Summary: News from the frontiers of science, where the future is being built and the predictions of doomsters will be defeated. Also, see the last section: why has fusion always been 30 years away? And naming the people responsible for this failure.
“We think we have the science, speed and scale to put carbon-free fusion power on the grid in 15 years.”
— Robert Mumgaard, CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems (PhD in Nuclear Physics, MIT). Source: The Guardian, March 2018.
One of the great oddities of our time is the widespread belief that our CO2 emissions will destroy the Earth in the 21st century. The thin foundation for these stories is the IPCC’s worst-case scenario, RCP8.5 (often misrepresented as a “business as usual scenario”). In this we burn off most of the Earth’s available oil – then turn to an alternative. In RCP8.5 the fuel of the future is the fuel of the 19th century – coal. The result would be catastrophic. It’s also unlikely, and widespread belief it is probability is stunning achievement of modern propaganda.
In the real world, the technology of energy generation and use advances rapidly. Although nuclear power is dying as an industry (destroyed by incompetence), solar tech is taking a growing share of the electric generation market. Steady improvements suggest that it has a big future (although less than dreamers believe).
To see how quickly tech can advance, a decade ago electric cars were considered a technology for the distant future. A 2009 report by the National Academies of Science said that even plug-in hybrids “are unlikely to have much impact before 2030.” We have already leaped over that stage, with many of the world’s major car companies now offering all-electric cars (~1% of the market) – and the others rolling them out in the next five years. The report did not even mention them.
Similar surprises, perhaps even bigger, might lie ahead from research on the far frontiers of science. Such as potential for power from low-energy nuclear reactions. As usual in US history, government funding leads the way. As usual since WWII, the most advanced research is done by the military. Such research, known to the public by the misleading term “cold fusion”, dates back a century. Wikipedia has its usual good summary (with supporting links). The era of serious research began roughly a decade ago, and became “official” in 2009 with an eight-page report by the Defense Intelligence Agency: “Technology Forecast: Worldwide Research on Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Increasing and Gaining Acceptance.” An excerpt…
“Scientists worldwide have been quietly investigating low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR) for the past 20 years. Researchers in this controversial field are now claiming paradigm-shifting results, including generation of large amounts of excess heat, nuclear activity and transmutation of elements. Although no current theory exists to explain all the reported phenomena, some scientists now believe quantum-level nuclear reactions may be occurring. DIA assesses with high confidence that if LENR can produce nuclear-origin energy at room temperatures, this disruptive technology could revolutionize energy production and storage, since nuclear reactions release millions of times more energy per unit mass than do any known chemical fuel. …
“In 1989, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons announced that their electrochemical experiments had produced excess energy under standard temperature and pressure conditions. Because they could not explain this physical phenomenon based on known chemical reactions, they suggested the excess heat could be nuclear in origin. However, their experiments did not show the radiation or radioactivity expected from a nuclear reaction. Many researchers attempted to replicate the results and failed, As a result, the physics community disparaged their work as lacking credibility, and the press mistakenly dubbed it “cold fusion.” Related research also suffered from the negative publicity of cold fusion for the past 20 years, but many scientists believed something important was occurring and continued their research with little or no visibility. For years, scientists were intrigued by the possibility of producing large amounts of clean energy through LENR, and now this research has begun to be accepted in the scientific community as reproducible and legitimate.”
For more detail see this at Scientific American’s blog: “It’s Not Cold Fusion. But It’s Something” by Steven B. Krivit and Michael J. Ravnitzky (December 2016). In the September 2018 issue of the U.S. Naval Institute’s journal Proceedings, Ravnitzky gives a brief history of LENR research (back to 1912) and describes the Navy’s research on LENR: “This Is Not ‘Cold Fusion’” (ungated copy here). Two companies working in the field are …
- Brillouin Energy – Founded in 2009, based in San Francisco. Their website. See their impressive list of press releases and a March 2018 independent review of their tech by SRI International. One funding round is known, raising $7.8 million from James Farrell.
- Hydro Fusion Ltd – Founded in 2011, based in London (a branch in Stockholm). Does R&D in several aspects of energy production, including LENR. Their website. Lots of press releases, painting a confusing picture. To learn about its tech, see An Impossible Invention: The true story of the energy source that could change the world
Although LENR is exciting, fusion is the mainstream of next-gen energy R&D. Fusion tech has achieved a breakthrough in the past decade.
The private sector sees profits in fusion power
The US government fusion program was funded since 1976 at levels far below that required to deliver results at some indefinite date (“far out in time”; see the last section below). But decades of work have brought fusion to an important milestone. The growing interest of private investors – especially professional venture capitalists – marks the start of a new phase in the development of fusion power. These are smart business people expecting results soon, and putting money on the table. This is an update of a list that I have shown before.
