SCI FI TEK

CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE (CCS)

Rock ‘flour’ from Greenland can capture significant CO2, study shows

Powder produced by ice sheets could be used to help tackle climate crisis when spread on farm fields

Eight-thousand-year-old marine deposits, exposed by the slow rise of Greenland after the last ice age. The cliffs are about 15 metres high. Photograph: Minik Rosing

Damian Carrington 

Environment editor
THE GUARDIAN

Tue 30 May 2023

Rock “flour” produced by the grinding under Greenland’s glaciers can trap climate-heating carbon dioxide when spread on farm fields, research has shown for the first time.

Natural chemical reactions break down the rock powder and lead to CO2 from the air being fixed in new carbonate minerals. Scientists believe measures to speed up the process, called enhanced rock weathering (ERW), have global potential and could remove billions of tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere, helping to prevent extreme global heating.

Soil fertility naturally depends on rock weathering to provide essential nutrients, so enhancing the process delivers an extra benefit. Spreading the Greenland rock flour on fields in Denmark, including those growing barley for the Carlsberg brewery, significantly increased yields.

Greenland’s giant ice sheet produces 1bn tonnes a year of rock flour, which flows as mud from under the glaciers. This means the potential supply of rock flour is essentially unlimited, the researchers said, and removing some would have very little effect on the local environment.Graphic showing the rock weathering process

The weathering process is relatively slow, taking decades to complete, but the researchers said ERW could make a meaningful difference in meeting the key target of net zero emissions by 2050. Phasing out the burning of fossil fuels remains the most critical climate action, but most scientists agree that ways of removing CO2 from the atmosphere will also be needed to avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis.

“If you want something to have a global impact, it has to be very simple,” said Prof Minik Rosing at the University of Copenhagen, who was part of the research team. “You can’t have very sophisticated things with all kinds of hi-tech components. So the simpler the better, and nothing is simpler than mud.”

He added: “Above all this is a scalable solution. Rock flour has been piling up in Greenland for the past 8,000 years or so. The whole Earth’s agricultural areas could be covered with this, if you wished.”

Other researchers are investigating the use of mechanically ground rock for ERW. “But unlike other sources, glacial rock flour does not need any processing,” said Dr Christiana Dietzen, also at the University of Copenhagen. The rock flour weathers extremely slowly in the cold conditions in Greenland, but the process speeds up when it is spread in warmer places.

The research on the CO2 uptake of Greenland rock flour, published in the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, estimated that 250kg of CO2 can be trapped per tonne of rock flour. After three years in soil in Denmark, the researchers found about 8% of this had been achieved. The scientists also calculated that 27m tonnes of CO2 could be captured if all farmland in Denmark was spread with the rock flour, an amount similar to the country’s total annual CO2 emissions.

Raised seabeds with some vegetation and active tidal delta mud deposits in Ilulialik, Nuuk fjord, west Greenland.

 Photograph: Minik Rosing

Another study by the same team, published in the journal Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems, showed increases in yields of maize and potatoes of 24% and 19% respectively after rock flour was spread in Denmark. Dietzen hopes the first commercial applications will be spread within three years.

The team is also running experiments in less fertile soils, in Ghana, where even greater increases in maize yield have been seen. “In environments like Ghana, the fertiliser benefit alone may be enough reason to import glacial rock flour,” Dietzen said, though the impact of transporting the rock flour long distances from Greenland would have to be weighed up.

Other ERW research has used mechanically ground basalt and a 2020 study estimated that treating about half of global farmland with this could capture 2bn tonnes of CO2 each year, equivalent to the combined emissions of Germany and Japan.

Prof David Beerling at the University of Sheffield, who led the 2020 work, said basalt had significant advantages. Its chemical composition absorbs CO2 faster than glacial rock flour, may increase crop yields by more and it is widely available close to many farming areas. “We need all the weapons we can muster in the fight against climate change and my sense is that glacial rock flour could be a useful one,” he said. “But it is not a gamechanger.”

However, the rock flour is much finer than the ground basalt and so exposes more surface area to weathering. The advantages and disadvantages of both types of rock dust are still being studied. The Danish group is planning trials in Australia and assessing the energy requirements of shipping. Beerling’s team expects to publish results of yield gains in corn following basalt application in the US in the near future. “I don’t think it has to be one or the other. I think there’s probably room for both,” said Rosing.

Other proposed ways of pulling CO2 from the atmosphere include using technology to capture it directly from the air, or growing energy crops, burning them to produce electricity and then burying the CO2 emissions. The 2020 study suggested ERW would be less expensive than either and, unlike energy crops, does not compete with food for land.

Greenland is usually in the news because of the huge and accelerating melting of its ice cap, which is driving up sea level. Rosing, who is originally from Greenland, said: “It would be much nicer for the nation to be part of the [climate] solution, rather than just a symptom of the problem.”

