SOUTH AFRCA

Eskom, Sasol Pollution Harms Children, Government Studies Find

WHERE THERE'S SMOKE, THERE'S PROFIT

Antony Sguazzin
Tue, 5 December 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- Two studies ordered by South Africa’s government into the impact of air pollution on community and child health showed emission limits it imposed on companies that emit the toxins are insufficient.

The studies were undertaken in key industrial regions by academics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, a state research agency, and were completed in 2016 and 2019, copies seen by Bloomberg show.

The government didn’t widely publicize the findings, a controversial decision given that it has faced lawsuits over pollution levels and is assessing whether to allow the state power utility to continue violating emission restrictions or enforce laws that could shut plants and worsen energy shortages.

Around the time of the second study’s completion, the government was sued by environmental activists for not enforcing its own laws in the so-called Highveld Priority Area and in 2022 South Africa’s High Court ruled that the government had breached citizens’ constitutional right to clean air. The government has appealed.

In August this year, activists filed another case against the government over pollution in the Vaal Triangle Air-shed Priority Area — which was examined in the first study. Both regions are close to South Africa’s biggest city, Johannesburg, and the capital, Pretoria.

The research adds to evidence of the harm caused by state utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd.’s 14 coal-fired power stations, petrochemical plants and oil refineries run by Sasol Ltd. and Africa’s largest steel mill, owned by a unit of ArcelorMittal SA. The use of coal for domestic cooking and heating adds to pollution levels.

The companies have all acknowledged that their emissions impact human health and said they have taken steps to reduce them, although they have in some instances also sought postponements to complying with new limits to be imposed from 2025.

“Adverse health outcomes do occur even below the pollutant standards,” the researchers wrote in the Highveld Study. “These necessitate further investigation and review of the safety of current air quality standards. There is a need for addressing air pollution more rigorously.”

In response to queries, South Africa’s environment department said the Vaal Triangle study area was published in 2016 and “printed copies disseminated to stakeholders.” However, a person familiar with the matter said only the printed copies were made available and no effort was made to circulate the findings more widely. The person asked not to be identified as they aren’t authorized to speak to the media.

The Highveld Priority Area study wasn’t published, although some of its conclusions appeared in the plaintiff’s arguments in the 2019 court case, the department said. That study refers to the Vaal paper as a reference, and says it remained unpublished.

Emission Standards

South Africa, which burns coal to generate more than 80% of its power, has considerably laxer emission standards than countries including China and India.

“The South African government allows its citizens to be exposed to air pollution levels that are up to four times higher than what the World Health Organization recommends,” said Jamie Kelly, an air quality analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, citing emission limits on particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide. “If the South African government values the health of children and adults, they should impose stricter air pollution standards.”

Both studies conclude that pollution is adversely affecting children’s health, making them more susceptible to allergens, and many had inflamed respiratory tracts that resulted in more instances of asthma and other diseases.

Premature Deaths

An info-graphic based on the Highveld study showed the emission of particulate matter in excess of government limits was causing 4,881 premature deaths annually.

The Vaal study pinpointed Sharpeville, which lies close to Eskom’s Lethabo power plant, as the region’s most-affected settlement while the Highveld study said children in Embalenhle, the settlement adjacent to Sasol’s Secunda petrochemical plant, had some of the poorest respiratory health.

The environment department said it’s taking action to cut “the unacceptable levels of air pollution in the Highveld Priority Area and the potentially adverse impacts thereof,” which went beyond tightening emission limits.

The studies were carried out using household surveys and testing lung function of children at primary schools. The department said it doesn’t agree that they had conclusively “established that the death of any particular individual was caused by air pollution.”

In addition to respiratory disease, particulate matter can cause heart disease and birth defects. Other pollutants emitted by the industrial plants include sulfur dioxide, which can cause heart disease and strokes, as well as nitrogen dioxide.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

UAE invests in UK’s struggling wind farm market

WHILE TORIES OPPOSE UAE BUYING THEIR FAVORITE RAG THE TELEGRAPH

Jonathan Leake
Tue, 5 December 2023 

Offshore Wind

The United Arab Emirates has snapped up a 49pc stake in one of the UK’s largest wind farms despite soaring costs throwing the industry’s future into doubt.

Masdar, a company controlled by the Gulf state and chaired by the president of the Cop28 climate talks, has bought a minority stake in the East Anglia Three offshore wind farm from Spanish developer Iberdrola.

It is the second such deal struck by the UAE in as many weeks. State-backed Masdar bought 49pc of the £11bn Dogger Bank South project in the North Sea last week. That project is built by German-owned RWE.

Sales of UK wind farms are being propelled by the disastrous finances of many UK projects after they entered into historical deals to sell their electricity at prices that no longer make sense.

Companies accepted so-called strike prices of less than £40 per megawatt hour (MWh) in deals made a few years ago. Strike prices are the maximum price that the Government guarantees to pay for the power produced, meaning revenues are effectively capped.

Iberdrola, the largest utility in Europe and one of the two largest globally, agreed a strike price of £37.35 for East Anglia Three in early 2022.

However, the sector has since been hit by rampant inflation that has driven up costs by more than 40pc. Those who accepted the older, lower prices risk making big losses.

The Government has now been forced to offer new wind farm developers a strike price of £73, signifying the scale of the financial challenges for those locked into lower priced deals.

Masdar’s investment reinforces the growing overseas ownership of the UK’s key renewable energy assets. The UAE company’s investment dates back a decade when, with partners, it launched the 630MW London Array offshore wind farm, which was the world’s largest at the time.

Its Global Offshore Wind Division last year acquired London-based Arlington Energy, the battery energy storage system developer that has put over 170MW of assets into operation.

Off the coast of Scotland, Masdar has also developed the world’s first floating offshore wind farm, the 30MW Hywind project.

Masdar is chaired by Dr Sultan Al-Jaber, the UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, who is currently chairing the Cop28 talks in Dubai. Dr Al-Jabar is also the chairman of International Media Investments (IMI), the UAE investment vehicle financing a bid for The Telegraph.

Masdar’s owners include two Emirati oil companies – the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA). Both also operate oil and gas platforms in the North Sea.

Dr Jaber said: “Masdar and Iberdrola are advancing renewables in Europe and around the world.”

Iberdrola’s executive chairman, Ignacio Galán, said: “By combining our renewables experience and financial strength with those of Masdar, we can deliver more secure, competitive and clean energy, quicker.”

Iberdrola and Masdar to invest $16 billion in green energy

Tue, 5 December 2023 

Illustration shows Electric power transmission pylon miniatures and Iberdrola log

By Pietro Lombardi

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish renewable energy giant Iberdrola and UAE clean energy developer Masdar have formed a 15 billion euro ($16.2 billion) alliance to invest in offshore wind and green hydrogen in countries including Germany, Britain and the United States.

The agreement announced on Tuesday follows a pledge by 118 countries at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai to triple the world's renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade as they seek to wean themselves off fossil fuels.


"Reaching this goal will require immediate action from these governments and the private sector," said Iberdrola Executive Chairman Ignacio Galan.

