Just one day after the Chinese reported that their artificial sun had reached 100 million degrees Celsius, Chinese nuclear physicist Liu Chang announced he had left Princeton University for a position at Peking University in Beijing. Liu, whose research has centered on plasma physics and nuclear fusion, had been at Peking’s Institute of Heavy Ion Physics for a month, it was reported.
Perhaps Liu’s return to China signaled his belief that his native country was about to take the lead in the world fusion race. China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) is a nuclear fusion experiment designed to mimic the process that powers the Sun. The Chinese have invested heavily into nuclear fusion research; success would mean revolutionizing energy production, as fusion presumably creates limitless, carbon-free electricity.
The next step for the Chinese is to sustain plasma reactions longer, achieve energy breakeven, and develop heat-resistant materials for magnetic confinement. That’s why the Chinese are developing the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor. But while China is in the lead position today, other major fusion projects are also moving forward.
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a global collaboration based in France, hopes to achieve its first plasma in the 2030s. The Joint European Torus (JET), based in the United Kingdom, recently set its own record by generating 59 megajoules of fusion energy in a sustained burst. SPARC, a joint initiative between MIT and Commonwealth Fusion Systems, wants to build a compact fusion reactor using high-temperature superconducting magnets.
With the reward of ending energy poverty globally, more and more players have entered the race and reporting progress. In May 2023, Washington-based Helion Energy announced a deal with Microsoft to provide the tech giant with electricity generated from its fusion powerplant by 2028.
The company has already announced that construction of the world’s first fusion powerplant will begin in Malaga, Washington, for the 50-megawatt facility on land owned by the Chelan Public Utility District adjacent to the Columbia River. The powerplant will support a purchase agreement with Microsoft but long-term it would make clean energy accessible to local residents.
France just announced its Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA) WEST Tokamak reactor had maintained a plasma reaction for over 22 minutes on February 12 – 25 percent longer than the Chinese had achieved in January. The next step for CEA is to create even longer reactions at even hotter temperatures. The information gained by this experimental reactor will be used to improve performance notably for the ITER reactor, also housed in France.
Another French firm, Renaissance Fusion, has raised 32 million euros to fund its efforts to simplify the stellarator, which seeks to use large magnets to corral plasma into long-burning fusion reactions. Renaissance joins Thea Energy in this effort, whose validity was demonstrated in an earlier German experiment that failed because its magnets were too challenging to manufacture.
Across the English Channel, the UK Atomic Energy Authority has announced plans to invest 200 million pounds in its lithium breeding tritium innovation (LIBRTI) program to advance development of fusion fuel – just part of the UK’s fusion program. LIBRTI, a part of the broader Fusion Futures initiative, focuses on advancements and stimulating general industry capacity through global collaboration.
Fusion powerplants rely on two hydrogen isotopes – deuterium and tritium – to produce energy. While deuterium is easily extracted from seawater, tritium is in scarce supply and can be produced only in a lithium-containing blanket that surrounds the fusion reaction. The blanket not only generates tritium, it also captures the heat for energy conversion and acts as a shield from radiation damage.
Already, the UKAEA has announced a partnership with the Italian firm Eni to construct the world’s largest and most advanced tritium fuel cycle facility. The UKAEA-Eni H3AT Tritium Loop Facility will provide industry and academia the opportunity to study how to process, store, and recycle tritium.
Canada-based General Fusion just announced it had successfully created plasma inside a prototype reactor as it seeks to prove that its “steampunk” approach to fusion power remains a viable contender. The company’s Lawson Machine 26 (LM26) hopes to hit “breakeven” energy before the end of 2026. The 23-year-old firm, one of the oldest still operating, has yet to meet breakeven promises despite raising $440 million for its research.
General Fusion’s approach utilizes magnetized target fusion (MTF), which relies on steam-driven pistons rather than lasers to compress fuel pellets. MTF emerged from U.S. Naval Research Laboratory research dating to the 1970s that did not bear fruit, but General Fusion claims that modern computers vastly improve the scheme’s likelihood of success.
Fusion, if and when it is able to generate more electricity than is required to produce it, may have applications in outer space as well as on Earth. UK startup Pulsar Fusion has developed a nuclear fusion powered rocket that it says could cut interstellar travel times in half. The “Sunbird” spacecraft is designed to remain in orbit for quick deployment, attached to larger rockets.
Pulsar claims Sunbird, which acts somewhat like a space tug, can deliver up to 2,000 kilograms of cargo to Mars in just four months. The company claims it can reach Pluto in six years. Powered by its in-development Dual Direct Fusion Drive (DDFD), the compact fusion engine provides a specific impulse of up to 15,000 s and 2 megawatts of power while producing exhaust speeds of more than 500,000 miles per hour.
The competition remains fierce, despite the various collaborations. But if Helion can truly achieve fusion long enough to operate a powerplant, will it be able to claim first place in the fusion race?
Fusion has been actively studied, researched, and attempted for eighty years – with countless sums spent on what many call “the Holy Grail” that could bring an end to energy poverty forever – assuming it would also bring an end to human conflict in the era of the hydrogen bomb and perhaps even more destructive technologies (or viruses).
Genesis, however, tells of Babel, a very advanced early society that collapsed suddenly. That, too, could be our future, if we advance technology without addressing our common humanity.
Duggan Flanakin is a senior policy analyst at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow who writes on a wide variety of public policy issues.