SCI FI TEK

Collaborations announced for fusion projects

30 May 2023

General Atomics (GA) of the USA and Tokamak Energy of the UK have agreed to collaborate in the area of high temperature superconducting (HTS) technology for fusion energy and other industry applications. Meanwhile, Germany's Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics will work with Proxima Fusion to further develop the stellarator concept.

Testing of an HTS magnet in liquid nitrogen (Image: Tokamak Energy)

GA - which began working on superconducting magnet technologies in the 1980s - and Tokamak Energy said the collaboration under a newly-signed memorandum of understanding would "leverage GA's world-leading capabilities for manufacturing large-scale magnet systems and Tokamak Energy's pioneering expertise in HTS magnet technologies".

Magnetic fusion uses a tokamak, which uses several sets of powerful electromagnets to shape and confine superheated hydrogen gas - known as plasma. To achieve fusion conditions relevant for energy production, tokamaks must heat the gas to temperatures exceeding 100 million degrees Celsius - more than ten times the temperature at the centre of the sun. This is the threshold said to be required for fusion to be a commercially viable energy source.

Strong magnetic fields are generated by passing large electrical currents around arrays of electromagnet coils that circle the plasma. The magnets are wound from ground-breaking HTS tapes, multi-layered conductors with a crucial internal coating of 'rare earth barium copper oxide' (REBCO) superconducting material. Developing more powerful HTS magnets will allow fusion power plants to use thinner magnetic coils while generating plasmas at greater densities.

"GA is excited to collaborate with Tokamak Energy on HTS magnets," said GA Senior Vice President Anantha Krishnan. "Tokamak Energy is a leader in HTS magnet modelling, design and prototyping and GA has expertise in developing and fabricating large-scale superconducting magnets for fusion applications."

"GA has significant experience, knowledge and facilities to produce large superconducting magnets at scale," said Tokamak Energy Managing Director Warrick Matthews. "Tokamak Energy has been developing HTS technologies for fusion for over a decade. The integration of these complementary capabilities promises to accelerate the development and production of HTS technologies in additional fields, such as aviation, naval, space and medical applications."

Tokamak Energy's roadmap is for commercial fusion power plants deployed in the mid-2030s. To get there the plan is for completion of ST80-HTS in 2026 "to demonstrate the full potential of high temperature superconducting magnets" and to inform the design of its fusion pilot plant, ST-E1, which is slated to demonstrate the capability to deliver electricity - producing up to 200 MW of net electrical power - in the early 2030s.

Collaboration in stellarators

The Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) has signed a cooperation agreement with Munich-based Proxima Fusion - which was spun out of IPP earlier this year and was founded by a team which includes six former IPP scientists - to further develop the stellarator concept for fusion power. Proxima Fusion intends to design a nuclear fusion power plant based on IPP research.

"With this cooperation, Proxima Fusion will primarily advance technological approaches, while IPP will contribute its know-how as the world's leading institute in stellarator physics," IPP said.

The institute is the only institution in the world that carries out research on both essential concepts of magnetic confinement fusion with the help of large-scale experiments: it operates the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak in Garching near Munich, and the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator in Greifswald.

A tokamak is based on a uniform toroid shape, whereas a stellarator twists that shape in a figure-8. IPP notes the advantage of stellarators is that they can be operated continuously, unlike pulsed tokamaks, and with better plasma stability properties.

In February, the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator succeeded for the first time in generating a high-energy plasma that lasted for eight minutes. The facility is designed to generate plasma discharges of up to 30 minutes in the coming years. Scientists are also working in the field of stellarator optimisation at IPP's Stellarator Theory Division in Greifswald.

"With our research, we want to further develop stellarators towards application maturity," said IPP Scientific Director Sibylle Günter. "With Proxima Fusion's technological focus, we see great synergies in a collaboration and look forward to working together in a public-private partnership".

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

UK and Japan deepen fusion energy cooperation

 SCI-FI-TEK 77 YEARS IN THE MAKING

Friday, 27 June 2025

World Nuclear News

A memorandum of cooperation has been signed between the UK and Japan for partnership on fusion energy - as companies in the two countries announce new collaborations.

(Image: Japan's UK embassy/X)

The memorandum of cooperation was signed by UK Climate Minister Kerry McCarthy and Japan's Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology Minister Hiroshi Masuko and aims to "further collaboration in key fusion areas including research and development, regulation and skills and workforce".

McCarthy, said: "The UK is optimally positioned for global fusion investment. Global partnerships such as this one will advance technological developments and help unlock limitless clean fusion power, bringing a fusion energy future closer to a reality."

Separately there has been a memorandum of understanding signed between the UK's Fusion Cluster and the Japan Fusion Energy Council "to foster industrial collaboration, knowledge exchange, and workforce development", and Kyoto Fusioneering has relocated its UK headquarters to UK Atomic Energy Authority's Culham Campus near Oxford.

The collaboration between the Fusion Cluster and the Japan Fusion Energy Council will see them working together to "promote mutual understanding and strategic collaboration in fusion energy development; facilitate cooperation between Japanese and UK industries; and contribute to the development of a global-scale fusion energy ecosystem".

