The U.S. intends to outline the first global strategy for commercializing nuclear fusion power at this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai. This could be a major milestone in scientists’ decades long quest to develop and deploy this carbon free source of electricity. The COP28 is being held from the 30th of November to the 12th of December at Expo City in Dubai. The conference has been held annually since the first U.N. climate agreement was signed in 1992. The COP conferences are intended for governments to reach agreement on policies to limit global temperature rises and adapt to impacts associated with climate change.
     John Kerry is the U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change. He plans to announce the news on Monday during a tour of the Commonwealth Fusion Systems facility near Boston. Sources say that the COP28 summit will serve as the “starting gun for international cooperation” on the commercialization of nuclear fusion.
He said, “I will have much more to say on the United States’s vision for international partnerships for an inclusive fusion energy future at COP28.” He went on to say that decades of U.S. investment in fusion research have been instrumental in transforming nuclear fusion from an experiment to “an emerging climate solution.”
     Kerry will be joined on his tour of the Commonwealth facility by Claudio Descalzi, the CEO of Italian energy giant Eni. Eni is pursuing four fusion power pilot projects of its own.
     The U.S. State Department did not respond to requests from the media for comments on Kerry’s announcement, or on the fusion commercialization strategy that will be outlined at this year’s COP28 summit.
     The U.S. effort comes less than a year after researchers at Department of Energy’s National Ignition Facility in California used fusion to achieve “net energy gain” for the first time. This is a major breakthrough that demonstrated that fusion ignition is attainable in a controlled environment.
     Existing nuclear fission technology splits heavy atoms apart to generate electricity. Nuclear fusion does just the opposite, merging light atoms together to generate energy. There are two main approaches to fusion production which are internal confinement and magnetic confinement technology. Commonwealth utilizes the magnetic confinement approach.
     Many challenges remain in the quest for fusion. To scale up the appropriate technology, scientists must be able to use fusion to generation more than one hundred percent of the energy required for the ignition reaction. This is a ratio known as the “Q” value.
     The DoE experiment carried out last year with laser energy generated one hundred and twenty percent of ignition reaction value which was a net gain. However, experts noted that it is not high enough to produce commercial fusion. Producing sufficient energy by fusion may take years as well as billions of dollars in international investment.
     Scientists have also achieved only a few instances of fusion ignition. They will need to generate many continuous ignitions per minute to generate enough energy for commercial-scale fusion power.
     The number of companies that received investments for fusion technology research has increased from thirty-three to forty-three in the last year. This is according to recent data from the Fusion Industry Association. Efforts span more than a dozen countries including Germany, Japan, China, and Australia.

Ambient office = 46 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 127 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 126 nanosieverts per hour

Celery from Central Market = 143 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 108 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 102 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient office = 67 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 152 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 151 nanosieverts per hour

Avocado from Central Market = 137 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 103 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 90 nanosieverts per hour

Part 1 of 2 Parts    
     NearStar Fusion is a five-person startup in Chantilly,Virginia. They have a new energy-generating approach for creating nuclear fusion. The company is training plasma railguns to generate more power than is put in.
     Nuclear fusion is considered the holy grail of the energy sector that could solve the world’s energy needs once achieved. In nuclear fission reactors, heavy atoms are split to generate energy. In nuclear fusion reactors, very light atoms are fused together to generate energy.
     The major problem faced while replicating this on Earth is that, until recently, the energy output from the process has remained smaller than the energy put in to drive the process. It was only in December of 2022 that the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was able to produce more energy than a nuclear fusion reaction.
     Many of the attempts to create nuclear fusion reactor have relied on the Tokamak design. In a Tokamak, a hydrogen plasma is heated and compressed until fusion is triggered. Inside the donut-shaped vacuum chamber of the Tokamak, researchers try to recreate the conditions on the Sun.
     The NIF utilized what is called inertial confinement to achieve its breakthrough. One hundred and ninety-two lasers are focused on a pellet of hydrogen fuel to heat it to the necessary temperature. However, the lasers being used by the NIF are old and inefficient and the extra energy generated was very small.
     Startups which aim to replicate the NIF’s successes are using modern lasers that can fire more regularly and efficiently. However, in order for nuclear fusion to be economically viable, the output needs to be 15-20 times more than the energy put in to fire the lasers. This is where NearStar Fusion believes that its approach will be able to reach that goal.
     NearStar is a sister company to HyperJet Fusion which is also based in Chantilly. HyperJet is researching fusion energy using plasma jets. Instead of focusing on how to increase output from nuclear fusion reactors, NearStar’s team is working to reduce the energy input needed for ignition which is the beginning of nuclear fusion. According to the company this can be achieved by using plasma railguns because they are energy efficient.
     A railgun is a linear motor device, typically used as a weapon. It uses electromagnetic force to launch high-velocity projectiles which do not contain explosives. It relies on the projectile’s high kinetic energy to cause damage. The railgun uses a pair of parallel conductors referred to as rails. A sliding armature is accelerated along the rails driven by electromagnetic effects of a current that flows along one rail, into the armature, and then back down the other rail. The principle is related to that used in a conventional electric motor.
     A plasma railgun is a linear accelerator which, like a projectile railgun, uses two long parallel electrodes to accelerate a “sliding short” armature. However, in a plasma railgun, the armature and ejected projectile consists of plasma, a hot, ionized gas, instead of a solid slug of material such as those used in conventional railgun weapons.
Please read Part 2 next

Ambient office = 64 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 87 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 86 nanosieverts per hour

White onion from Central Market = 105 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 70 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 59 nanosieverts per hour