The first step of the partnership will be for Masdar to take a stake of up to 49% in Iberdrola's 1.4 gigawatt (GW) offshore wind project off Britain's eastern coast, known as East Anglia 3, the Spanish company said.

"With an abundance of wind resources, the UK and Europe are prime markets for Masdar," said Masdar Chief Executive Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi.

The two companies have previously teamed up to develop an offshore wind farm in German waters in the Baltic Sea and announced separate multibillion-euro investment plans in Britain, the world’s second-largest offshore wind market behind China.

Last week Masdar and Germany's RWE said they would co-develop a 3 GW wind project off the coast of Britain. Masdar's 49% stake in the project is part of its roughly 13 billion euro investment in the country's renewables sector, it said.

Iberdrola has pledged to invest nearly 14 billion euros in Britain through 2028 in grids and renewable projects and is also planning a bid for British power distribution network Electricity North West (ENWL)

($1 = 0.9252 euros)

(Reporting by Pietro Lombardi and Jakub Olesiuk; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and David Goodman)

OUTLAW DEEPSEA MINING
Norway parliament deal marks major step towards seabed mining

A view shows an active venting chimney at the Jan Mayen Vent Fields on the Arctic Mid-Oceanic Ridge

Updated Tue, 5 December 2023
By Victoria Klesty

OSLO (Reuters) -Norway's minority government and two opposition parties have agreed to allow seabed mineral exploration in the Arctic region, they said on Tuesday, in a key step towards full-scale ocean mining.

The deal comes as Norway hopes to become the first country to make deep-sea mining happen on a commercial scale and secure critical minerals and jobs despite concerns over the environmental impact and international calls for a moratorium.


The amended version of the government's proposal, which parliament will formally debate on Jan. 4 followed by a vote, sets stricter environmental survey requirements during the exploration phase than originally planned.

The compromise also gives parliament the final say at a later date on whether to approve full-scale mining based on data gathered from the deep-sea environment during the initial exploration.

The deal was agreed between the two parties in the minority government - Labour and the Centre Party - and the opposition Conservatives and the Progress Party, securing a comfortable majority.

Baard Ludvig Thorheim, a member of parliament for the Conservatives, told Reuters the environmental bar for seabed mining had been set fairly high in the amended proposal.

"We believe, and hope, it will become the international standard for this activity," he said. "At the same time it is important that it is a framework that is predictable for commercial players, on which we rely on for these activities."

He said the parties had hotly debated how to balance the need for environmental requirements against commercial viability for companies seeking to start marine mining.

"If the demands are too steep and too complicated, there won't be any interest, but at the same time it is also in these companies' interest to partake in an activity that has a good reputation and adheres to demands on sustainability," he said.

Seabed mining start-up Loke Marine Minerals, which is backed by investors such as oil service company Technip FMC and Norwegian maritime group Wilhelmsen, welcomed the decision.

"Great day not only for Norway but for the world," Loke CEO Walter Sognnes Norway told Reuters. "We need to have a fact- based evaluation of deep sea minerals as a provider of critical minerals for the green energy transition."

Environmental group WWF, however, said the decision to move forward damaged Norway's reputation for ocean preservation but added it hoped parliament would eventually block any move to full-scale mining.

(Reporting by Victoria Klesty; additional reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; editing by Terje Solsvik, Sandra Maler and Jane Merriman)

A view shows an active venting chimney at the Jan Mayen Vent Fields on the Arctic Mid-Oceanic Ridge

A view shows sponge aggregation at the Hovgaard ridge

A view shows active chimneys at the Favne Vent Field on the Arctic Mid-Oceanic Ridge

A view shows a cross-section of a manganese crust at the bottom of the Norwegian Sea

A view shows Anemones at the Jan Mayen Vent Fields on the Arctic Mid-Oceanic Ridge

A view shows active chimney venting at the Loki's Castle Vent Field on the Arctic Mid-Oceanic Ridge

Earth on verge of five catastrophic climate tipping points, scientists warn


Ajit Niranjan European environment correspondent

THE GUARDIAN
Tue, 5 December 2023 

Photograph: Michael Shortt/AP

Many of the gravest threats to humanity are drawing closer, as carbon pollution heats the planet to ever more dangerous levels, scientists have warned.

Five important natural thresholds already risk being crossed, according to the Global Tipping Points report, and three more may be reached in the 2030s if the world heats 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial temperatures.

Triggering these planetary shifts will not cause temperatures to spiral out of control in the coming centuries but will unleash dangerous and sweeping damage to people and nature that cannot be undone.


“Tipping points in the Earth system pose threats of a magnitude never faced by humanity,” said Tim Lenton, from the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute. “They can trigger devastating domino effects, including the loss of whole ecosystems and capacity to grow staple crops, with societal impacts including mass displacement, political instability and financial collapse.”

The tipping points at risk include the collapse of big ice sheets in Greenland and the West Antarctic, the widespread thawing of permafrost, the death of coral reefs in warm waters, and the collapse of atmospheric circulation in the North Atlantic.

Unlike other changes to the climate such as hotter heatwaves and heavier rainfall, these systems do not slowly shift in line with greenhouse gas emissions but can instead flip from one state to an entirely different one. When a climatic system tips – sometimes with a sudden shock – it may permanently alter the way the planet works.

Scientists warn that there are large uncertainties around when such systems will shift but the report found that three more may soon join the list. These include mangroves and seagrass meadows, which are expected to die off in some regions if the temperatures rise between 1.5C and 2C, and boreal forests, which may tip as early as 1.4C of heating or as late as 5C.

The warning comes as world leaders meet for the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai. On Tuesday, Climate Action Tracker estimated that their emissions targets for 2030 put the planet on track to heat 2.5C by the end of the century, despite promises from countries at a previous summit to try to limit it to 1.5C.

The tipping point report, produced by an international team of 200 researchers and funded by Bezos Earth Fund, is the latest in a series of warnings about the most extreme effects of climate change.

Scientists have warned that some of the shifts can create feedback loops that heat the planet further or alter weather patterns in a way that triggers other tipping points.

The researchers said the systems were so tightly linked they could not rule out “tipping cascades”. If the Greenland ice sheet disintegrates, for instance, it could lead to an abrupt shift in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, an important current that delivers most of the heat to the gulf stream. That, in turn, can intensify the El Niño southern oscillation, one of the most powerful weather patterns on the planet.

The co-author Sina Loriani, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said tipping-point risks could be disastrous and should be taken very seriously, despite the remaining uncertainties.

“Crossing these thresholds may trigger fundamental and sometimes abrupt changes that could irreversibly determine the fate of essential parts of our Earth system for the coming hundreds or thousands of years,” he said.

In its latest review of climate change science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that tipping thresholds were unclear but the dangers would grow more likely as the planet heats up.

It said: “Risks associated with large-scale singular events or tipping points, such as ice-sheet instability or ecosystem loss from tropical forests, transition to high risk between 1.5C to 2.5C and to very high risk between 2.5C to 4C.”

The tipping point report also looked at what it called “positive tipping points”, such as the plummeting price of renewable energy and the growth in sales of electric vehicles. It found that such shifts do not happen by themselves but need to be enabled by stimulating innovation, shaping markets, regulating business, and educating and mobilising the public.