Meanwhile Tokamak Energy, which is based close to Culham, has announced that it has agreed with Japan's Furukawa Electric Group to establish a joint operational base in Japan for manufacturing high temperature superconducting magnet (HTS) technology. This is the method being used to create the strong magnetic fields needed to confine and control hydrogen fuel, which becomes a plasma several times hotter than the Sun, inside a tokamak.

The two companies say they will also explore uses of the technology in a range of other industries, including in medicine and for propulsion under water and in space.

Warrick Matthews, Tokamak Energy CEO, said: "Our magnet technology is an essential part of turning the promise of limitless clean fusion energy into commercial reality. This new venture with Furukawa Electric Group will ramp up our manufacturing capabilities and open a new era of superconducting performance in a range of sectors, from powering data centres to revolutionising electric zero emission motors."

Hideya Moridaira, President, Furukawa Electric Group, said: "We are truly honoured to take this important step forward with Tokamak Energy, deepening our collaboration and initiating efforts toward manufacturing HTS magnet technology for fusion energy in Japan ... by combining our HTS technology with Tokamak Energy’s innovative fusion technology, we are confident we can contribute meaningfully to the next generation of energy solutions.”

Background

Fusion research aims to copy the process which powers the sun - when light atomic nuclei fuse together to form heavier ones, a large amount of energy is released. To do this, fuel is heated to extreme temperatures,  at least 10 times hotter than the centre of the sun, forming a plasma in which fusion reactions take place. A commercial power station will use the energy produced by fusion reactions to generate electricity. The fundamental challenge, being addressed in a variety of ways, is to achieve a rate of heat emitted by a fusion plasma that exceeds the rate of energy injected into the plasma.

The promise is that fusion energy will have few carbon emissions and it has abundant and widespread fuel resources.

SCI-FI-TEK

We've Never Seen Cherenkov Radiation During a Fusion Reaction... Until Now

Darren Orf
Wed, October 18, 2023 

Fusion Sends Particles Faster than Lightspeed

Argonne National Laboratory

When a particle exceeds to the speed of light in a medium, such as water, it produces whats known as Cherenkov radiation.


This radiation is used by nuclear inspectors and astronomers, but it’s never been observed during a fusion reaction—until now.


The U.S.-based fusion company SHINE announced earlier this month that they witnessed the phenomenon during a deuterium-tritium fusion process.

When an object travels faster than the speed of sound, it produces a sonic boom. Something similar also occurs when particles travel faster than the speed of light. While light’s velocity in a vacuum sets the speed limit for the universe, when traveling through water, that limit decreases to about 75% its usual speed—about 139,800 miles per second. If a particle exceeds that limit, it produces an eerie blue glow called Cherenkov radiation. The effect is named after Soviet physicist Pavel Cherenkov, who won a Nobel Prize for his discovery.

This blue glow is a well-known phenomenon in fission circles, as nuclear reactors are regularly submerged in water. In fact, nuclear inspectors use this light to discern whether nuclear material is being used for peaceful means. Astronomers are also aware of this phenomenon, and the IceCube Neutrino Observatory leverages this effect to detect muon neutrinos in Antarctic ice.

However, the effect has never been seen during a fusion reaction—until now. Last month, the nuclear fusion company SHINE announced that Cherenkov radiation was visible during its deuterium-tritium fusion process. This was the first time that the blue-hued phenomenon was captured during a fusion reaction.

“The Cherenkov radiation effect produced here was bright enough to be visible, which means there’s a lot of fusion happening, about 50 trillion fusions per second,” Gerald Kulcinski, director of Fusion Technology-Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in a press statement. “At a billion fusions per second, you might have measurable Cherenkov radiation but not visible amounts.”

Deuterium and tritium are two isotopes of hydrogen, also known as heavy hydrogen. Unlike normal hydrogen,which usually only has one proton (giving it the number one spot on the periodic table), deuterium contains a neutron and proton, and tritium contains two neutrons and a proton. SHINE uses a deuteron beam—essentially just the nucleus of deuterium—to hit tritium at high speeds, according to IFLScience.

So, why do particles emit this blue glow during a fusion reaction in the first place? When hydrogen absorbs a neutron, it emits a high energy gamma ray. When this gamma ray knocks into an electron, the ray can accelerate the electron beyond the speed of light (in water). When the particle exceeds that threshold, it produces a “shock wave,” much like sound waves. Because of the high energies at play, the light travels at high frequencies and short wavelengths, which correspond with the cooler end of the visual spectrum.

SHINE’s fusion reactors are mostly used to study the effects of radiation, whether in aerospace or medical applications, though it expresses interest in developing fusion for energy-producing purposes. Witnessing Cherenkov radiation during the fusion process brings with it some hope that fusion technology can one day produce neutrons on par with more traditional fission reactors.

