Going nuclear, fusion could reduce emissions, increase security

For its proponents, the lesser-known nuclear process – fusion - could bring a new era of clean and secure energy to Europe. For its detractors, it’s an expensive distraction.

Recent scientific breakthroughs are generating excitement. Though it’s been studied for decades, nuclear fusion has been coming into increasing political focus lately because of the need to reduce emissions and increase energy security.

At the G7 summit in Italy in June, leaders stated that fusion “has the potential to provide a lasting solution to the global challenges of climate change and energy security.”

In Europe, research around fusion is heating up.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project in Southern France, a collaborative research project between 35 nations, is making significant advances in trying to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy. And ITER is only the most high-profile of several projects happening across Europe, which are increasingly attracting private capital with the objective of making fusion a business reality.

Fusion generates electricity by using the heat from two atomic nuclei combining. While fission separates, fusion combines.

The possibility of using fusion reactors to produce electricity has been studied since the 1940s, but because the process is more complicated than fission, up till now, it’s still only an area of research and not in practical use.

Promising the sun and stars

Fusion may not be providing our electricity, but it’s all around us anyway. Nuclear fusion is the process that powers the sun and other stars. The most common reaction studied in fusion research involves isotopes of hydrogen—deuterium and tritium—combining to form helium, releasing energy according to Einstein’s mass-energy equivalence principle (E=mc²).

The reason it continues to be studied is because, if it can work, it would be a much more efficient and clean way to produce energy than nuclear fission, which produces long-lived radioactive waste. Fusion promises a cleaner and virtually limitless source of energy if it can be successfully harnessed on Earth.

But reproducing what the sun does is very complex. The promise is immense, but so is the challenge. That’s why Professor Stephen Hawking considered it the most important scientific discovery that he would like to see come true. “I would like nuclear fusion to become a practical power source,” he said. “It would provide an inexhaustible supply of energy, without pollution or global warming.”

Multiple pathways

There are many ways to generate nuclear energy, but globally, almost all electricity from nuclear power is produced by nuclear fission of uranium and plutonium. In that process, a large amount of energy is produced by splitting the nucleus of an atom. But there is also another way of producing nuclear energy, fission, which has become an increasing area of research.

According to the Fusion Industry Association, investment in fusion has grown rapidly in recent years and has attracted over $6 billion in investment to date. The total number of fusion companies worldwide has increased to more than 40 and continues to expand. These companies are pursuing technically diverse pathways, including variations in fuel and device type – increasing the chance that one of these technologies will be the one to unlock the fusion holy grail.

Magnetic confinement

The most mature technology for nuclear fusion as an industrialisation process is magnetic confinement. Powerful magnetic fields are used to contain plasma and to contribute to heating it to achieve fusion conditions. The device using this technology is called a tokamak.

Another technology being researched is called inertial confinement. It initiates an implosion of the fuel by directing high-energy lasers onto a small cryogenic fuel capsule. As the fuel undergoes implosion, the core heats up to fusion conditions, and the high density resulting from compression creates the necessary conditions for nuclear fusion to occur.

8-minute plasma

These various technological approaches have yielded several recent scientific breakthroughs. Last year, at the Joint European Torus facility in the UK, 69 megajoules of sustained and controlled fusion energy were produced - setting a new world record. That same year, the Wendelstein stellarator facility in Germany had set a record with an 8-minute plasma discharge.

A year earlier, a fusion energy gain was achieved for the first time in history using an inertial confinement fusion research device located at the National Ignition Facility in the United States. In 2021, the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak in China achieved the longest-ever steady-state high-temperature plasma operation.

Fusion’s potential impact

Europe is currently facing significant energy challenges, from reliance on fossil fuels and geopolitical tensions to climate change and the need for cleaner energy sources.

Nuclear fusion presents an enticing solution by offering several advantages. It would be an abundant fuel supply because the primary fuel sources for fusion - deuterium and tritium - are plentiful. Deuterium can be extracted from seawater, and tritium can be bred in fusion reactors using lithium, ensuring a sustainable supply. By contrast, uranium and plutonium are fraught with logistical and geopolitical challenges.

Fusion is also a clean fuel.

Like nuclear fission, fusion produces no greenhouse gases. But unlike fission, the waste generated (helium) from fusion is non-toxic and non-radioactive. It also could provide increased energy security because Europe could reduce its reliance on energy imports and reduce geopolitical tensions related to fossil fuel supplies. It also has a high energy yield, with the potential to produce vast amounts of energy from relatively small amounts of fuel.

Four million times more energy

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, nuclear fusion could potentially provide about four million times more energy per kilogram of fuel compared to coal combustion. It would also be an inherently safer process than nuclear fission because it can be stopped whenever the necessary conditions cease to exist. But otherwise, like fission, it produces a constant, non-intermittent flow of energy.

But to become commercially viable, a large amount of public and private investment will be needed for research, construction and scale-up.

Proponents argue that investing in nuclear fusion is crucial for a sustainable energy future. They believe that with adequate funding and research, fusion technology could be realised within the next few decades. Supporters also emphasise that increased collaboration among European countries could accelerate developments, positioning Europe as a leader in this area.

However, others have concerns about investing a large amount of money in this technology. Some critics warn against over-reliance on nuclear fusion technology as a panacea for energy issues. They have concerns about the extremely high costs and long timelines associated with developing functional fusion reactors.

Sceptics argue that while fusion research is valuable, immediate efforts should focus on expanding existing renewable energy technologies like solar and wind, which are already available and increasingly cost-effective. Though there has been increasing enthusiasm for nuclear power in general within EU policy circles, some climate activists say that nuclear takes too long to build and money should instead go to technologies with more short-term emissions-reduction payouts.

Commercially competitive?

Others have questioned whether, even if a fusion reactor could be successfully built, it would be able to be commercially competitive with fission reactors.

“The costs of electricity from a fusion reactor are likely to exceed those from fission by a factor of ten or more,” retired nuclear researcher John Carr wrote for the Global Warming Policy Foundation earlier this year. “The coming decade will see either great progress for fusion power or great disappointment, but at best, there will not be a significant amount of electricity from commercial fusion for several decades into the future.”

The debate surrounding the EU's role in fostering nuclear fusion technology underscores broader discussions about energy policy, investment strategies, and the need for a diversified energy mix.

As Europe navigates the transition to a low-carbon economy, the future of nuclear fusion will likely be a critical component in the quest for energy security and environmental sustainability.

Whether it becomes a key player in Europe’s energy strategy will depend on the collective vision and commitment of policymakers, researchers, and industry stakeholders.

[ Edited by Brian Maguire | Euractiv's Advocacy Lab ]