MIT's New Framework Aims to Tackle Nuclear Fusion's Money Problem
- MIT's new framework weighs the physical inputs and plant construction costs fusion needs to actually compete in energy markets, not just achieve ignition in a lab.
- The system works across any fusion approach, tokamak, laser confinement, or z-pinch, which could help settle which technology wins commercially.
- Researchers argue the physics of fusion is proven; the real hurdle now is money, and getting honest about the economics before scaling up.
For decades, the joke was that nuclear fusion was and would always be 30 years away. But a rapid string of breakthroughs over the last five years, catalyzed by privatization and the pressure as well as the support of the AI boom, has changed the calculus and suddenly brought the technology onto a real and achievable timeline.
Nuclear fusion is treated as a ‘holy grail’ of clean energy because, if harnessed in a commercially viable and scalable way, it could provide limitless energy production with zero greenhouse gas emissions and negligible environmental externalities. In short, it’s a silver-bullet solution for the world’s energy trilemma.
“To power one person’s lifetime, it’s a bathtub of seawater and a laptop battery’s size of lithium,” nuclear physicist Annie Kritcher recently told Fortune. “It’s not a lot of materials, and there’s no [long-term] radioactive waste like we have with fission.”
The first major breakthrough took place at California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in late 2022, when a team of scientists led by Kritcher made a breakthrough that many doubted would ever happen. The lab achieved ‘first ignition’ when it achieved a man-made fusion reaction that produced more energy than it consumed for the first time in human history. Since then, this amazing feat has been recreated, and other breakthroughs have started piling up in fusion experiments around the globe.
Breakthroughs have been achieved in a wide variety of fusion experiments. The breakthrough at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was achieved using high-powered lasers, but other extremely promising options use a device called a tokamak that uses ultrapowerful magnets to contain plasma. China’s tokamak-based EAST ‘artificial sun’ is currently on track to achieve ignition by next year, at which point it would become the first fusion reactor to sustain plasma without external heating. Another promising approach is offered by z-pinch systems, which use electrical currents.
We now have a wealth of proof that nuclear fusion is possible and replicable through a number of different technologies – but are any of them scalable? As it stands, nuclear fusion is nowhere close to being commercially viable. The resources required to create a relatively miniscule amount of energy are enormous and completely untenable for any practical application.
A new framework from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) seeks to puzzle out how to keep the momentum moving forward to bring fusion from a lab environment to an industrial and economic reality. The framework weighs “the physical inputs needed to sustain controlled fusion energy production, as well as the cost of building power plants that can compete in energy markets” according to a recent press release from MIT. The scientists argue that the age of throwing methods and materials at the wall to see what sticks is now over. We now know that fusion is possible scientifically, and how to achieve it. Now it’s time to crunch the numbers.
“It’s all the things that come along with finding, allocating, and spending money at this scale,” says Dennis Whyte, a professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT and co-author of the study, published last month in the Journal of Fusion Energy. “This is critical to what we do. We should look at the economics. If we want this technology to actually be meaningful in the world economy, we have to start getting straight with ourselves about these topics.”
Critically, the framework is applicable to any and all of the fusion energy approaches that are currently under development. At this early stage of fusion research, it’s still not clear whether tokamakaks, laser-controlled internal confinement, or z-pinch systems will hold the key for commercial viability. But MIT’s system could help us figure that out.
Whyte says that the framework is “completely agnostic to whatever fusion concept you use, because the physical reality of fusion is that you expend money to build the capability to produce fusion power.” Moreover, Whyte’s co-author Andrew W. Lo emphasizes, “It doesn’t matter whether the fusion power plant is small or large, the bottom line is: In both cases you better have money coming out that exceeds the money going in, otherwise it’s not going to be around for very long.”
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
MIT develops framework for assessing economics of fusion
The goal of the paper, according to co-author and MIT professor of nuclear science and engineering Dennis Whyte, is to create "this framework, where are all the economics are clear, and then we understand what it would mean” for any fusion energy power plant. He added: "If we want this technology to actually be meaningful in the world economy, we have to start getting straight with ourselves about these topics."
The study - titled Criteria for the economic viability of fusion power plants and published in the Journal of Fusion Energy - proposes ten parameters for evaluating the economic viability of a fusion energy power plant. Some of these are scientific and physical, dealing with the energy consumed and produced in a given plant. Most of the parameters are in the realm of engineering and economics, such as the costs of plant construction.
The parameters in the framework describe engineering features of the fusion power plant such as power density, the efficiency of converting fusion power into an economic product, and the durability of components used in the energy conversion, in addition to costing and market parameters that assess the expenses and returns from invested capital.
"This framework and its associated model are able to provide new insights into the design space of future fusion power plants (FPPs) independent of specific knowledge of their technologies," the paper says. "It confirms that low-cost financing will be necessary to the economic success of any new FPP, it highlights the importance of the replacement cost and frequency of the control surface of the fusion reaction, and it overturns the idea that a very low power density will allow a FPP to become economically viable. We hope that the simplicity, flexibility, and transparency of this model will make it a staple in the fusion development space."
Co-author Andrew Lo, a professor of finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management, said: "It's challenging to reduce complex scientific and engineering requirements to economic consequences. But if we don't do that, we're not going to get the funding we need to achieve the impact we want."
Researchers have tried a variety of methods for generating and containing fusion energy. The paper's framework, Whyte says, is "completely agnostic to whatever fusion concept you use, because the physical reality of fusion is that you expend money to build the capability to produce fusion power." The parameters do not depend on the size of any reactor being built; the framework is set up so that any inputs can be scaled to a given project or power output.
"It doesn't matter whether the fusion power plant is small or large, the bottom line is: In both cases you better have money coming out that exceeds the money going in, otherwise it's not going to be around for very long," Lo said. "It's pretty clear that economic viability is something we can start assessing now."
Whyte added: "When you've got a framework to evaluate it in a quantitative way, it tells you about the literal worth of making a particular design decision. That seems to me at this moment of fusion development absolutely critical, and what we've been missing."
Whyte is a former head of MIT's Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and a former director of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center. He co-founded Commonwealth Fusion Systems, an MIT spinoff firm. Whyte and Lo also co-founded Rutherford Energy Ventures, a consultancy and investment advisory firm, which is working with the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory to build a consortium for new fusion research.
Key appointment
Whyte has been appointed CEO of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) following an open international recruitment process, taking up the role later this year. With UKAEA’s Culham Campus continuing to grow as a world-leading hub for fusion research and innovation, Whyte will lead a workforce of more than 2,600 people across four sites and will provide leadership to UKAEA which includes the national laboratory and UK Fusion Energy Ltd. He will oversee the organisation’s high-impact scientific and engineering work in fusion research and development, advance commercial pathways, strengthen international and industry partnerships and translate scientific innovation into practical outcomes.
"I am excited to be joining the exceptional team at UKAEA, which has a compelling plan for delivering commercial fusion energy, developing key technologies for fusion energy extraction, and the largest workforce in the world committed to advancing the development of fusion science and engineering in its widest forms," Whyte said. "My goal at MIT has been to develop bold innovators, not just scientists. Innovation happens when technical rigour meets entrepreneurial ambition. That mindset has helped launch breakthrough technologies, such as high-temperature superconducting magnets, from laboratory concepts into compelling efforts in the commercial space. This shows how education can accelerate the transition from fundamental science to real-world impact, all while inspiring the next generation of leaders who treat energy security with urgency."
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