 SCI-FI-TEK 70 YEARS IN THE MAKING

Economic impact of UK's STEP plant assessed

Friday, 21 March 2025

A report commissioned by Nottinghamshire County Council outlines predicted economic benefits of the UK's prototype fusion energy power plant to be built at West Burton near Retford.

A cutaway of the STEP fusion plant (Image: UKAEA)

In October 2022, the West Burton coal-fired power plant site in Nottinghamshire, England, was selected to host the UK's Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP). The demonstration plant is due to begin operating by 2040. The technical objectives of STEP are: to deliver predictable net electricity greater than 100 MW; to innovate to exploit fusion energy beyond electricity production; to ensure tritium self-sufficiency; to qualify materials and components under appropriate fusion conditions; and to develop a viable path to affordable lifecycle costs. As well as the STEP fusion facility, a skills centre and a business park are planned.

The report, written by economic and finance specialists Amion Consulting, covers a timeframe of more than 45 years, from when planning began in 2019, through to 2065. However, the majority of these benefits are expected to be from 2030 onwards.

Analysts created an economic model to predict the key economic benefits that will be generated by STEP. These benefits include the jobs linked directly to the project and the lucrative contracts for local and national supply chains. This research also takes into account the wider benefits to the local economy such as more disposable income for Nottinghamshire residents thanks to the creation of better-paid jobs.

The report identifies other key benefits for Nottinghamshire including a forecasted annual average of more than 1,000 new construction related jobs, which will boost the county's economy by GBP86 million (USD111 million) each year. Meanwhile, the number of operational jobs due to be created is predicted to be around 2760 each year, which will bring an average annual economic boost worth GBP210 million for Nottinghamshire.

For the East Midlands region as a whole, an average of 2,976 construction, planning and design-related jobs are due to be created each year, bringing an average GBP236 million annual boost for the region's economy. An average of 6,440 new operational jobs are set to boost the East Midland's economy by around GBP489 million annually.

Working closely with UK Industrial Fusion Solutions (UKIFS) - a wholly-owned subsidiary of the UK Atomic Energy Authority that will deliver STEP - Nottinghamshire County Council commissioned the report on behalf of key partners, including Bassetlaw District Council, Lincolnshire County Council and West Lindsey District Council.

"This is the first examination of the positive economic impacts of the STEP programme across the region and beyond," said UKIFS CEO Paul Methven. "It gives a fascinating insight into the potential for STEP to deliver direct economic and social benefits and stimulate much wider opportunities across many sectors. We look forward to supporting regional leaders in driving these opportunities regionally and enabling economic growth nationally."

"We already knew this once-in-a-lifetime project would create massive growth, investment and skills, but now we know the full extent of it," added Keith Girling, Nottinghamshire County Council's Cabinet Member for Economic Development and Asset Management. "This is incredible news for our county and the region, particularly for our future generations who will really reap the benefits. This report now provides us with crucial insight and sets a benchmark to help partners plan for future investment as well as environmental and economic policies in that area."

A summary report of the study is avialable here.

 World Nuclear News

FUSION IS SCI-FI-TEK

Fluor to design laser fusion power plant

11 March 2024

California-based Longview Fusion Energy Systems has contracted US engineering and construction firm Fluor Corporation to design the world's first commercial laser fusion power plant.

A rendering of a laser fusion power plant (Image: Longview)

"Fluor will leverage its global experience in developing and constructing complex, large-scale facilities to provide preliminary design and engineering to support the development of Longview's fusion-powered plant," Longview said.

The company noted that, unlike other approaches, it does not need to build a physics demonstration facility, and, with its partner Fluor, "can focus on designing and building the world's first laser fusion energy plant to power communities and businesses".

This is enabled, it says, by the historic breakthroughs in fusion energy gain at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF).

Nuclear fusion is the process by which two light nuclei combine to form a single heavier nucleus, releasing a large amount of energy. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been pursuing the use of lasers to induce fusion in a laboratory setting since the 1960s, building a series of increasingly powerful laser systems at the California lab and leading to the creation of National Ignition Facility, described as the world's largest and most energetic laser system. The facility uses powerful laser beams to create temperatures and pressures similar to those found in the cores of stars and giant planets - and inside nuclear explosions.

On 5 December 2022, the National Ignition Facility achieved the first ever controlled experiment to produce more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it. The experiment used 192 laser beams to deliver more than 2 million joules (MJ) of ultraviolet energy to a deuterium-tritium fuel pellet to create so-called fusion ignition - also referred to as scientific energy breakeven. In achieving an output of 3.15 MJ of fusion energy from the delivery of 2.05 MJ to the fuel target, the experiment demonstrated the fundamental science basis for inertial confinement fusion energy - or IFE - for the first time.

Longview says it is the only fusion energy company using this proven approach. Its power plant designs incorporate commercially available technologies from the semiconductor and other industries to ensure the delivery of carbon-free, safe, and economical laser fusion energy to the marketplace within a decade.

"We are building on the success of the NIF, but the Longview plant will use today's far more efficient and powerful lasers and utilise additive manufacturing and optimization through AI," said Valerie Roberts, Longview's Chief Operating Officer and former National Ignition Facility construction/project manager.