- LPPFusion – Created in 1994 with funding from NASA, incorporated in 2002, based in NJ. Their website. Funding: first round in 2008 raised $1.2 Million from The Abell Foundation and Individual Investors, with five more offerings completed since then (including some crowdfunding).
- TAE Technologies – Founded 1998, based in California. Their website. Rumored to have raised $150 million; Crunchbase shows 6 rounds since 2002 from 3 VC firms. See Wikipedia. Partnered in 2017 with Google.
- General Fusion – Founded 2002, based in Canada, 50 scientists. Their website. Funding: $127 million, in 9 rounds from venture capitalists and energy companies – including $20 million (US) from Sustainable Development Technology Canada. Update: in October 2018, Canada’s Strategic Innovation Fund announced a new $38 million investment. See Wikipedia.
- Proton Scientific – Founded 2005, based in Illinois. Their website. Funding: unknown.
- Woodruff Scientific, Inc. – Founded 2005, based in Seattle. Their website. Contract research in fusion, working for both public and private firms.
- Global Energy Corporation – Founded 2006, based in Virginia. Their website. Research on hybrid fission-fusion tech. NASA has funded some of their work. See this list of relevant patents, papers, and other work.
- Tokamak Energy – Founded 2009, based in Britain. Their website. Funding: $13 million in one round from venture funds. They hit a major milestone in June.
- First Light Fusion – Spun out from Oxford in 2011, based in Britain. Their website. Funding: $32 million, in 3 rounds from 2 VC firms.
- Helion Energy – Founded 2013, based in Washington. Their website. Funding: $5 million seed capital from DoE, plus $12 million in 2 rounds from 2 VC firms. See Wikipedia.
- Applied Fusion Systems – Founded 2014, based in Britain. Their website. Funding: unknown, tapping individual investors.
- CTFusion – Spun off from U Washington in 2015, based in Seattle. Their website. Funding: unknown, most or all from the US government.
- Commonwealth Fusion Systems – Spun Off from MIT in 2017, based in Massachusetts. Their website. Funding: $50 million investment from ENI (a global energy corp).
- Hyperjet Fusion – Founded in 2017, merged with HyperV Technologies Corp in 2017, based in Virginia. Their website. Funding: $28 million from the US government plus an unknown sum from Strong Atomics (a VC).
One mega-corp is investing in fusion: Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works began building a compact fusion system in 2010. See their website and the Wikipedia entry. From their October 2014 press release …
“{Lockheed} is working on a new compact fusion reactor (CFR) that can be developed and deployed in as little as ten years. …The smaller size will allow us to design, build and test the CFR in less than a year. After completing several of these design-build-test cycles, the team anticipates being able to produce a prototype in five years.”
Update: “Lockheed’s Skunk Works Building Bigger Fusion Reactor” by Guy Norris at Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, 19 July 2019 – “This year we are constructing another reactor – T5 – which will be a significantly larger and more powerful reactor than our T4,”
Most of these companies issue exciting press releases and videos about breakthroughs and timetables. Most are falling behind on their initial promises. The sums spent are small, as such things go. But most new evolves slowly at first. We can only guess at what they might accomplish in the next decade.
This is one facet of a large story, one of the biggest of our era: a new industrial revolution has begun!
Great things come from small beginnings. See Niagara Falls in 1904, with little factories tapping some of its power.
Here is the “Z Machine” of Sandia National Laboratory. It could provide fusion energy for the future. See Science, Nov 2016.
For More Information
Another often-told story about natural resources is about the replacement of whale oil by petroleum. The reality was much more complex, with no obvious lessons for us. See an analysis by Bill Kovarik, Professor of Communication at Radford University; also see the discussion in the comments.
Ideas! For shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For more information see The keys to understanding climate change, all posts about nuclear power, and especially these about the threats to our world…
- Is our certain fate a coal-burning climate apocalypse? No!
- About a past prediction of certain doom: Hopeful news for us from the Horse Manure Crisis of 1894.
- About a more recent prediction: Peak Oil Doomsters debunked, end of civilization called off.
- Collapsitarians and their doomster porn.
- We love scary stories. The reason why reveals a secret about America.
- Banish the doomsters. Make Earth Day a celebration!
Why has fusion always been 30 years away?
There have been countless articles like this by Nathaniel Scharping in Discover March 2016, asking “Why Nuclear Fusion Is Always 30 Years Away.” Sometimes other numbers are given, such as “Forever 20 years away: will we ever have a working nuclear fusion reactor?” in the November 2014 New Statesman. Oddly, these seldom quote people in 20 or 30 years ago making such predictions.
But there is a deeper reason why fusion scientists disappointed us: we did not give them the money they said they needed to deliver in 20 or 30 years. See this graph (click to enlarge) from the peak enthusiasm days of fusion. It is from page 12 of “Fusion Power by Magnetic Confinement: Program Plan“, a report by the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration (1976), updated to show 2012 dollars. We did not even provide the funding required to deliver future at some indefinite date (“far out in time”). We got what we paid for.