A study from the report’s co-author Manjana Milkoreit last year warned against overusing the label of social tipping points by promising solutions that did not exist at scale or could not be controlled.

“While scholarship benefits from hope, we need to exercise caution when offering social tipping points as potential solutions to the temporal squeeze of climate change,” she wrote.

Planet tipping points pose 'unprecedented' threat to humanity: report

Daniel Lawler
Tue, 5 December 2023 

Over the edge? The melting Greenland and West Antarctic icesheets are of Earth's two tipping points teetering on the point of no return, the report warned (Olivier MORIN)

Humanity faces an "unprecedented" risk from tipping points that could unleash a domino effect of irreversible catastrophes across the planet, researchers warned Wednesday.

The most comprehensive assessment ever conducted of Earth's invisible tripwires was released as leaders meet for UN climate talks in Dubai with 2023 set to smash all heat records.

While many of the 26 tipping points laid out in the report -- such as melting ice sheets -- are linked to global warming, other human activities like razing swathes of the Amazon rainforest could also push

 Earth's ecosystems to the brink.

Five of these are showing signs of tipping -- from melting ice sheets threatening catastrophic sea level rise, to mass die-off of tropical coral reefs -- the report warned.

Some may have already begun to irrecoverably transform.

Once the world crosses the threshold for just one tipping point, dealing with the immediate humanitarian disaster could distract attention away from stopping the others, creating a "vicious cycle" of mass hunger, displacement and conflict, the report warned.

Tim Lenton, an Earth system scientist at the University of Exeter and lead author of the report, told AFP that these tipping points pose a "threat of a magnitude that is unprecedented for humanity".

But it was not all bad news.

The report also highlighted a range of positive tipping points -- such as electric vehicles, renewable energy and changing to plant-based diets -- that have the potential to swiftly build momentum and tip things back the other way.

"Imagine leaning back on a chair to that balance point where a small nudge can make a big difference," Lenton said.

"You could end up sprawled on your back on the floor -- or if you're lucky, back upright."

- On the brink -

A key concern is if the melting West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets collapse.

That could raise sea levels two metres by 2100, exposing nearly half a billion people to frequent coastal flooding, the report said.

The Greenland ice sheet has been shrinking at such a rate that it might already be too late.

"Is it past the tipping point or could it stop shrinking? No one's quite sure," Lenton said.

The other three tipping points most at risk are dying tropical coral reefs, melting permafrost and an ocean current called the North Atlantic subpolar gyre circulation.

Another ocean tipping point is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a vast system that regulates the global transfer of heat from the tropics into the northern hemisphere.

The new report said it was plausible -- though unlikely -- that the AMOC would collapse this century.

This destabilising change could lead to vast regions getting far less rain, potentially halving the area worldwide where wheat and corn can be grown, it said.

"If that goes, suddenly there will be a global food security crisis and comparable water crisis as major monsoon systems in the tropics basically fail in India and West Africa. That will be a humanitarian catastrophe," Lenton said.

- 'Dire' -

Recent massive fires in the Amazon rainforest and Canada's boreal forests suggest they are also more immediately at risk of tipping than previously thought, he added.

Lenton compared the job of the more than 200 researchers who created the over-400 page Global Tipping Points Report to risk assessors analysing a new aeroplane.

AMOC collapsing was like spotting something that could cause that plane to "fall out of the sky", he said.

But there's no way to redesign the Earth to make it safer.

Co-author Manjana Milkoreit from the University of Oslo said that "our global governance system is inadequate to deal with the coming threats and implement the solutions urgently required."

The authors called for tipping points to be included in the global stocktake being debated at the COP28 talks, as well as in national targets to combat climate change.

They also urged more effort to push tipping points in the right direction, such as changing policies on energy, transport, food and green ammonia used for fertiliser.

Sarah Das, a scientist at the US Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who was not involved in the report, said the science was now "crystal clear".

"The risks for humanity in crossing tipping points into these unexplored states is dire, and the impact to human lives potentially horrific," she said.

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Climate tipping points are nearer than you think – our new report warns of catastrophic risk

James Dyke, Associate Professor in Earth System Science, University of Exeter

 David Armstrong McKay, Researcher in Earth System Resilience, Stockholm University

Wed, 6 December 2023 
The Conversation

lugazzotti / shutterstock

It’s now almost inevitable that 2023 will be the warmest year ever recorded by humans, probably the warmest for at least 125,000 years.

Multiple temperature records were smashed with global average temperatures for some periods well above 1.5°C. Antarctic sea ice loss is accelerating at frightening rates along with many other indicators of rapid climate change. Does this mean 2023 is the year parts of the climate tip into a much more dangerous state?

Most people expect that if a system, like someone’s body, an ecosystem, or part of the climate system, becomes stressed, it’ll respond fairly predictably – double the pressure, double the impact, and so on. This holds in many cases, but is not always true. Sometimes a system under stress changes steadily (or “linearly”) up to a point, but beyond that far bigger or abrupt changes can be locked in.

An example of such “nonlinear” changes are “tipping points”, which happen when a system is pushed past a threshold beyond which change becomes self-sustaining. This means that even if the original pressure eased off the change would keep on going until the system reaches a sometimes completely different state.

Think of rolling a boulder up a hill. This takes a lot of energy. If that energy input is stopped then the ball will roll back down. But when the top of the hill is reached and the boulder is balanced right at the very top, a tiny push, perhaps even a gust of wind, can be enough to send it rolling down the other side.

The climate system has many potential tipping points, such as ice sheets disappearing or dense rainforests becoming significantly drier and more open. It would be very difficult, effectively impossible, to recover these systems once they go beyond a tipping point.

We along with 200 other scientists from around the world just published the new Global Tipping Points Report at the COP28 UN climate talks in Dubai. Our report sets out the science on the “negative” tipping points in the Earth system that could harm both nature and people, as well as the potential “positive” societal tipping points that could accelerate sustainability action. Here we look at the key messages from report sections on tipping points in the Earth system, their effects on people, and how to govern these changes.

Tipping points in air, land and sea

Having scoured scientific evidence of past and current changes, and factored in projections from computer models, we have identified over 25 tipping points in the Earth system.

Six of these are in the icebound parts of the planet (the “cryosphere”), including the collapse of massive ice sheets in Greenland and different parts of Antarctica, as well as localised tipping in glaciers and thawing permafrost. Sixteen are in the “biosphere” – the sum of all the world’s ecosystems – including trees dying on a massive scale in parts of the Amazon and northern boreal forests, degradation of savannas and drylands, nutrient overloading of lakes, coral reef mass mortality, and many mangroves and seagrass meadows dying off.

Finally, we identified four potential tipping points in the circulation of the oceans and atmosphere, including collapse of deep ocean mixing in the North Atlantic and in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, and disruption of the West African monsoon.

Human activities are already pushing some of these close to tipping points. The exact thresholds are uncertain, but at today’s global warming of 1.2°C, the widespread loss of warm water coral reefs is already becoming likely, while tipping in another four vital climate systems is possible. These are Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheet collapse, North Atlantic circulation collapse, and widespread localised thaw of permafrost.

