Good morning. You may know nuclear fusion as the power source for Iron Man’s suit, or the basis of the Mr Fusion Home Energy Reactor that powers the, er, flux capacitor in Back to the Future. (If so, please stop reading, this is not a newsletter for nerds.) Yesterday, after the news was initially reported by the Financial Times, Joe Biden’s energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, confirmed a scientific breakthrough at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California that’s a very long way from a superhero exoskeleton or a souped-up DeLorean: for the first time, a fusion reaction has produced more energy than it takes in.
Which sounds miles better than a time machine, to be honest. Granholm called it “one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century”. In theory, nuclear fusion reactors could one day be a plentiful source of power without any associated carbon emissions or radioactive waste. Climate crisis solved, and we can all get back to obsessing over Harry and Meghan on Netflix instead.
Disappointingly, though, it isn’t anything like that simple. Today’s Grinch-like (but also very interesting!) newsletter, with Dr Michael Bluck, director of the Centre for Nuclear Engineering at Imperial College London, is about the long distance from a remarkable breakthrough to an energy utopia – and why fusion won’t help us get to net zero. Here are the headlines.
Five big stories
Asylum | Rishi Sunak has insisted he can clear a backlog of nearly 100,000 asylum claims by the end of next year as part of a five-point plan that includes changes to the law that will criminalise and then remove tens of thousands of people who claimed asylum after travelling to the UK by small boats.
Strikes | The standoff between UK ministers, bosses and unions over pay showed no sign of reaching resolution on the first day of four weeks of planned industrial action. Rishi Sunak said that the government would not shift its position on pay ahead of another day of disrupted trains on Wednesday.
Strep A | The cost of antibiotics used to strep A have risen more than tenfold in the UK in recent weeks, pharmacists have said, with many facing continued difficulties in sourcing supplies. Since mid-September there had been 60 deaths from invasive strep A infections in England, including 13 children.
Plastics | Single-use plastic items including cutlery, plates and polystyrene cups are reportedly to be banned in England by the UK government after a consultation. Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, is poised to unveil plans to phase out the items and replace them with biodegradable alternatives.
Media | Harry & Meghan, Netflix’s documentary series about Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife, racked up more viewing time on the streaming service than any other documentary during its first week, the company said. More than 28m households watched at least part of the series.
In depth: ‘Predicting the future is difficult – there are huge hurdles to overcome’
Before we get into the reservations, Dr Michael Bluck wants to be clear about something: the success of the US government’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California in producing a net energy gain from a fusion reaction for the first time is remarkable.
“This is a very impressive scientific achievement – it’s a really, really hard thing to do,” he said. Ever since the 1950s, scientists have sought to realise the theoretical promise of the same reaction that occurs in the core of the sun. But the old joke about fusion suggests how difficult that has been: it is always, always 30 years away. “These are very bright people doing amazing things,” Bluck said. “It is a sort of holy grail.”
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What is nuclear fusion?
Whereas nuclear fission – the process at work in conventional nuclear power plants – generates energy by splitting heavy atoms like uranium, fusion works the other way round. A thermonuclear reaction fuses light elements like hydrogen into heavier ones like helium, thereby generating more energy than it takes to produce. (Nicola Davis explains this in more detail.) That process is known as “ignition”. Beyond the obvious virtue of a net energy yield, “It’s low carbon, it offers baseload [that is, consistent] energy unlike renewables at the moment, and you don’t have to worry about it melting down or producing nuclear waste to the same extent,” Bluck said. “It’s a great vision.”
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What does this announcement mean?
There are two approaches to nuclear fusion: call them doughnuts v lasers. Magnetic confinement is the more common and longstanding method: picture, if you can, a doughnut-shaped machine, with nuclear fuel inside it kept afloat by magnetic fields and heated to incredible temperatures while the reaction takes place. The NIF is one of a smaller number of facilities trying something different: inertial confinement. In the pithy summary of White House science chief, Arati Prabhakar, yesterday: “They shot a bunch of lasers at a pellet of fuel [hydrogen plasma] and more energy was released from that fusion ignition than the energy of the lasers.”
The pellet, encased in diamond, sits in a tiny gold cylinder. By hitting it with 192 giant lasers for less than 100 trillionths of a second at more than 3 million celsius, scientists at NIF succeeded in producing 3 megajoules of energy from the 2.05 megajoules it took to make the reaction happen. But as good as that sounds, there are very significant barriers to further progress.
“It’s important to say that this is not trying to be a fusion reactor, it’s simply trying to make fusion happen,” said Bluck. “But it lacks almost everything that you need to make a viable reactor.
“So, OK, the energy put in has resulted in a larger amount of energy coming out – but the big caveat is that it depends where you draw your perimeter: powering the lasers themselves required way more energy. You have to draw a slightly artificial dotted line around the vessel to say there’s been a gain.” The lasers may emit 2.05 megajoules, but they took about 500 megajoules of energy to power, though defenders of the experiment say that they are not optimally efficient and can be significantly improved.
“There’s also the fact that you would need the reaction to happen much more often,” he went on. At the moment, the NIF manages it about ten times a week. “You need it many times a second.”
As well as all that, the energy produced in the NIF experiment is in the form of “high speed neutrons, X-rays, gamma rays, radiant heating – none of that is any use to us in and of itself. We’ve got to convert it to stuff that can do work.” That’s very difficult to do without overheating the lasers that make the reaction happen in the first place. “And that programme of work has not even been thought about yet.”