Edward Moses, Longview's CEO and former director of the National Ignition Facility, added: "Laser fusion energy gain has been demonstrated many times over the last 15 months, and the scientific community has verified these successes. Now is the time to focus on making this new carbon-free, safe, and abundant energy source available to the nation as soon as possible."

In April last year, Fluor signed a memorandum of understanding with Longview to be its engineering and construction partner in designing and planning laser fusion energy commercialisation.

Longview's plan is for laser fusion power plants, with capacity of up to 1600 MW to provide electricity or industrial production of hydrogen fuel and other materials that can help to decarbonise heavy industry.

SHINE chooses Deep Isolation waste disposal technology

11 March 2024

Fusion technology company SHINE Technologies has selected Deep Isolation's technology as its preferred solution for storage and disposal of the high-level waste that will remain as a residue after deployment of SHINE's technology for recycling used nuclear fuel.

Deep Isolation's waste repository concept leverages directional drilling to isolate used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste in deep boreholes located underground in suitable rock formations (Image: Deep Isolation)

The two companies have entered into a memorandum of understanding to "jointly drive forward spent fuel recycling supported by a safe and scalable solution for the resulting waste streams".

Under the MoU, SHINE and Deep Isolation will collaborate and exchange critical information for the use of Deep Isolation's Universal Canister System (UCS) and patented directional drilling solution for deep borehole disposal for isolation and management of high-level waste.

Wisconsin-based SHINE is working to deploy fusion technology through a "purpose-driven and phased approach" which includes eventually applying its technology to recycling nuclear waste. And ultimately generating power from nuclear fusion.

Last month, Deep Isolation and SHINE announced the findings of a study into pairing a used nuclear fuel recycling facility with deep borehole disposal technology. It found the technology could reduce the total volume of waste requiring disposal in a deep geologic repository by greater than 90%. The study also identified areas where further technical work could optimise Deep Isolation's technology for the remaining waste, reducing disposal costs even further.

The study was an initial scoping assessment of the costs of disposing the byproducts of a pilot recycling facility that would extract and enable reuse of valuable components from used nuclear fuel while separating fission products that require geologic disposal, the companies said.

"Our partnership with Deep Isolation marks an important step in achieving our mission," said SHINE founder and CEO Greg Piefer. "Climate change appears to be happening and accelerating, and nuclear energy is one of the best tools currently available to address carbon emissions. The approximately 90,000 tons of civilian spent nuclear fuel across the United States represent an untapped and arguably renewable resource that if recycled will reduce emissions and accelerate the deployment of carbon free fission energy. The result of this work will be a reduction in waste volumes and ultimately a half-life that allows for simpler, safer disposal."

"This agreement gives the two companies a clear framework to commercialise our respective innovations in an integrated way," added Deep Isolation CEO Liz Muller. "Clean nuclear power can only take off if the industry can show society that there are safe, practical, and permanent means of disposing the highly radioactive materials that result. Integrating Deep Isolation's disposal technology with SHINE's recycling technology offers a powerful solution."

In late February, SHINE and Orano USA signed an MoU to cooperate on the development of a US pilot plant with commercial-scale technology for recycling used nuclear fuel from light water reactors. Site selection for the pilot facility is expected by the end of this year. The pilot plant concept - expected to recycle 100 tonnes per year of used nuclear fuel, extracting 99% of usable uranium and plutonium - will validate commercial-scale aqueous recycling with integrated non-proliferation measures.

The system is based on SHINE's proven critical separation technology and Orano's methods in operation at its La Hague facility in France, where more than 40,000 tonnes of used nuclear fuel have been reprocessed.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

ITER's proposed new timeline - initial phase of operations in 2035

FUSION IS SCI-FI-TEK 70 YRS IN THE MAKING

20 June 2024

The revamped project plan for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) aims for "a scientifically and technically robust initial phase of operations, including deuterium-deuterium fusion operation in 2035 followed by full magnetic energy and plasma current operation".

The giant ITER construction site in September 2023 (Image: ITER/EJF Riche)

The ITER Organisation has been working on what Director General Pietro Barabaschi described as a "realistic" project timeline, since he took up the role two years ago. The previous baseline, established in 2016, was for first plasma in 2025 at the giant international collaborative project which is taking shape in the south of France.

At the 34th meeting of the ITER Council on Wednesday and Thursday this week, there were presentations on progress made in construction as well as the proposed update of the project baseline which would "prioritise the start of substantial research operations as rapidly as possible. This would be achieved by consolidating tokamak assembly stages, enhancing pre-assembly testing, and reducing machine assembly and commissioning risks. Throughout this phase of assembly, the project will continually progress through critical technical milestones that will be relevant to the global fusion innovation programme".