Beyond 1.5°C several of these become likely, and other systems like mangroves, seagrass meadows, and parts of the boreal forest start to become vulnerable. Some systems can also tip or have their warming thresholds reduced due to other drivers, such as deforestation in the Amazon.

It can be hard to comprehend the consequences of crossing these tipping points. For example, if parts of the Amazon rainforest die, countless species would be lost, and warming would be further amplified as billions of tons of carbon currently locked up in trees and soils makes its way into the atmosphere. Within the region, this could cause trillions of dollars of economic impacts, and expose millions of people to extreme heat.

Given the sheer scale of risks from tipping points, you may assume that economic assessments of climate change include them. Alas, most assessments effectively ignore tipping point risks. This is perhaps the most frightening conclusion of the new report.
Human societies could tip into something much worse

There is also the potential for negative tipping in human societies, causing further financial instability, displacement, conflict or polarisation. These would hamper our efforts to limit further Earth system tipping points, and could even bring about a shift to a social system characterised by greater authoritarianism, hostility and alienation that could entirely derail sustainability transitions.

White coral with fish

A further risk is that most of Earth’s tipping systems interact in ways that destabilise one another. In the worst case, tipping one system makes connected systems more likely to tip too. This could produce a “tipping cascade” like falling dominoes.

The Global Tipping Points Report makes clear that climate change is a key driver for most of these tipping points, and the risk of crossing them can be reduced by urgently cutting greenhouse gas emissions to zero (which “positive tipping points” could accelerate). To help prevent tipping points in the biosphere, we’ll also need to rapidly reduce habitat loss and pollution while supporting ecological restoration and sustainable livelihoods.

Ambitious new governance approaches are needed. Our report recommends international bodies like the UN’s climate talks urgently start taking tipping points into account. Their understanding of dangerous climate change needs a serious update.


This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

James Dyke receives funding from the Open Society Foundations. He is an advisor to Faculty for a Future.

David Armstrong McKay is a Research Impact Fellow at the University of Exeter's Global Systems Institute and an Associated Researcher at Stockholm Resilience Centre. He is currently researching Earth system tipping points as part of the Global Tipping Points Report project (funded by the Bezos Earth Fund) and with the Earth Commission (hosted by non-profit research network Future Earth and is the science component of the Global Commons Alliance, a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, with support from Oak Foundation, MAVA, Porticus, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Herlin Foundation, the Global Environment Facility, and Generation Foundation). He is also a freelance research consultant and science communicator.

The past decade was the hottest on record as climate change ‘surged alarmingly,’ WMO reports

THE WORLD INDUSTRIALIZED UNDER GLOBALIZATION

Laura Paddison and Brandon Miller, CNN
Tue, 5 December 2023 

The decade between 2011 and 2020 was the hottest on record for the planet’s land and oceans as the rate of climate change “surged alarmingly,” according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization.

The report, released Tuesday at the COP28 conference in Dubai, found rising concentrations of planet-heating pollution in the atmosphere fueled record land and ocean temperatures and “turbo charged” dramatic glacier loss and sea-level rise during this period.

This year is also expected to be the hottest year, after six straight months of record global temperatures.

Scientists have said this year’s exceptional warmth is the result of the combined effects of El Niño and human-caused climate change, which is driven by planet-warming fossil fuel pollution. A separate analysis released Monday by the Global Carbon Project found that carbon pollution from fossil fuels is on track to set a new record in 2023 – 1.1% higher than 2022 levels.

WMO’s findings on the hottest decade continue a 30-year trend. “Each decade since the 1990s has been warmer than the one before it, and we see no immediate sign of this trend reversing,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement. “We have to cut greenhouse gas emissions as a top and overriding priority for the planet in order to prevent climate change spiralling out of control.”

While the concentration of all planet-heating gases grew over this decade, the UN agency highlighted the increase in methane as particularly concerning.

“The alarming trend here is that the rate of the growth of methane almost doubled during this decade,” Elena Manaenkova, WMO’s Deputy Secretary General, said in a news conference Tuesday.

Climate pollution from all fossil fuel types — coal, oil, and natural gas — increased around the world, the Global Carbon Project found, but some proved to be more dominant than others. Coal and oil emissions, for instance, have increased significantly in India and China, while the US and the EU showed strong declines in coal. Emissions from natural gas are increasing in the US, China and India, but decreasing in the EU.

A cow tries to drink water from the bed of a dried rivulet at Mayong village east of Gauhati, Assam, India, in April 2014 amid drought and rising temperatures. - Anupam Nath/AP

An aerial view of an iceberg, almost the size of Greater London, that broke off from the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica in January 2023. - European Union/Copernicus Sentinel-2 Imagery/Processed by DG DEFIS/Reuters

At the rate at which emissions are rising, researchers estimate a 50% chance of global temperatures regularly breaching 1.5 degrees Celsius in about seven years. That temperature – the goal of the Paris climate agreement, and a threshold above which scientists warn it will be more difficult for humans and ecosystems to adapt – was crossed briefly this year as warming from El Niño merged with the climate crisis.

Climate shocks are threatening food security and displacing people around the world, the WMO report warned, and there is a “particularly profound transformation” taking place in the polar regions and high mountains. “We are losing the race to save our melting glaciers and ice sheets,” Taalas said.

There was one piece of good news: The report found the ozone layer is on track to recovery thanks to international efforts to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals.

The WMO report comes partway through the UN-backed COP28 climate summit, on the day focused on energy and industry. The future role of fossil fuels — the main driver of the climate crisis — is one of the main sticking points at COP28.

“The impacts of climate change are evident all around us, but action to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels remains painfully slow,” said Pierre Friedlingstein, a professor at the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute. “It now looks inevitable we will overshoot the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement, and leaders meeting at COP28 will have to agree rapid cuts in fossil fuel emissions even to keep the 2°C target alive.”

CNN’s Amy Cassidy contributed reporting.

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You'll Be Astonished How Much Power It Takes to Generate a Single AI Image

Victor Tangermann

Futurism
Tue, 5 December 2023 


Power Hungry

It's an open secret that generative AI tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT eat up an astronomical amount of power.

Even generating images from a text prompts with a tool like Midjourney or OpenAI's DALL-E is immensely power-intensive.

As first spotted by The Register, a team of researchers from AI developer Hugging Face and Carnegie Mellon University recently shared a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper on how much power AI tools need to perform a variety of tasks.

Their results are — and highlight the very real carbon footprint of turning to AI instead of a human artist for imagery needs.

Strikingly, they found that the "least efficient generation model" they studied — Stable Diffusion's open source XL, which was released in July — used almost as much power per image as that required to fully charge a smartphone.

Coming up with 1,000 images using this model generates the carbon emission equivalent of "4.1 miles driven by an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle," according to the paper.

Hidden Costs

However, due to the "large variation between image generation models," that number can also be smaller. Overall, across all models the researchers tested, generating 1,000 images took an average of 2.907 kWh, roughly the equivalent of charging a phone's battery to 24 percent per image.