Magnetic confinement – the doughnut option – may not have reached the more-out-than-in milestone yet. “But they have been thinking about the real world stuff for many years. They’ve sort of” – you can hear the pain of this simplification in Bluck’s voice as he speaks – “solved the physics issues, and now they’re looking squarely at the engineering issues.”
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So does this news mean nuclear fusion plants are closer?
Again, sort of: something with a proven concept is closer than something without one. (Arthur Turrell argues for the importance of that step.) Yesterday, Jennifer Granholm said that Joe Biden had set a target of “a commercial fusion reactor within 10 years”. What’s possible?
“Predicting the future is difficult,” allowed Bluck. “But I think I’m being optimistic in saying 50 years for inertial confinement being in practical use – it’s between 50 years and never. There are huge hurdles to overcome.” Kim Budil of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said yesterday that “a few decades of research on the underlying technologies could put us in a position to build a power plant”.
Could magnetic confinement work sooner? “I think that’s ambitious, too,” said Bluck. “A demonstrator by 2050 – OK, that could be possible. But that doesn’t mean it’s cost effective to scale up.”
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But can it help reach net zero?
Some advocates of fusion would say that Bluck is being too pessimistic – but even in best case scenarios, it is hard to see fusion as a useful part of the changes needed to make net zero a reality. It is cumulative emissions that matter to avoiding the worst impact of the climate crisis, and so even if fusion plants are online at scale by 2050, that is too late.
Nonetheless, investors in fusion – like Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel – are persuaded of its revolutionary potential. “There is a degree of utopian zeal,” said Bluck. “You’re not a billionaire worthy of the name unless you’re investing in ambitious devices. What it will mean for getting to net zero by 2050 is realistically nothing. I do worry sometimes that it can suck the air out of other more viable solutions.”
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So is there any point in pursuing fusion power?
Absolutely! For one thing, Bluck might be wrong: “There might be that significant step forwards that changes things suddenly. But we should be careful not to overestimate that possibility.”
Still, nuclear fusion doesn’t have to be about solving the climate crisis to be worthwhile. The more realistic role for fusion, Thomas Nicholas writes in this 2019 piece for the Conversation, is “as an energy source in a post carbon society”. And so long as it doesn’t become an excuse for ignoring the urgency of the only realistic solution to the climate crisis, a rapid transition to renewables, it’s not like it presents much competition for funding: the total investment in private companies working on fusion ever is about $4.8bn, the Fusion Industry Association says. In comparison, clean energy investment in 2022 totalled $1.4tn, of which $472bn went on renewable power.
“None of this means fusion doesn’t have potential,” Bluck said. “But you have to be able to say what you’re going to do in between.” Pondering the holy grail, he added: “I don’t think they ever found it, did they?”
What else we’ve been reading
World Cup
Argentina triumphed 3-0 over Croatia thanks to a first-half penalty from Lionel Messi and two further goals from Julián Álvarez set up by Messi. Barney Ronay wrote that Messi, “the mooching figure out there under the lights, smaller, older, more everyday than the super-athletes around him”, had “played the role of dad-like force of guiding destiny to perfection”.
All eyes are on Argentina’s super-star captain, who is not expected to play in another World Cup, but is determined to make up for losing the 2014 final against Germany.
“The first match was a hard blow,” Messi said. “We had been unbeaten in 36 matches. We didn’t think we would lose versus Saudi Arabia. To start in such a way was an acid test for the squad. But this squad proved how strong we are. Every match was a final.”
In the final, Argentina will face either France or Morocco, who play today. Jacob Steinberg previews that match, writing that France “absorb pressure, defend in numbers, lure their prey in, then strike in the blink of an eye” but must work out “how to breach opponents who will give them the ball and trust in the tournament’s best defence to hold firm”.
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The front pages
The Guardian leads with a special report: “33 hours inside an NHS on the brink”, with a warning that the health service is at breaking point.
On the eve of nurses strikes across England, the Mirror headlines a plea from the union: “Nurses: We’re doing this for you”, while the Times says “Lives are at risk, nurses’ leaders tell union chiefs”. The Sun looks at the rail strikes, targeting union boss Mick Lynch with “You’ve lost it Lynch”.
The Telegraph covers the other main story of the day with, “Sunak: I will stop those who get here by cheating”. The Mail’s headline reads “Rishi: I’ll fix ‘appalling’ asylum farce”. The i has “Pontins revolt: Tory backlash at plan to house migrants in holiday camps”.
Finally, the Financial Times leads with remarks from the Bank of England’s governor: “Bailey warns No 10 on peril of going too far in drive to deregulate the City”.
Today in Focus
The age of extinction: can we prevent an ecological collapse?
The Cop15 conference in Canada brings together representatives from all over the world with an urgent mission: preventing the breakdown of Earth’s natural habitats and the extinction of the many species we rely on.
Cartoon of the day | Martin Rowson
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
One in five Cambodian women report experiencing abuse from an intimate partner but talking about domestic violence is still a taboo in the country and authorities are often unhelpful. In response, a local theatre group has started producing shows to help survivors come together and use performance art to share their experiences and spark discussions in the community about intimate partner violence.
The shows have given those at the margins of society, who are living precarious lives in shelters a space to open up about their experiences. “I have enough power to open my mouth and stand up to say whatever I want and do whatever I want,” one woman says. “No one can stop me.”
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
