The nuclear fusion-heat pump nexus could solve our winter woes World Economic Forum

SMRs could also help decarbonize heavy industry due to their ability to be located very close to the source of demand. AI is helping researchers speed up fusion progress by modelling and analysing complex systems. Many experts think that fusion is still two or three decades away from being commercially viable, though some start-ups aim to have plants up and running by the 2030s. We will deliver net energy conditions well before the end of the decade and commercial net energy by the early 2030s. For example, two hydrogen atoms combine to form helium, releasing far more energy than fission.

• We are working to shepherd fusion energy’s leap from experimental laboratories to grid-ready power plants in the 2030s.
• Shanghai start-up Energy Singularity is seeking $500 million to develop clean energy, one of 45 companies in around 13 countries working to commercialize nuclear fusion.
• Inside a doughnut-shaped machine called a ‘tokamak,’ hydrogen isotopes will collide at enormous speed, fusing into helium.
• Small modular reactors (SMRs) are another promising area of advanced nuclear energy.

“If we want to take this forward, public-private partnerships are going to be essential,” she said. Using laser beams, the amount of energy from the fusion reaction surpassed that concentrated on the target for an instant. In August 2023, scientists at the US Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California repeated a breakthrough they first made in December 2022, achieving a “net energy gain” in fusion ignition. It produced 69 megajoules of energy over five seconds – or enough energy to heat up to five hot baths, according to the BBC, triple what it generated back in 1997. The most promising combination for power on Earth today is the fusion of a deuterium atom with a tritium one.

• A gallon of seawater (3.8 litres) could produce as much energy as 300 gallons (1,136 litres) of petrol.
• In addition, fast neutron reactors can utilize spent fuel from existing power plants and provide a sustainable solution to the issue of waste.
• For over half a century, microchips have paved the way for increasingly powerful electronic devices.
• The technology could help people redefine their lives, according to NHS England diabetes clinical director Dr Clare Hambling.
• The World Economic Forum’s Centre for Energy and Materials is driving the transition to a “fit for 2050” energy system.

How can these technologies advance the energy transition?

While nuclear fusion power offers the prospect of an almost inexhaustible energy source for future generations, it has also presented many so-far-insurmountable scientific and engineering challenges. In May 2023, Microsoft announced a deal with private US nuclear fusion company Helion to buy electricity made using fusion technology in 2028. A concerted effort towards fusion energy is the best way to solve the pressing need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ensure the supply of safe, clean energy long into the future.

Future of the Environment

It only lasted for a fraction of a second, but it proved fusion could be a power source, rather than a power drain. Then, in 2022, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California achieved ‘Lawson’s criterion,’ making the first net-positive energy gain from a controlled fusion reaction. Scientists have been conducting fusion reactions since 1952, but these reactions always consumed more energy than they produced. With fusion, our oceans contain enough energy for billions of years. And it will be the cheapest reliable power, and incidentally, the cleanest power too. By the time their children retire, fusion may be the world’s dominant energy source, ushering in an era of energy abundance, not scarcity.

Heat pumps are already gathering momentum

He was launching an international engagement plan – involving 35 countries – to boost nuclear fusion through research and development. The breakthrough came after the final experiment at the UK’s JET fusion laboratory in Oxford produced a new world record for fusion power generation. There are several “recipes” for cooking up nuclear fusion, which rely on different atomic combinations. China has entered the nuclear fusion race, according to reports in Nature and the Financial Times in August and September 2024. Nuclear fusion, the process that powers the Sun and stars, merges two atomic nuclei into a larger one, releasing energy.

Nuclear fusion has been described as harnessing the same reaction that powers the sun and stars on Earth. OpenStar says its design – which turns the ‘tokamak’ design used by many other fusion projects “inside out” – could be faster to scale and commercialize than other. Global goals, agreed at COP28, of tripling renewable capacity and doubling energy efficiency by 2030 are crucial for limiting global temperature rises to below 1.5C. Annual investment in the global energy sector must grow by more than 2.5 times to stick to a 1.5C pathway, IRENA says.

