What is Fusion Energy, the Quest that Trump Media is so enamored with?
Scientists and businesses have tried for decades to harness the fusion energy that powers the sun to produce electricity on Earth. The $6 billion merger announced on Thursday between U.S. president Donald Trump's Trump Media and Technology Group and?Google-backed TAE technologies is the latest development for an industry still a long way from commercialization.
What is Fusion?
The process of fusion energy that powers the sun and the stars occurs when light isotopes such as hydrogen are forced to fuse together under extreme temperatures and pressures to release enormous amounts of energy.
Nuclear fission is the energy source for today's reactors. Atoms are broken apart to produce energy.
Scientists in companies and national laboratories are racing against each other to reproduce fusion reactions to produce electricity that is low-pollution and has a long-lasting radioactive residue. Fusion could help the United States meet the demand for power that is increasing in artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, and manufacturing. TAE, Commonwealth Fusion Systems and other supporters hope to build power plants that can be used to supply the grid by the end of the 2020s or early 2030s.
WHAT ARE THE HURDS? In 2022, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab briefly achieved a net gain in energy from a fusion test using 'lasers. Since then, the lab has reproduced the breakthrough. However, the energy output is small compared to that of the lasers.
To generate reliable electricity, the physicists would have to continue to achieve these brief fusion reactions over a long period of time.
Companies that develop fusion technology must also create materials and plants capable of withstanding continuous neutron blasts over time. Fusion would have to be a replacement for existing electricity infrastructure in order to be a widely used?power source.
What are the technologies?
The majority of fusion companies use either large magnets or lasers to induce fusion reactions. TAE will use neutral particle beams and magnets instead of lasers to drive fusion reactions.
Which countries are moving towards FUSION?
According to the Fusion Industry Association (FIA), the United States has 29 fusion?developers. The UK has four. China, Germany, and Japan have three.
China is reportedly constructing a large laser-ignited research center in Mianyang, similar to that at Lawrence Livermore. This development could help with nuclear weapons design as well as work on power generation.
Which publicly traded companies are investing?
FIA announced earlier this year that fusion firms?have received almost $9 billion in private financing.
Many firms, including Siemens Energy, Nucor, and Google's Alphabet, have invested in companies that are involved with fusion. Helion Energy is a startup that has been backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and SoftBank’s venture capital arm. In July, it announced the start of construction for a nuclear fusion plant to supply Microsoft data centers with power by 2028.
(source: Reuters)