Generating text, however, is a seemingly far less power-hungry process and only used as much as the equivalent of three smartphone charges for 1,000 queries, the researchers found.

But extrapolating the data to a global scale reveals an even uglier truth. Companies like OpenAI and Google are already facing rapidly growing energy bills as they attempt to keep their generative AI tools online.

Recent estimations suggest AI servers on a global scale use the equivalent of what an entire country like Argentina uses in a year.

Just cooling these servers alone has an astonishing environmental footprint. According to Google's 2023 Environmental Report, the company used an astronomical 5.6 billion gallons of water last year, a 20 percent increase over its 2021 usage.

In short, the AI industry's carbon footprint will continue to be a big problem, especially as the world creeps ever closer to a climate catastrophe.

The latest research serves as a reminder that even on an image-by-image basis, the energy costs of using these generative AI tools can be considerable.

It's unclear, though, how these results compare to more commonly used AI image generators like Midjourney or OpenAI's DALL-E, which weren't part of the study

More on generative AI: AI's Electricity Use Is Spiking So Fast It'll Soon Use as Much Power as an Entire Country

Building blocks? Cutting pollution from steel, concrete and aluminium


Isabel MALSANG
Tue, 5 December 2023 

The world needs a buildings "revolution", according to the United Nations (LUDOVIC MARIN)

They hold modern life together in everything from airplane parts to apartment blocks, but steel, concrete and aluminium come with a hefty climate cost that the world could be paying for decades.

Heavily reliant on fossil fuels, they account for a significant chunk of greenhouse gas emissions -- pollution that is particularly hard to cut fast enough to meet global warming goals.

The three sectors say they aim to slash -- or even eliminate -- their CO2 emissions by 2050, despite growing demand in a rapidly urbanising world.


To do that will require a buildings "revolution", according to the United Nations, while the International Energy Agency wants greater recycling, cleaner energy and technological innovation.

- Cement and concrete -

"Concrete is the second most used substance on Earth after water, and vital for much of our modern infrastructure," said some of the industry’s biggest players including Cemex, Heidelberg and Holcim, Tuesday.

With demand expected to rise 50 percent by 2050, tackling the industry's emissions is becoming increasingly "urgent", they said.

Limestone and clay must be heated to 1,450 degrees Celsius to produce the rock-like residue known as "clinker" in cement. The fuel necessary to create such heat and the ensuing chemical reaction both produce CO2.

Switching to clinker substitutes, energy efficiency improvements, changing building design to cut down on the need for concrete, and using clean energy sources could substantially reduce emissions from the industry.

SCI-FI-TEK
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is also predicted to have a key role.

But observers fear that a planned reliance on solutions that are unproven at the scales required could distract from rapidly moving away from fossil fuels.

The Global Cement and Concrete Association said it expects the technology to account for 36 percent of the industry's global CO2 reductions by 2050.

- Steel -

Highly polluting coal makes up some 75 percent of the raw material and energy used by the steel and iron industry, according to the IEA.

The industry says it plans to replace coal-dependent blast furnaces with natural gas -- until that energy source can be swapped for "green hydrogen", produced by splitting water molecules using renewable electricity.

Green hydrogen paves the way for a gradual shutdown of polluting blast furnaces that could be replaced by the "direct reduction" of iron ore.

Steel firms are also betting on recycling scrap metals.

Europe is at the forefront of the green advances. The German industrial giant Thyssenkrupp -- singlehandedly responsible for 2.5 percent of the country's CO2 emissions -- plans to transform its historic plant in Duisburg to green steel.

But the scale of investment and rising energy prices have hampered the project.

The world's second-largest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal, acquired 80 percent of a Texas factory capable of producing steel without coal in 2022, and it is currently testing a pilot CCS system in Dunkirk, France.

Because of these difficulties, the IEA recognises that iron and steel manufacturing will remain "one of the last sectors in the Net Zero pathway that will still be using coal in 2050".

But it calls for carbon capture and hydrogen production to be "perfected and developed at scale" in the meantime.

- Aluminium -

Aluminium is a key for allowing for lighter cars and planes and in energy transition due to its ability to conduct electricity.

But it is also responsible for some of the highest emissions. One tonne of aluminium generates between five and 25 tonnes of CO2, depending on its source of electricity, according to Mineralinfo, a resource portal run by the French government.

Emissions depend above all on the type of fuel used -- often coal or heavy fuel oil -- to produce the vast quantities of energy necessary to make the metal.

The industry is hoping that recycling, CO2 capture, and emerging technology will bring down its emissions.

im/ico/lap/klm/dl/fg

PINK HYDROGEN

Nuclear backers pressure Biden to include industry in hydrogen tax break

Wed, 6 December 2023 
By Nicole Jao and Timothy Gardner

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. nuclear power industry is pressuring the administration of President Joe Biden to include existing reactors in a subsidy program for hydrogen, arguing that U.S. goals to jumpstart a "clean hydrogen" economy could fail without them.

The lobbying push reflects the big stakes for the nuclear industry, which has been struggling for years amid an upswing in low-cost electricity from natural gas-fired power plants and rapidly expanding wind and solar.

The U.S. Treasury is expected to issue guidance later this month on a hydrogen tax credit known as 45V that was outlined in the Inflation Reduction Act. The agency declined to comment.

So-called "green hydrogen" is a fuel made from water using electrolyzers; industry and government officials say it can be considered “clean” if its production is powered by virtually carbon-free energy sources like solar, wind, and nuclear.

Virtually no green hydrogen is produced now due to high costs. The Biden administration sees clean hydrogen as vital to tackling hard-to-decarbonize industries like aluminum and cement, and is offering production subsidies of $3 per kilogram through the Inflation Reduction Act.

The Treasury is weighing the details of the 45V credit, including a so-called "additionality" proposal backed by groups that support renewable energy that would make the perks available only to hydrogen producers that power their facilities with new, instead of existing, low-carbon energy sources.

A decision is expected later this month.

Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk said at the COP28 summit in Dubai that agencies are split over the design of 45V. "It's a big tax credit. We have to get it right," Turk said.

RAISING THE STAKES

Proponents of additionality say diverting existing nuclear electricity from the power grid to produce hydrogen would leave a gap in power generation that would have to be made up by burning fossil fuels that cause climate change.

U.S. electricity grids will still need power if nuclear power is diverted to produce hydrogen, said Julie McNamara, deputy policy director with the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a science-based advocacy group.

With the renewable energy capacity still nascent, this "means that the only thing that has the capacity to ramp up when that nuclear power is diverted for electrolysis is coal plants and gas plants," she said.

But nuclear industry backers say a more flexible approach is needed to make a hydrogen economy work.

“Allowing existing nuclear reactors to qualify will help ensure that clean hydrogen is available and affordable enough to be used by customers across a wide range of industries," Senator Tom Carper, a Democrat, said in a recent letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

"It would be a huge unforced error to exclude existing nuclear from eligibility,” said Doug Vine, director of energy analysis at the environmental policy think tank the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. Nuclear power is efficient at producing hydrogen as opposed to solar and wind power which is intermittent, Vine said.

