The Future of Fusion

The Summer 2024 Issues addresses pressing topics in fusion energy development. In “What Can Fusion Energy Learn From Biotechnology?” Andrew W. Lo and Dennis G. Whyte highlight parallels between the evolution of these industries that offer bountiful benefits yet have faced challenges. As head of the Fusion Industry Association, I thank the authors for naming the FIA as the right venue for open, direct, and transparent communication about fusion’s direction. They also make the critical point that the United States needs to foster a robust commercialization ecosystem that includes government research laboratories, universities, and private-sector fusion developers, as well as companies comprising the supply chains linking efforts.

We also agree with Michael Ford’s statement in “A Public Path to Building a Star on Earth” that funding for fusion research must increase dramatically to meet the needs of both the scientific program and the needs of commercialization. Toward this aim, the FIA has submitted a proposal to both Congress and the US Department of Energy for $3 billion in supplemental funding to accelerate fusion commercialization and build fusion energy infrastructure.

As part of Ford’s proposed path, he calls for a “coordinated plan for public and private funding.” But I would add a caveat. The fusion community already has made more plans than it has taken action on. Instead, now it is time to execute the plans already agreed upon. The fusion community delivered a comprehensive Long Range Plan in early 2021. The plan, now being updated to reflect advances in fusion technology and ambition since then, acknowledged that without significant increases in funding, DOE would face difficult choices that could reduce plasma physics funding in some areas, in order to provide more robust support for more commercially relevant programs such as materials science, fuel cycles, and public-private partnerships. Without a strong growth in funding across the board, prioritization is necessary.

We agree that DOE’s role is to support fundamental research and enable the growth of the commercialization ecosystem without skewing the competitive landscape—and that means the national labs and companies should avoid directly competing. It also means that DOE should realign its efforts to appropriately fund both commercially relevant programs and the scientific research and development that is needed to build fusion demonstrations. It is time for DOE to treat fusion as an energy source, not a science project, and so it is appropriate to begin the transition to an applied energy office.

Finally, both articles highlight the importance of building trust to support public acceptance. The fusion industry recognizes that engagement with the public, stakeholders, and the broader scientific community is essential to the successful development and deployment of fusion energy. In line with Lo and Whyte’s recommendations, the FIA aims to ensure that all these groups receive timely, clear, and transparent information. Among other efforts, we will communicate about when companies reach milestones for fusion’s progress, providing easily understandable, tangible proof points for policymakers, investors, and the public.

The fusion community is moving forward at speed to be ready for the next phase: focused execution to bring fusion energy to market. The FIA looks forward to collaborating across public and private sectors to ensure that fusion achieves its potential as a clean, limitless energy source.

Andrew Holland

Michael Ford effectively highlights the critical importance of maintaining public funding for fusion research, given the technology’s current stage of development. Indeed, the phrase “building a star” arguably understates the task at hand.

In the wake of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s repeated achievement of “ignition” using inertial fusion technology—that is, the production of more energy from a fusion reaction then needed to create it—an increasingly common refrain holds that commercializing fusion is no longer a physics problem, but an engineering one. This downplays the complexity and difficulty of fusion. As Ford rightly points out, there are still significant unknowns regarding which approaches will prove optimal or even viable. The timeline for achieving commercial fusion energy is uncertain, underscoring the necessity for continued fundamental research and development. This foundational work is essential to unravel the complexities of plasma physics and materials science that underpin fusion technology.

The 2022 Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) Basic Research Needs effort, organized under the auspices of the Fusion Energy Sciences program at the US Department of Energy Office of Science, laid out the core innovations that must be advanced to make IFE a reality and attempted to evaluate technical readiness levels of the key IFE technologies to guide where investment is needed. Today, none of these have matured to the technical readiness levels necessary for use in a pilot power plant, and physics questions abound as we strive to mature them. Because of this, funding for fundamental R&D must remain paramount in the fusion effort, despite the ambitious timelines set forth by the fusion start-up community.