A statement issued after the ITER Council meeting said that the director general would give more details at a press conference in July of the updated proposal "which leads to a scientifically and technically robust initial phase of operations, including deuterium-deuterium fusion operation in 2035 followed by full magnetic energy and plasma current operation. Achieving these goals will enable progression to full fusion power in the deuterium-tritium phase. The proposed baseline will be further evaluated and validated, including the increased cost and the schedule implications driven by this new approach, and recommendations will be shared with the ITER Council for consideration".

The 2016 baseline had the start of deuterium-tritium operation set for 2035. Although the new baseline means a considerable delay compared with the previous one, the reform of the programme means they cannot be directly compared, ITER says. The 2016 baseline was for first plasma to be a brief low-energy machine-test at 100 kiloamperes followed by substantial assembly and incremental operation, whereas the new baseline's start of research operation is for operation at 15 megaamperes, which would require installation of components that would not have been needed for that part of the previous baseline.

ITER at a glance

ITER is a major international project to build a tokamak fusion device designed to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy. The goal of ITER is to operate at 500 MW (for at least 400 seconds continuously) with 50 MW of plasma heating power input. It appears that an additional 300 MW of electricity input may be required in operation. No electricity will be generated at ITER, and as well as what will be learned when it begins operations, as a first-of-a-kind project it is providing lessons and benefits for the international fusion industry throughout its construction.

Thirty-three nations are collaborating to build ITER - the European Union is contributing almost half of the cost of its construction, while the other six members (China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the USA) are contributing equally to the rest. Construction began in 2010. The ITER Council members reaffirmed their support for the project, saying "the fusion operations pursued by ITER remain strongly relevant for global fusion research and development and the national fusion programmes of the ITER Members".

What has caused the delays?

There are a variety of reasons which have been given for the delays to the project. As well as general first-of-a-kind type issues there has also been the COVID-19 pandemic and the emergence of problems in the vacuum vessel sector's welding joint region and corrosion-induced cracks in thermal shield piping. Barabaschi, speaking in October 2023, said that even without those issues the 2025 first plasma deadline was not going to be met.

In the update report, the council noted the progress made on repairs and also the completion of manufacturing of all toroidal field coils, judged to be one of the most technically challenging components. Manufacturing of all the poloidal field coils has also been completed and "are examples of the critical milestones the project will accomplish throughout the assembly phase".

In the ITER statement it was also stressed that "council members re-emphasised the strong value of the ITER mission and resolved to work together to find solutions to facilitate ITER’s success ... and noted the ongoing challenges facing the project and expressed appreciation that all ITER Members are continuing to meet their in-kind and in-cash commitments to support project success".

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

SCI-FI-TEK-ILLUSION
Carbon Capture Could Be the Key to the Energy Transition

By Julio Friedmann

Aug. 11, 2023 

Workers inside the Carbon Engineering Innovation Centre, a Direct Air Capture research and development facility, in Squamish, Canada

James MacDonald/Bloomberg

About the author: Julio Friedmann is chief scientist at Carbon Direct.

Amid all the grim news about wildfires and other disasters exacerbated by a warming climate, there is room for optimism. Today, there are dozens of companies across the globe willing to build systems to capture carbon from and permanently store it. Their rise has been hastened by the passage of new laws in the U.S., Canada, Europe, China, and elsewhere. Carbon capture may be unfamiliar to many people, but that probably won’t be true for long.

Carbon capture is a set of technologies with the sole purpose of mitigating climate change. These technologies harness chemical and physical processes to capture CO2 from the air itself or at the source of emission, such as from industry, energy, and other sectors. It can then be safely stored in geological formations, permanently keeping it out of the atmosphere, or used in other applications like making concrete, or fuel. Though deployment of carbon capture incurs additional costs, it directly reduces greenhouse gas emissions. In some cases, carbon capture can also be used to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and oceans.

The concept has been around for almost a century. The first project began operation in 1938, and the first large-scale project to inject CO2 into the ground launched in 1972 at the Sharon Ridge oilfield in Texas. About 24 years later, Norway launched the world’s first integrated carbon capture and storage project (Sleipner) in the North Sea, strictly to reduce climate impacts.

The most recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency highlight the urgent need for rapid deployment of carbon capture technologies. Net-zero emissions must be met by the early 2050s to limit global warming to 1.5°C, a level that will prevent catastrophic damage. To achieve this, these technologies will need to be used to capture over one billion tonnes from existing facilities and another billion from the atmosphere by 2030, with roughly four to eight billion tonnes per year captured from existing infrastructure and an additional three to 20 billion tonnes removed from the air and oceans by 2050. These are enormous volumes, equal in size and scale to today’s oil and gas sector. Significant investments will be required for this effort to succeed.

As a climate mitigation tool, carbon capture is versatile, scalable, and relatively low-risk and low cost. Carbon-capture technologies can serve in many sectors: electricity generation, heavy industry, agriculture, transportation, hydrogen production, and more. Carbon capture also offers a wide range of utility. It can be used, among others, to reduce emissions in hard-to-abate industries such as existing cement and steel mills, and potentially to remove CO2 from the air and oceans at an accelerated pace. Because it requires only earth-abundant materials, carbon capture can scale quickly and be used across a wide variety of geographies.