Raising the stakes, the Department of Energy in October awarded $7 billion in grants to seven proposed clean hydrogen hubs as part of its strategy to jumpstart production. Three of the hubs plan to use existing nuclear.

Constellation, a nuclear power plant operator, says it plans to build a $900 million clean hydrogen facility at its LaSalle plant in Illinois with a portion of the $1 billion hydrogen hub award it received for the Midwest.

"The economics of the project are such that you really need... access to the tax credit in order to make it work," said Mason Emnett, Constellation's senior vice president of public policy.

Xcel Energy, a nuclear plant operator also set to receive money from the hub program, said in a recent letter to the Treasury that excluding existing facilities would limit the industry's ability to develop hydrogen. (Reporting by Nicole Jao and Timothy Gardner; additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

SCI-FI-TEK

World’s biggest nuclear fusion reactor opens in huge boost for ‘holy grail’ of clean energy

Anthony Cuthbertson
Wed, 6 December 2023


The world’s biggest nuclear fusion reactor has begun operations in Japan, marking a major milestone towards achieving the “holy grail” of clean energy.

The experimental JT-60SA reactor in Japan’s Ibaraki Prefecture offers the best opportunity yet to test nuclear fusion as a sustainable and near limitless power source.

Harnessing the same natural reactions found within the sun, nuclear fusion requires no fossil fuels and leaves behind no hazardous waste.


The JT-60SA reactor is a joint project between the European Union and Japan, aiming to investigate the feasibility of the next-generation energy source.

“The generation of fusion energy does not produce carbon dioxide – making it an important technology in the path to net zero emissions,” the European Union’s directorate-general for energy said in a press release.

“The fusion reaction is intrinsically safe: it stops when the fuel supply or power source is shut down. It generates no high-level long-lived radioactive waste. Because of these characteristics, fusion qualifies as one of the next-generation energy sources that simultaneously addresses energy supply and environmental challenges.”

Since it was first conceived of by physicists in the 1950s, nuclear fusion has challenged scientists around the world. Major breakthroughs in recent years have reignited hope that it can be realised at scale within the next decade.

The opening of the JT-60SA reactor comes just one year after scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California achieved a net energy gain with nuclear fusion for the first time.

The scientists used lasers to fuse two light atoms into a single one, releasing 3.15MJ (megajoules) of energy from 2.05MJ of input – roughly enough to boil a kettle.

The JT-60SA is the world’s biggest nuclear fusion reactor constructed to date (National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology)

The same team were able to repeat the experiment earlier this year, achieving an even greater net energy gain than the first time.

Physicist Arthur Turrell, who was not involved in the research, described the achievement of nuclear fusion ignition as “a moment of history” that could define a new era of energy.

“Controlling the power source of the stars is the greatest technological challenge humanity has ever undertaken,” he said. “This experimental result will electrify efforts to eventually power the planet with nuclear fusion – at a time when we’ve never needed a plentiful source of carbon-free energy more.”

One of the main objectives for the newly opened reactor, which measures six stories in height, is to replicate the feat of producing a net surplus of energy.

An even bigger nuclear fusion reactor is currently under construction in France, and is expected to begin operations in 2025.

U.S. Set to Lead Global Research for Nuclear Fusion

Darrell Proctor
Tue, 5 December 2023
POWER Magazine


U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said the U.S. is ready to work with other governments on research and development of nuclear fusion, as part of efforts to produce more carbon-free energy and combat climate change. Kerry made the announcement Dec. 5 at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Fusion has long been considered a “holy grail” of energy, able to produce what scientists consider a near-limitless supply of electricity without carbon emissions. Fusion is the process of two or more atomic nuclei being fused together to form a single, heavier nucleus that releases energy, which then can be used to generate electricity. As an example of its energy, fusion is what powers the sun and the stars. “We are edging ever-closer to a fusion-powered reality. And at the same time, yes, significant scientific and engineering challenges exist,” said Kerry. “Careful thought and thoughtful policy is going to be critical to navigate this.” It was one year ago, on Dec. 5, 2022, that scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California made a breakthrough in nuclear fusion technology. They achieved what’s known as “ignition,” in which more energy is produced from a fusion reaction that was needed to make the reaction occur. The experiment, using lasers, took place at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, home to the world’s largest laser fusion facility. Kerry, among those representing the U.S. government at the Dubai event sponsored by the United Nations, already has called for countries worldwide to end construction of new coal-fired power plants in an effort to limit global warming. On Tuesday, speaking at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum as part of COP28, Kerry said governments must work together to “harness the power of fundamental physics and human ingenuity in response to a crisis.” The new fusion program comes after the Biden administration in March 2022 announced a strategy to support U.S.-based fusion research. “The United States was proud to announce its bold decadal vision for commercial fusion energy last year … but, it is clear we cannot realize this grand ambition—perhaps not at all but certainly not at the pace we need to—doing it alone,” Kerry said.
Areas of Cooperation

Kerry said the plan to support nuclear fusion includes at least five areas where international partnerships could be forged: research, supply chain and future marketplace, regulation, workforce issues, and public engagement. Tuesday’s announcement comes after the U.S. and UK last month announced a partnership to accelerate global fusion energy development. The U.S. and nearly three dozen other groups also continue to collaborate on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, project in France, an oft-delayed endeavor to prove the viability of fusion. Japan and the European Union (EU), meanwhile, on Dec. 1 said the groups have begun operating the what is considered the world’s biggest and most advanced tokamak-type fusion reactor. The JT-60SA, located in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, is among three fusion-related projects being developed by Japan and the EU. A tokamak is a donut-shaped machine that uses powerful magnets to confine and insulate a plasma, a process that makes the plasma hot enough to produce and sustain a fusion reaction. Michl Binderbauer, CEO of California-based TAE Technologies, a fusion science and engineering group, in an email Tuesday to POWER said, “Today, TAE Technologies is celebrating the White House and the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate’s support for fusion energy as a new clean energy source of the near future. As the first private fusion company, TAE represents a significant portion of the industry’s investment and is proud to be a leader in fusion’s promise of inexhaustible carbon-free energy. “Thanks to our company’s unique approach using the safest and most sustainable fuel, hydrogen-boron, on the order of just 1% of today’s current boron production could power enough fusion energy to meet the world’s electricity needs. Deployed at scale, this would allow everyone access to affordable, reliable power without damaging the environment or contributing to geopolitical conflict,” said Binderbauer. Binderbauer noted his company also is working with Japan on research and development for fusion. “We’ve intentionally pursued international partnership in our development of this approach, including our work with Japan’s National Institute for Fusion Science, with whom we reached a scientific breakthrough on hydrogen-boron in magnetic confinement earlier this year,” said Binderbauer. “Building upon the recent success of landmark bills passed in both North Carolina and TAE’s home state of California to enshrine fusion power into the states’ regulatory framework, this announcement signals continued momentum and global collaboration for onboarding fusion as a viable and necessary part of our global energy mix.”

