December 18, 2024
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Will the world’s first nuclear fusion power plant be built in Virginia? Here’s why we’re skeptical
The fusion plant would be operational within the next decade and produce 400 megawatts of electricity, Commonwealth Fusion Systems says.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ new fusion plant is expected to be operational in the early 2030s and generate around 400 megawatts of clean, carbon-free electricity, enough to power large industrial sites or around 150,000 homes.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), a company that originated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says it will build the world’s first fusion power plant in an industrial park near Richmond, Va., within a decade. The plant is expected to be operational in the “early 2030s”, a MIT announced the news on Tuesdayand the reactor will produce around 400 megawatts of electricity. Although estimates vary, one megawatt can power about 400 US homes.
Different parties have considered this development to be of great importance. Among others, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin gave a statement saying, “This is a historic moment for Virginia and the world at large.” And Dennis Whyte, CFS co-founder and MIT engineering professor, said in a news release that this “will be a moment of fusion.”
But let’s hold our nuclear horses for a moment: There are several steps that need to be taken before this fusion plant, called ARC (“affordable, robust, compact”), can be connected to Virginia’s power grid. For one thing, CFS hasn’t finished its demonstration machine, SPARC (“as small as possible ARC”). The company says it expects the completed SPARC to demonstrate net energy production by 2027. That alone would be a feat.
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Remember, what is a fusion reactor?
Fusion, which combines atomic nuclei and releases bits of energy, is a natural feature of the sun’s plasma. To mimic this process on Earth, a fuel pellet (often composed of isotopes of hydrogen) is ignited inside a machine called a tokamak. A tokamak creates donut-shaped magnetic fields to control the resulting super-hot plasma, which tends to explode. The result, in theory, is energy production without the long-lived radioactive waste of nuclear fission and without the global warming contribution of burnt carbon.
Broken promises complicate the path to a viable merger. But this time there is a sense of excitement, rapidly accelerating after decades, among some fusion experts. In 2022 physicists at the National Ignition Facility in California showed that it is possible overcoming the so-called scientific discontinuitya reactor produces more energy than is needed to start the fusion reaction.
The Commonwealth Fusion System’s tokamak fusion reactor design, pictured, uses a new type of high-temperature superconducting magnet. The approach was first explored in a graduate class taught by MIT co-founder and professor Dennis Whyte.
The Virginia plant’s tokamak, based on designs produced by MIT graduate students, will be particularly compact and economical because it will use a new type of superconducting magnet, Whyte said in the news release.
Why is the location in Virginia?
Virginia is home to Data Center Alley, where the current boom in artificial intelligence, streaming services and other technologies has revealed one of the world’s densest concentrations of server farms. These are energy-hungry facilities, and the demand is planned for growth only. The Chief Commercial Officer of CFS told him New York Times the fusion plant will probably work industrial customers.
Haven’t I heard this all before?
Researched since the middle of the 20th century, fusion is a technology that always seems to be only 15 years old. Building an artificial star is difficult; materials in fusion reactors must withstand temperatures millions of degrees Celsius. And it’s expensive. The largest fusion project on the planet, France’s International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), is running behind schedule and over budget, rising from an initial estimate of $6.3 billion in 2006 to $22 billion in 2023, journalist Charles Seife said. reported in American scientific last year. And ITER, whose primary purpose is to prove that fusion energy is viable, is not intended to power anything.
CFS, on the other hand, has obtained about 2 billion dollars in investments. If it succeeds, it will do so where previous attempts by well-funded tech companies have failed. Lockheed Martin began working on a small fusion reactor in 2010. In 2014 he said he would develop a compact enough. get into a truck Before 2019 But by 2021, Lockheed Martin had it kept quiet the project
