What the United States and Japan will do about nuclear fusion
During Kishida's visit, the United States and Japan announced a partnership on nuclear fusion: it is a revolutionary technology for clean energy, but still far from commercialization. Eni is also taking part in the match. All the details
The United States and Japan announced Wednesday a collaboration to accelerate the development and commercialization of nuclear fusion, a technology that promises to produce large amounts of clean energy but is currently experimental. The partnership between the two countries was announced during the visit to Washington of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who met with US President Joe Biden.
WHAT IS NUCLEAR FUSION
Nuclear fusion works the opposite of fission, the process used in all the power plants currently active in the world: it does not generate energy from the division of heavy atoms but from the union of light atoms; it does not release greenhouse gas emissions, does not produce highly radioactive waste and is considered inexhaustible or almost inexhaustible due to the ease of access to tritium and deuterium (the two isotopes of hydrogen used as fuel).
Despite its great potential, nuclear fusion – which uses magnets or lasers – is very difficult to keep stable and make efficient: the so-called net energy gain, i.e. the generation of more energy than is consumed in the process, has only been achieved twice (both from the American laboratory Lawrence Livermore ), in very modest quantities and discontinuously.
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE US-JAPAN PARTNERSHIP
The U.S.-Japan partnership will focus on commercializing nuclear fusion – that is, in short, overcoming scientific and technical obstacles to starting fusion power plants – through collaborations between universities, laboratories and private companies in the two countries.
THE ROLE OF COMMONWEALTH (SUPPORTED BY ENI)
According to the Fusion Industry Association, an industry association based in Washington, nuclear fusion projects have received over $6 billion in funding worldwide to date; 80 percent of investments are concentrated in the United States, where numerous companies such as Commonwealth Fusion Systems are active. The startup – of which Italy's Eni is a major supporter – promises to launch a commercial fusion power plant as early as the 2030s.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems is one of eight U.S. companies that gained access to a $46 million Department of Energy fund last June. The others are Focused Energy, Princeton Stellarators, Realta Fusion, Tokamak Energy, Type One Energy, Xcimer Energy and Zap Energy.
THE OTHER INITIATIVES
At COP28 in Dubai the United States promoted an engagement plan on nuclear fusion with thirty-five countries. The plan aims to accelerate the progress of fusion energy through cooperation on research, supply chain development, staff training and regulatory regulation.
In 2023, Japan established a fusion industry forum dedicated to commercializing this technology. The objective of the group, in which both energy and engineering companies participate, is to advise the Japanese government on the technical and safety standards to be adopted also in view of the implementation of projects abroad.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/stati-uniti-giappone-partnership-fusione-nucleare/ on Thu, 11 Apr 2024 10:27:49 +0000.