Fission-Based Reactors

Most of today’s nuclear power comes from nuclear fission reactors. Atoms are split in those reactors, which produces energy but also radioactive waste. The global nuclear power industry on Dec. 3 launched an initiative at COP28 in which more than 20 nations pledged to triple fission-based nuclear energy by 2050. Fusion does not produce radioactive waste, which along with its energy potential has driven research into the technology. The Fusion Industry Association (FIA) has said more than $6 billion has been invested in fusion research, with more than 40 companies worldwide working on fusion—most of those in the U.S. The group said about a third of those companies were launched over the past two years. The FIA in July of this year said it had identified 19 companies that have said they could deliver fusion-produced energy to the power grid by 2035.

 —Darrell Proctor is a senior associate editor for POWER (@POWERmagazine).

At COP28, John Kerry unveils nuclear fusion strategy as a source of clean energy

Workers, foreground, stand Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023, in an area that features a life-sized representation, behind, of a device that will use magnets to create the conditions for fusion to happen, at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, in Devens, Mass. Commonwealth is trying to create fusion inside what's called a tokamak. Nuclear fusion, which would be a new source of carbon-free energy, melds two hydrogen atoms together to produce a helium atom and a lot of energy. 

Alex Creely, head of Tokamak operations, walks past a life-sized representation, right, of a device that will use magnets to create the conditions for fusion to happen, Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023, at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, in Devens, Mass.

JENNIFER McDERMOTT
Updated Tue, 5 December 2023 

The United States will work with other governments to speed up efforts to make nuclear fusion a new source of carbon-free energy, U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry said Tuesday, the latest of many U.S. announcements the last week aimed at combatting climate change.

Nuclear fusion melds two hydrogen atoms together to produce a helium atom and a lot of energy—which could be used to power cars, heat and cool homes and other things that currently are often powered by fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. That makes fusion a potentially major solution to climate change, which is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Still, fusion is a long way off, while other clean technologies like wind, solar and others are currently in use and could be increased.

“We are edging ever-closer to a fusion-powered reality. And at the same time, yes, significant scientific and engineering challenges exist,” Kerry said, in Dubai for U.N. climate talks. “Careful thought and thoughtful policy is going to be critical to navigate this.”

Researchers have been trying for decades to harness the reaction that powers the sun and other stars — an elusive goal because it requires such high temperatures and pressures that it easily fizzles out.

Kerry wants to speed that up in hopes of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, a benchmark set by the international community. He urged nations to come together to “harness the power of fundamental physics and human ingenuity in response to a crisis.” The strategy lays out five areas for international partnerships: research, the supply chain and future marketplace, regulation, workforce issues and public engagement. Kerry spoke at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum.

The United States and United Kingdom announced a partnership in November to accelerate global fusion energy development, and the United States announced its own vision last year for research needed over the decade. In southern France, 35 nations are collaborating on an experimental machine to harness fusion energy, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale, carbon-free source of energy. That project has been plagued by delays and cost overruns. On Friday, Japan and Europe said they were launching the world's largest fusion reactor.

Both China and Russia are partners in ITER, and China in particular is moving aggressively to promote fusion research and development, said Andrew Holland, chief executive officer of the Fusion Industry Association.

"We're trying to build a global posse to get there before the Chinese so the Chinese don't dominate another new technology," he said.

Before he left for Dubai, Kerry put on a hardhat and toured Commonwealth Fusion Systems in Devens, Massachusetts, a company racing to design, build and deploy fusion power plants.

Until now, all nuclear power has come from nuclear fission reactors in which atoms are split — a process that produces both energy and radioactive waste. The global nuclear industry launched an initiative at COP28 for nations to pledge to triple this kind of nuclear energy by 2050. More than 20 have already signed on, including the United States and the host of this year's talks, the United Arab Emirates.

Fusion doesn’t produce the radioactive waste of nuclear fission. In a global race to make it a practical and possibly limitless power source, more than $6 billion has been invested to date, according to the Fusion Industry Association. There are more than 40 fusion companies globally now with over 80% of the investment in the United States. Thirteen of the companies emerged in just the past year and a half.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems has raised the most, more than $2 billion, according to the association.

Like the 35-nation effort, Commonwealth is trying to create fusion inside what's called a tokamak. The doughnut-shaped machine uses powerful magnets to confine and insulate a plasma so it's hot enough for the fusion reaction to occur and stays hot longer.

A year ago, in a major breakthrough that used a different technology at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, scientists for the first time were able to engineer a reaction that produced more power than was used to ignite it, called net energy gain. Their process uses lasers.

Physicists around the world view the doughnut-shaped machines as the most promising kind of magnetic fusion device.

Tokamaks have been getting bigger in size for better performance. Commonwealth Fusion was founded in 2018 by researchers and students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Using breakthroughs in superconducting magnet technology combined with science from their own compact tokamak, the MIT group set out to build a magnet tolerant of high temperatures that could achieve really strong magnetic fields, using little electricity.

Their hope is to build a smaller, less expensive unit more rapidly, to make fusion commercially viable for the first time, said Professor Dennis Whyte, a co-founder of Commonwealth who leads the Plasma Science and Fusion Center.

“If fusion becomes economically competitive, we've solved energy for humanity forever, forever. It's like, of course you go after that," he said in an interview. “The compulsion that’s coming both from climate change and from energy security means it sure seems this is the right time to make the big push to get there.”

The company and the university collaborate closely. In 2021, they turned on their superconducting electromagnet and demonstrated a record-breaking magnetic field, making it the strongest fusion magnet of its kind. Whyte said he knew then fusion had changed forever.

But despite the hype, reliable and cheap nuclear fusion energy is still a pipe dream, said Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington. Fusion is far less likely than other alternatives to be commercialized on a timeframe that would allow it to help prevent the worst effects of climate change, he said. Lyman said the enormous price tag could also rob more promising alternatives, such as renewable energy, of resources they need to thrive,

Yet 19 fusion companies think they will deliver power to the grid before 2035, the Fusion Industry Association said in July.

Commonwealth is designing its first power plant, which it's calling “ARC,” to connect to the grid in the early 2030s.

ARC is intended to make roughly 460 megawatts of electricity. About 60 of those would be used to run the plant, for a net output of about 400 megawatts, enough to power tens of thousands of homes. It's projected to cost roughly $1 billion to $2 billion, according to the company, and fit on a space the size of a basketball court.

Before that, Commonwealth says it will build and test a prototype tokamak it calls SPARC, hoping to turn that on in late 2025 or early 2026.

CEO Bob Mumgaard said he thinks clean energy from fusion can decarbonize heavy industries that are big emitters of greenhouse gases.

“That’s our future play, it’s the really hard stuff, the stuff that gets you to zero," he said in an interview.

Along the walls at Commonwealth runs a pattern of white dots at hip level, one for each of the 10,000 fusion power plants they think the world will need by 2050. Mumgaard said it's a daily reminder the world uses a lot of energy, most of it from fossil fuels, and that has to change.

___

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

A magnet test engineer checks fluid levels in a testing device at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, in Devens, Mass., Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023. Commonwealth is trying to create fusion inside what's called a tokamak. Nuclear fusion, which would be a new source of carbon-free energy, melds two hydrogen atoms together to produce a helium atom and a lot of energy. 

