prove it can produce this clean energy. But even if it can't meet such an ambitious goal, there's growing belief that someone else will.
"Ultimately humanity will get there and it will be the dominant energy source for humanity," said Hsu. "The question is on what time scale."
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