With this long history, builders and operators of carbon-capture projects also view the risks of deployment as generally low. This means, in many markets and sectors like heavy industry, aviation, and maritime, carbon capture is also the lowest-cost option for climate abatement. A single project can be very large, representing over five million tons per year of CO2 reduced or removed. Policy is playing a big role in the advancement of carbon capture. Several recent laws are providing significant support for innovation and investment. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, passed in 2021, provided support for CO2 infrastructure, including $500 million a year to assess geological storage sites for safety, quality, and effectiveness. The Law also created a $3.5 billion program to create direct air capture hubs, which the Department of Energy just awarded. It also gives new loan authorities to the Department of Transportation to build CO2 pipelines. And it provides millions to the EPA to hire and train CO2 storage regulators.

In 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act included major provisions for carbon capture, recognizing its critical role in climate mitigation. These provisions include a tax credit of $85 a tonne for capturing and permanently storing CO2 from a point source, such as a power plant. A higher tax credit, $180 a tonne, is available for direct air capture and storage. These tax credits provide 12 years of projective benefits for companies, making carbon capture a viable business in the U.S. These incentives make all the difference. Specifically, they make it more profitable to capture and store CO2 than to release it, with huge benefits to investors and the climate.

Studies from Princeton University and others find that provisions of these two laws could boost carbon capture in the U.S. to the tune of 100 million tonnes per year by 2030 and 400 million tonnes per year by 2035. Most of the reduction will come from heavy industry, with some also coming from electricity generation. That level would be ten times the abatement of all the carbon capture and storage plants operating worldwide today. Since the passage of the IRA, more than 150 projects have been announced worldwide, with 70 new projects in the U.S. alone bringing the U.S. total to 175. If all U.S. projects are built, their climate abatement could exceed an astonishing 162 million tonnes of CO2 reduction per year.

When done well, carbon capture is elegant, returning extracted carbon to the earth’s crust. Controversy around carbon capture comes from questions about doing it well.

At its best, carbon capture reduces the local environmental impacts and could save billions of dollars in health costs. If poorly executed, carbon capture could add to the environmental burdens already disproportionately shouldered by frontline and disinvested communities. Ultimately, these projects must be managed carefully to succeed and earn trust.

Controversy also stems from distrust of energy companies that hope to use the technology to decarbonize their operations and produce low-carbon fuels. There are concerns that carbon capture will, though reducing emissions, extend the use of fossil fuels. Oil and gas companies, industrial facilities, and utilities will need to work hard to gain the confidence of communities, environmental groups, and investors. Otherwise, deployment in these sectors will be slow, expensive, and difficult.

Finally, carbon capture technologies face a narrative challenge. Many people are not as familiar with them as they are with windmills, solar panels, or nuclear plants—things they’ve seen in action.

Despite the challenges, as carbon capture technology extends its reach it will become more visible and familiar, leading to more acceptance. With support from new laws, carbon capture may come to be seen as commonplace and essential for the energy transition.

Guest commentaries like this one are written by authors outside the Barron’s and MarketWatch newsroom. They reflect the perspective and opinions of the authors. 

FUSION/SCI-FI-TEK

Korea completes delivery of ITER vessel sectors

Tuesday, 26 November 2024

The fourth and final ITER vacuum vessel sector manufactured by South Korea has been delivered to the construction site of the tokamak fusion device in Cadarache, southern France.

(Image: Korea Institute of Fusion Energy)

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor's (ITER's) plasma chamber, or vacuum vessel, houses the fusion reactions and acts as a first safety containment barrier. With an interior volume of 1400 cubic metres, it will be formed from nine wedge-shaped steel sectors that measure more than 14 metres in height and weigh 440 tonnes. The ITER vacuum vessel, once assembled, will have an outer diameter of 19.4 metres, a height of 11.4 metres, and weigh approximately 5200 tonnes. With the subsequent installation of in-vessel components such as the blanket and the divertor, the vacuum vessel will weigh 8500 tonnes.

Each vacuum vessel sector is manufactured in four segments, requiring more than 1.6 kilometres of welding for assembly. Maintaining precise tolerances of less than a few millimetres ensures the seamless integration of internal components, which demands advanced forming and welding technologies.

The completed sector (Image: Korea Institute of Fusion Energy)

The fabrication of the vacuum vessel sectors is shared between Europe (five sectors) and South Korea (four sectors). Initially, South Korea was tasked with producing two vacuum vessel sectors under its agreement with the ITER Organization. However, in 2016, an additional agreement was made to produce two more sectors originally assigned to the EU.

Starting with the delivery of the first sector in 2020, South Korea has now completed all four sectors, fulfilling its commitment to this significant international project.

The sector is unloaded from the ship (Image: Korea Institute of Fusion Energy)

"Korea has also delivered superconductors, thermal shields, and assembly tools to ITER on schedule, steadily contributing to the development of fusion reactor technologies and supporting efforts toward the realisation of fusion energy," the National Research Council of Science and Technology noted.