John Kerry, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, speaks about nuclear fusion at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

Bob Mumgaard, CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, stands for a photograph near a magnet insulation wrapping machine at their facility, in Devens, Mass., Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023. Commonwealth is trying to create fusion inside what's called a tokamak. 

People stand near a magnet insulation wrapping machine at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, in Devens, Mass., Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023. Commonwealth is trying to create fusion inside what's called a tokamak. 

A magnet test engineer checks fluid levels in a testing device at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, in Devens, Mass., Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023. 

Jim O'Neill, of Salem, N.H., a senior safety manager, pulls a lever as he prepares to operate a crane Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023, at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, in Devens, Mass. Commonwealth is trying to create fusion inside what's called a tokamak. Nuclear fusion, which would be a new source of carbon-free energy, melds two hydrogen atoms together to produce a helium atom and a lot of energy. 

(AP Photos/Steven Senne)

DOE announces $42 million for inertial fusion energy hubs

Funding supports three hubs to build on DOE’s groundbreaking work in fusion, including last year’s successful ignition

Grant and Award Announcement

DOE/US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $42 million for a program that will establish multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary hubs to advance foundational inertial fusion energy (IFE) science and technology, building on the groundbreaking work of the Department’s researchers into harnessing the power of the sun and stars. The hubs will be led by researchers at Colorado State University, the University of Rochester, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where last year a team successfully achieved fusion ignition for the first time, proving that creating energy from fusion is possible. Fusion has the potential to provide abundant, reliable, and non-carbon-emitting energy, and President Biden has set a goal of demonstrating a proof-of-concept for several different types of fusion power plants in 10 years as part of the effort to achieve the Administration’s ambitious climate and energy goals.

“Harnessing fusion energy is one of the greatest scientific and technological challenges of the 21st Century,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “We now have the confidence that it’s not only possible, but probable, that fusion energy can be a reality. The scientists in these hubs will be the vanguard of game-changing and planet-saving breakthroughs.”

Projects funded by the program—known as Inertial Fusion Energy Science and Technology Accelerated Research (IFE-STAR)—will bring together expertise and capabilities across DOE’s National Laboratories, academia, and industry to advance IFE system components. Inertial confinement fusion is a leading approach to fusion that uses lasers or other technologies to compress and heat high-density plasmas. IFE-STAR projects will develop high-gain target designs; high-efficiency lasers at high repetition rates; and IFE-relevant fusion target manufacturing, tracking, and engagement. A major component of the funded projects is stewardship of the inertial fusion ecosystem, including the development of an inclusive and diverse workforce.

“Fusion energy has the potential to provide clean, safe, and bountiful energy to support America’s domestic energy supply and meet our climate goals,” said U.S. Senator Michael Bennet (CO). “I have no doubt that Colorado State University will play a key role in advancing important fusion energy breakthroughs and help Colorado continue to lead the country in clean energy innovation.” 

“This action from the Department is an important step to accelerate the advancement of inertial fusion energy solutions. I was happy to join the Secretary when she launched the IFE-STAR program during a celebration of the breakthrough achievement of fusion ignition at the National Ignition Facility last year. I am happy to see these research hubs launched across the country today,” said U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren (CA-18), Ranking Member of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. “I have been a strong advocate for the establishment of this very program for well over a decade. I’m encouraged that the Department is now following through on the strong direction provided by Congress in the bipartisan Energy Act of 2020 and the CHIPS and Science Act and look forward to continuing to track the progress of each of these impressive research teams.” 

“I’m incredibly grateful to Secretary Granholm and the Department of Energy for recognizing the University of Rochester’s potential in the emerging field of Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) research,” said U.S. Representative Joe Morelle (NY-25). “For generations, Rochester has been synonymous with innovation, and it has long been my priority in Congress to launch our next chapter of regional growth and prosperity. This federal investment in our community’s scientific excellence will encourage our legendary innovation and unlock the next level of clean, safe, and carbon-free energy for the entire world.”

Inertial confinement fusion has attracted greater interest and attention due to breakthroughs at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility, where on December 5, 2022, researchers achieved scientific breakeven, meaning more energy was released from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it. The researchers have since repeated the result three times. 

 The IFE-STAR projects aim to continue progress by addressing priority research opportunities outlined in the IFE Basic Research Needs Workshop report as well as common scientific and technological gaps in the anticipated technology roadmaps of IFE fusion companies participating in the Office of Science’s Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program. Unlike magnetic confinement fusion, which aims to sustain a burning plasma for long durations, IFE will be repetitively pulsed. One of the goals is to develop the science and technology required to move inertial fusion from low-gain, single-shot experiments toward high gain and high repetition rates as required for a potential IFE pilot plant. 

 The 2013 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report An Assessment of the Prospects for Inertial Fusion Energy recommended establishing a broad-based IFE program upon the achievement of laboratory fusion ignition. The Energy Act of 2020 and the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 directed DOE to carry out an IFE research and technology development program. Now that ignition has been achieved and following the direction in the legislation, DOE is establishing an IFE program via IFE-STAR. 

The selected projects will build on and significantly leverage the world-leading capabilities, expertise, diagnostics, and facilities that exist due to sustained DOE and National Nuclear Security Administration investments in support of science-based Stockpile Stewardship, which uses scientific capabilities to certify America’s nuclear stockpile without nuclear explosive testing. IFE-STAR will also significantly expand upon IFE research that was jointly funded by DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) and Office of Science starting in 2020 under the ARPA-E Breakthroughs Enabling Thermonuclear-fusion Energy program. 

 The members of the three hubs are: 

 Inertial Fusion Energy-Consortium on Laser-Plasma Interaction Research hub 

• University of Rochester (leader)
• Ergodic LLC
• University of California, Los Angeles
• University of Nebraska–Lincoln
• Xcimer Energy Corp. 

 Inertial Fusion Science and Technology hub 

• Colorado State University (leader)
• Cornell University
• General Atomics
• Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Marvel Fusion
• SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
• Texas A&M University
• U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• Xcimer Energy Corp. 

 National Science and Technology Accelerated Research for Fusion Innovation & Reactor Engineering hub 

• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (leader) 
• Focused Energy
• Fraunhofer ILT
• General Atomics
• Leonardo Electronics US Inc.
• Livermore Lab Foundation
• Longview Fusion Energy
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory
• Savannah River National Laboratory
• SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
• Texas A&M University
• TRUMPF
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of California, Los Angeles
• University of California, San Diego
• University of Oklahoma
• University of Rochester
• Xcimer Energy Corp. 

The projects were selected by competitive peer review under the DOE Funding Opportunity Announcement for Inertial Fusion Energy Science and Technology Accelerated Research. Projects will last up to four years with total funding of $42 million, including $9 million in Fiscal Year 2023 and $33 million in outyear funding contingent on congressional appropriations. 

The list of projects and more information can be found on the Office of Science’s Fusion Energy Sciences homepage. 

Selection for award negotiations is not a commitment by DOE to issue an award or provide funding. Before funding is issued, DOE and the applicants will undergo a negotiation process, and DOE may cancel negotiations and rescind the selection for any reason during that time.