[00:00] I am very fond of nuclear fusion. I honestly&nbsp; believe it’s the energy source of the future.&nbsp;&nbsp; But it’s not looking good. Nuclear fusion&nbsp; is in deep trouble. Let’s have a look.
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[01:22] of science for just $22.45 per month until&nbsp; July 4th. And now back to the science news. In the past twelve months,&nbsp; multiple fusion companies&nbsp;&nbsp; have silently changed their plans or&nbsp; moved completion dates into the future.
[01:38] Zap Energy, for example, is a&nbsp; Seattle-based company that wants&nbsp;&nbsp; to use what’s called the Z-pinch method&nbsp; to generate nuclear fusion. For this,&nbsp;&nbsp; one charges a huge capacitor and then suddenly&nbsp; releases the energy into the fuel gas.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:52] The electricity turns the gas into a plasma&nbsp; and creates lightning bolts that contract&nbsp;&nbsp; until fusion sets in. Theoretically.&nbsp; In May 2021, they announced almost&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:04] 30 million dollars in funding and were, quote&nbsp; “targeting scientific energy breakeven by 2023.” Well, that didn’t happen, did it?&nbsp; Then, just a few weeks ago they&nbsp;&nbsp; announced that they’re pivoting&nbsp; to nuclear fission. According to&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:19] their website “Today Zap is announcing that&nbsp; we’re building not just a fusion company,&nbsp;&nbsp; but an integrated nuclear platform that spans&nbsp; both advanced fission and fusion technologies.”
[02:31] Then there is Marvel Fusion,&nbsp; a Munich-based company doing&nbsp;&nbsp; laser-driven fusion with ultra-short femtosecond&nbsp; pulses. They’ve raised about 160 million euros,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:43] including from Siemens Energy and&nbsp; the EU Innovation Council. In March,&nbsp;&nbsp; told investors they plan to sell their&nbsp; laser technology for defense, medical, and&nbsp;&nbsp; industrial uses. So not like they are giving up&nbsp; on fusion, but focusing on more immediate payoffs.
[02:57] They’re also considering relocating to&nbsp; the US. I can’t blame them. In Germany,&nbsp;&nbsp; the first step is to fill out Form B-377&nbsp; for permission to think about sunlight.
[03:12] First Light Fusion, a UK-company, has completely&nbsp; given up on their original plan. It started out&nbsp;&nbsp; looking good for them. They successfully&nbsp; demonstrated nuclear fusion by firing a&nbsp;&nbsp; projectile at a fuel target. In 2023, they signed&nbsp; an agreement with the UK Atomic Energy Authority&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:28] to build a demonstration facility. But two years later, they published&nbsp;&nbsp; a “strategic update” that said they were&nbsp; “discontinuing the proposed development…&nbsp;&nbsp; to focus on advancing and commercialising&nbsp; its patented amplifier technology”.
[03:43] Then they put out plans for a new&nbsp; demonstration machine with a vague&nbsp;&nbsp; completion timeline sometime in the&nbsp; 2030s, but also announced they will&nbsp;&nbsp; be selling parts to other companies which&nbsp; they started doing in April. So you see,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:57] there’s a pattern here, fusion companies&nbsp; shifting to selling related technology. The same thing happened with the Australian&nbsp; company HB11 Energy which pursued hydrogen-boron&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:10] fusion. When they launched in 2021 they said&nbsp; their program is, “aimed at the Holy Grail&nbsp;&nbsp; of fusion energy research — to demonstrate net&nbsp; energy gain”. But in late 2024, they announced&nbsp;&nbsp; a shift to selling laser and target technologies.&nbsp; In their own words because “few private investors&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:27] [are] willing to wait decades for a return. ” Then there are the companies that silently move&nbsp;&nbsp; their dates. Like General Fusion. They’re a&nbsp; Canadian company. In 2021 they announced they&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:41] would build a Fusion Demonstration Plant&nbsp; in the UK, with construction starting in&nbsp;&nbsp; 2022 and operations by 2025. Then the timeline&nbsp; slipped to completion in 2027. Then the entire&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:53] project just… disappeared. That’s one way to&nbsp; reach confinement. They then instead built a&nbsp;&nbsp; smaller demonstration machine in Vancouver and now&nbsp; aim at a commercial power plant in the mid-2030s.
[05:05] Where does their money come from? In January,&nbsp; they announced that they plan to put out&nbsp;&nbsp; stocks by the middle of the year. And they’re&nbsp; doing this via a SPAC deal with Spring Valley,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:17] that’s the same company that brought NuScale’s&nbsp; small modular reactors on the stock market! If you don’t know what a SPAC is, I&nbsp; talked about this in an earlier video&nbsp;&nbsp; on quantum computing. Basically it’s a way&nbsp; to circumvent proof of commercial viability.&nbsp;
[05:33] Then there is Helion Energy, which wants to&nbsp; generate fusion by shooting plasma rings at&nbsp;&nbsp; each other and that is, among others backed&nbsp; by Sam Altman. In 2014, they wrote on their&nbsp;&nbsp; website that they “aim to have a commercial plant&nbsp; operational in six years”. Six years later… their&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:50] plan was still to do it six years later. In&nbsp; 2021, they raised half a billion dollars and&nbsp;&nbsp; said they want to generate net electricity from&nbsp; fusion by 2024. Then they said they are “on&nbsp;&nbsp; track” to generate energy “by 2028”, and now say&nbsp; somewhat vaguely “before the end of this decade.”
[06:07] The US-Company Commonwealth Fusion&nbsp; Systems said in 2021 they want to&nbsp;&nbsp; demonstrate net energy by 2025. Didn’t&nbsp; happen! Their webpage now says it will&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:19] achieve net energy “in 2027.” Yeah,&nbsp; hmm, guess we will see about that.&nbsp; You may have noticed a pattern here, it’s&nbsp; that all these companies are American,&nbsp;&nbsp; British or Canadian. This is for one thing because&nbsp; most startups are located in these countries,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:34] but it’s also because companies elsewhere have&nbsp; been more careful with making promises. It’s not&nbsp;&nbsp; that they are actually more successful elsewhere,&nbsp; it’s just harder to pin them down on it. To top it all off, the authors of a recent&nbsp; study in nature report that it is likely&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:51] that even if nuclear fusion would generate net&nbsp; energy, it would remain extremely expensive,&nbsp;&nbsp; even more expensive than nuclear fusion.&nbsp; For the record, I think this analysis is&nbsp;&nbsp; too pessimistic because it’s based on the cost&nbsp; trajectory of nuclear fission which I think went&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:08] badly for geopolitical reasons not because of&nbsp; technological limitations. But fusion companies&nbsp;&nbsp; have produced something commercially useful:&nbsp; press releases with extremely high energy density.
[07:22] Thanks for watching. See you tomorrow.