The fourth and final sector was produced at Hyundai Heavy Industries' shipyard in Ulsan. After leaving Ulsan on 24 August, the load travelled around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of the African continent and sailed north to the Strait of Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean Sea. It was delivered to the ITER site on 8 November.

Of the nine vacuum vessel sectors required to form the tokamak's toroidal plasma chamber, five are already present on site. The first sector produced by Europe was recently delivered to the site. In the ITER Assembly Hall, two sectors are being assembled into modules that will be installed later in the assembly pit. Another is undergoing repair in the former Cryostat Workshop, where two other recently arrived sectors have just been stored.

The sector arrives at the ITER site (Image: ITER)

ITER is a major international project to build a tokamak fusion device designed to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy. The goal of ITER is to operate at 500 MW (for at least 400 seconds continuously) with 50 MW of plasma heating power input. It appears that an additional 300 MWe of electricity input may be required in operation. No electricity will be generated at ITER.

Thirty-five nations are collaborating to build ITER - the European Union is contributing almost half of the cost of its construction, while the other six members (China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the USA) are contributing equally to the rest. Construction began in 2010 and the original 2018 first plasma target date was put back to 2025 by the ITER council in 2016. However, in June this year, a revamped project plan was announced which aims for "a scientifically and technically robust initial phase of operations, including deuterium-deuterium fusion operation in 2035 followed by full magnetic energy and plasma current operation".

 World Nuclear News

 SCI-FI-TEK 70YRS OF TRYING

SLAC to develop fusion energy target technology as part of DOE Fusion Innovation Research Engine Collaboratives

As a member of a collaborative team led by General Atomics, SLAC will help bridge basic research programs with the growing fusion industry.

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

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SLAC will help develop advanced target tracking technology allowing high-repetition lasers to hit fusion fuel targets with precision. 

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Credit: Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory will contribute to the DOE’s newly established Fusion Innovative Research Engine (FIRE) Collaboratives. These collaborative teams were created to bridge basic science research programs with the needs of the growing fusion industry. In total, the DOE announced $107 million in funding for six projects under this initiative.

SLAC joins the Target Injector Nexus for Experimental Development (TINEX) Collaborative, which is led by General Atomics and includes Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Colorado State University, Stanford University and the University of California, San Diego. Neil Alexander, General Atomics director of Inertial Fusion Energy, will serve as director of the TINEX Collaborative, with SLAC senior staff scientist Arianna Gleason serving as the deputy director. The TINEX Collaborative will address key technological challenges associated with the commercialization of inertial fusion energy (IFE).

Fusion energy is the same process that powers our sun, and IFE is a promising method of replicating that process here on Earth. IFE involves directing multiple high-powered lasers at small, gas-filled targets within a confinement chamber, which causes the atoms in the targets to fuse and produce an enormous amount of heat. This heat can then be converted into a virtually unlimited energy source.

TINEX will focus on developing and utilizing fusion fuel targets, as well as tackling potential challenges that could arise in a full-scale power plant. These challenges include managing debris within the confinement chamber, minimizing damage to optical systems from target capsule fragments, enhancing the resilience of capsules to high temperatures, and designing tracking sensors to accurately aim lasers at rapidly moving capsules.

"SLAC is bringing our expertise in high energy density science and lasers to this collaborative effort to overcome critical technological challenges and clear the path to commercialized fusion energy,” said Siegfried Glenzer, a SLAC professor and the director of SLAC’s High Energy Density Science Division.

The lab will receive more than $1 million per year to develop advanced target tracking technology that measures the exact location of each target injected into a confinement chamber, allowing lasers to repeatedly hit each target with precision. 

The collaboration includes an industrial council of leading inertial fusion power plant companies to provide insights and feedback as TINEX develops solutions to the challenges facing their industry.

“Lessons learned from the TINEX collaboration will benefit both industry and academic institutions. De-risking key technologies and building up the fusion workforce are important steps toward realizing fusion energy at the grid-scale,” said Arianna Gleason, senior staff scientist at SLAC and deputy director of the TINEX Collaborative.

The full list of FIRE Collaboratives projects and more information can be found on the Fusion Energy Sciences program homepage.  

Learn more about fusion energy research at SLAC. 

​​For questions or comments, contact SLAC Strategic Communications & External Affairs at communications@slac.stanford.edu.

 

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About SLAC

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory explores how the universe works at the biggest, smallest and fastest scales and invents powerful tools used by researchers around the globe. As world leaders in ultrafast science and bold explorers of the physics of the universe, we forge new ground in understanding our origins and building a healthier and more sustainable future. Our discovery and innovation help develop new materials and chemical processes and open unprecedented views of the cosmos and life’s most delicate machinery. Building on more than 60 years of visionary research, we help shape the future by advancing areas such as quantum technology, scientific computing and the development of next-generation accelerators.  

SLAC is operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time