Similar efforts to identify core science and technology gaps should be undertaken for the broader fusion effort; at this early stage, an all-of-the-above approach is called for. Roadmaps and clear metrics resulting from such efforts should be used to hold the private and public sectors accountable and to strategically choose among possible technological options to sustain the value of public funds.

Fusion is not just a scientific endeavor; it is a strategic asset for US competitiveness and national power. The public sector has a pivotal role in stewarding this technology to ensure it aligns with national interests. Developing public-sector anchor facilities, safeguarding intellectual property, and supporting the supply chain are crucial steps in bolstering the nation’s know-how and economic strength. Public investment in these areas will help secure a leadership position in the global fusion landscape.

While the United States spends less than some other fusion aspirants, including China, the achievement of fusion ignition has put it in pole position. That lead is hard-won, resulting from decades of public investment and innovation. It can be easily lost.

We are convinced that a world powered by fusion energy is achievable. It is not a question of time, but one of resources and political will. Sustained investment in a foundation of science and technology will bring this future into focus.

Tammy Ma

Andrew W. Lo and Dennis G. Whyte draw four specific lessons for fusion from the biotechnology industry. The exhortation to “standardize milestones” is particularly important. The authors suggest a consortium for identifying the right milestones, but it remains critical to explore the unique aspects of fusion in contrast with biotechnology and other fields to find a model that will work.

Unlike the Food and Drug Administration, fusion’s US regulator, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, does not have a mandate to regulate efficacy. Rather, the NRC’s mission relates to safety, common defense, and environmental protection. This sensibly reflects the fact that market forces alone are sufficient to ensure that fusion works (i.e., it generates useful energy economically). This presents an underappreciated opportunity for the fusion industry to take advantage of the benefits of standardized milestones without the expensive and time-consuming formality that the FDA correctly imposes on the biotechnology industry.

Consulting firms that evaluate the claims of fusion companies for investors are appearing as a result of these market forces. Though useful, consultants and their reports don’t provide the structural benefits that standardized milestones could bring to the entire industry in the form of on- and off-ramps for different groups of investors and scales of capital as Lo and Whyte discuss.

Because of this missing piece, some fusion investors and fusion companies themselves are clamoring for such a set of standardized milestones. Some have emerged organically. The Department of Energy’s Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program issues payments based on the completion of benchmarks proposed by the companies themselves and negotiated between the companies and DOE. Most recently, Bob Mumgaard, CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, published an open letter, titled “Building Trust in Fusion Energy,” that lays out six milestones on the path to fusion energy, many of which are similar to milestones for funding in the ARPA-E Breakthroughs Enabling Thermonuclear-fusion Energy (BETHE) program.

However, these are not the right entities to independently develop and arbitrate standardized milestones for fusion. Although DOE is equipped to judge whether a milestone has been completed, relying on DOE (or NRC) for broader oversight is to give up the advantage that fusion has to manage milestones in a more lightweight and nimble way outside of government. Nor are fusion companies, investors, or the Fusion Industry Association appropriate organizations for this job, for obvious conflict-of-interest reasons. Instead, a nongovernmental, independent rating organization is needed.

There are lessons here from the finance industry. Agencies such as Moody’s and Fitch Ratings play an important role in providing information to investors about the creditworthiness of companies and the likelihood that bonds will be repaid. However, their business models rely on payments from the entities being rated, and the review process is not especially transparent, both of which were factors that led to the 2008 financial crisis. Fusion could do better by developing a different business model that decouples the ratings from payments made by the entities being rated and by emphasizing the importance of publishing data on milestone completion in peer-reviewed journals.

Identifying milestones that are meaningfully applicable to all approaches to fusion energy, an objective arbiter of those milestones, and an appropriate rating system is an important next step in the development of the fusion energy ecosystem. This should be an iterative process involving companies, investors, and academia. Success will require creativity in balancing competing interests, and an evenhanded assessment of the science, engineering, economics, and social-acceptance challenges facing the nascent fusion energy industry.

Sam Wurzel