South Korean nuclear fusion reactor sets new record

On average, the waste from a reactor supplying a person’s electricity needs for a year would be about the size of a brick. The International Atomic Energy Agency says that over 80 SMR designs are in development worldwide, targeting electricity, heating, water desalination and industrial steam. Unlike traditional nuclear power (fission), which splits atoms, fusion joins smaller atoms to make heavier ones.

It offers the prospect of an “almost inexhaustible source of energy”, according to the World Nuclear Association. There is a “significant gap” between political announcements around renewable energy and the actual plans and policies countries have in place, according to a new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Countries have different starting points for the green transition. Fusion fuel – different isotopes of hydrogen – must be heated to extreme temperatures of around 50 million degrees Celsius, kept stable under intense pressure, and dense enough and confined for long enough to allow the nuclei to fuse. At Davos in 2023, Kim Budil, the lab’s director, explained the experiment involved beaming 192 lasers on a tiny target and heating it to create a self-sustaining reaction. In December 2022, scientists at the lab managed to produce more energy from the reaction than it consumed – a net gain of 1.5 megajoules in less time than it takes light to travel one inch.

Energy-related emissions are poised for a prolonged period of decline for the first time since the Industrial Revolution. These critical pillars of economic growth account for around a third of the country’s total carbon emissions. As global concern about climate change intensifies, China is undertaking significant measures to move its industrial sectors, including chemicals, steel and cement, towards sustainable development. Norway’s government has reached a $1.6 billion deal with seven private investors to take over much of the country’s gas export network. Drought and floods are causing problems for hydropower production across Latin America.

We are working to shepherd fusion energy’s leap from experimental laboratories to grid-ready power plants in the 2030s. That’s a huge step forward for the decades-long global mission of fusion scientists, providing humanity with a cheap, limitless and carbon-free source of electricity. How is the World Economic Forum facilitating the transition to clean energy?

SDG 07: Affordable and Clean Energy

Clean, firm fusion power is the keystone for reshaping hard-to-abate sectors — everything from steel, cement, chemicals, shipping and aviation. Since fusion power is dispatchable and constant, it offers a solution while reducing costs. fusion markets review Energy consumption and production contribute to two-thirds of global emissions, and 81% of the global energy system is still based on fossil fuels, the same percentage as 30 years ago.

How AI might help advance plasma physics

One problem was that the process, which usually involves distilling seawater multiple times until all the salt is removed, uses an incredible amount of energy. Access to fresh water is drying up around the world, focusing attention on desalination (desal) technology, which can make plentiful drinking water from the sea. Fusion energy is arguably the most exciting human discovery since fire.

Small modular reactors

In 2018 energy intensity improved by 1.2%, the slowest rate since 2010. Commonwealth Fusion Systems will turn on a demonstration power plant, called SPARC, in 2027. More than 40 fusion startups are speeding towards this goal.

CFS is racing against Helion, another US fusion startup backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, which plans to bring a fusion power plant online by 2028 and has signed Microsoft as its first off-take partner. In parallel, governments, utilities and private industry are expanding the fusion ecosystem. A new fusion roadmap published by the US Department of Energy in October outlines how the technology could enter that country’s energy mix by the early 2030s.

Tech and Innovation

One showed for the first time that it is feasible to build a low power (~100MWe) tokamak with a high power gain. On Earth we need to create similar conditions and hold a hot electrically-charged plasma at high enough pressure for long enough for fusion reactions to occur. Controlled fusion is the ideal long-term energy source, complimentary to renewables. Fusion – with no CO2 emissions, no risk of meltdown and no long-lived radioactive waste – is the obvious solution and has been for decades, but it is so hard to achieve. But what’s next for this vital technology in the age of power-hungry AI systems?

By harnessing the energy in the outside air, which is present even on cold days, and moving it inside in the form of heat, heat pumps can efficiently warm a home. Nuclear fusion, however, was not a major part of the conversation — but as the drought and heat waves in Europe, the flooding in Pakistan and Nigeria and every other climate catastrophe has recently shown, we need large-scale changes. Nuclear fusion reactors around the world are being built to find the best way to control and capture the energy of such reactions. Digital power system transformation ‘essential’ – and more top energy stories