Most of the articles about nuclear power in this blog focus on the technology of nuclear fission reactors. In these reactors, radioactive isotopes of heavy elements such as uranium and plutonium breakdown and generate heat which is captured to generate electricity. There is a great deal of radioactivity involved including the creation of radioactive waste that is still not being dealt with effectively after sixty years of nuclear power use in the U.S.
I have occasionally blogged about nuclear fusion as a source of power. In nuclear fusion, very light elements such as hydrogen and helium are fused into heavier elements, releasing a great deal of energy in the process. There is very little radioactivity involved in most of the designs and little or no waste is generated.
There are multiple approaches to generating nuclear fusion and a great deal of research has been conducted over the past sixty years, but no one has yet created a fusion reactor that can generate more energy that has to be put into the reactor.
There are at least half a dozen companies in the U.S. with more in other countries that are racing to be the first to produce a commercial fusion reactor. Estimates currently run to ten or more years to produce a working prototype.
The Michigan Institute of Technology (MIT) is a highly respected technical research institution. They are also working on developing a commercial fusion reactor. MIT is collaborating with Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) a new private company that was created to commercialize the new technology. The Italian energy company ENI is investing fifty million dollars in the project. Thirty million of the investment is for R&D at MIT over the next three years.
MIT is working on one of the common approaches to nuclear fusion that involved the creation of a “bottle” of power magnetic fields that traps and crushes a plasma of light element particles together with enough pressure and temperature to trigger a nuclear fusion reaction.
The current work is referred to as SPARC. MIT is working on the creation of new superconducting magnets that will be able to create magnetic fields that are four times stronger that any previous technology. The new superconducting magnets will be incorporated into a fusion reactor that will operate in pulses of about ten seconds. The first MIT reactor should working on a fusion reactor that will produce one hundred megawatts of heat. The current design will not convert the heat into electricity but, if it works as designed, it should be able to produce twice the power that has to been injected to trigger the fusion reaction.
MIT and CFS are creating a first version fusion reactor and they hope to be able to have a prototype of a commercial reactor in ten years. The plan is to have a commercial reactor available for the energy market within fifteen years.
The President of MIT said, "This is an important historical moment: Advances in superconducting magnets have put fusion energy potentially within reach, offering the prospect of a safe, carbon-free energy future. As humanity confronts the rising risks of climate disruption, I am thrilled that MIT is joining with industrial allies, both longstanding and new, to run full-speed toward this transformative vision for our shared future on Earth."
The CEO of CFS said, “The aspiration is to have a working power plant in time to combat climate change. We think we have the science, speed and scale to put carbon-free fusion power on the grid in 15 years.”
Although all previous fusion research projects have failed to produce more energy than they consume, MIT has a solid reputation for technical excellence and innovation as well as decades of experience with fusion research. If anyone can finally deliver commercial fusion power, MIT is an excellent candidate.
