The Nuclear Bridge to A Fusion Energy Future
The journey to fusion begins with the proven strength of nuclear fission.
Two heavyweight contenders are squaring off for supremacy in the high-stakes power generation arena: fusion energy and nuclear fission. This epic race for 24/7 dispatchable “clean” power generation, which refers to the ability to produce power on demand without increasing greenhouse gas emissions, has captured the imagination of scientists, policymakers, and investors alike. Fusion and fission both promise abundant and carbon-free energy. However, the risks of nuclear power have been well documented and still have dubious public support despite our best efforts to mitigate them. Fusion energy is expected to be the clean, safe, and cost-effective alternative, but we will likely need both to meet energy demands.
Fission Today Delivers:
Proven technology with decades of operational experience
Immediate scalability and deployment potential
High energy density and low carbon emissions
The negative for fission is that its fuel can be used for nuclear weapons
Fusion Promises In the Future:
No risk of meltdowns
Safe, clean power generation
Abundant low-cost fuel source (hydrogen isotopes)
Fusion will not enable weapon proliferation
Fusion and Fission - Friends or Frenemies?
While often portrayed as competitors, fusion and fission may ultimately play complementary roles in the future of energy. Fission technology, particularly advanced designs like SMRs, can provide a bridge to a fusion-powered future by helping to decarbonize the grid in the near term8.
As Brian Wirth, a nuclear engineering professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, notes: "Fission and fusion technologies are complementary. Ultimately, we need as much fission and fusion as possible with various renewable technologies like solar and wind".
Nuclear Fission - The Proven, Yet Still Controversial Technology
While fusion captures imagination, nuclear fission has been a reality for decades, providing about 10% of the world's electricity. Fission, which involves splitting heavy atomic nuclei, offers several advantages as a low-carbon energy source:
Proven Technology - Fission reactors with a well-established track record have operated commercially since the 1950s.
Scalability - Fission technology is ready for immediate deployment and scaling, unlike fusion.
Energy Density - Nuclear fission provides an incredibly dense energy source, requiring far less land than renewable alternatives like solar or wind, and it easily fits into today’s power grids.
Tripling Down on Nuclear Fission
As we close the Biden-Harris administration, a period marked by significant focus on climate change and clean energy, we are now revisiting the proven nuclear fission technology, unveiling an ambitious plan to triple U.S. nuclear power generation capacity by 2050. The road map aims for 200 GW of net new capacity from newly built reactors, restarts of plants retired for economic reasons, and power upgrades to existing reactors, as seen in the deal between Microsoft and Three Mile Island. Recognizing the potential of nuclear energy to achieve climate goals, the Biden-Harris administration has laid out an ambitious plan to triple U.S. nuclear power generation capacity by 2050. The expanded nuclear program envisions 35 GW of new nuclear capacity operating or under construction in the U.S. by 2035 as the industry ramps to a sustained deployment pace of 15 GW per year by 2040. Key elements of the plan include:
Achieving 35 GW of new nuclear capacity operating or under construction by 2035
Ramping up to a sustained deployment pace of 15 GW per year by 2040
Promoting the development of advanced reactor designs, including small modular reactors (SMRs).
Nuclear’s Opening Move
One of the opening moves for this expanded nuclear strategy is approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for construction permits to Kairos Power for the Hermes 2 Demonstration Plant, which will be built at Oak Ridge, Tenn. Hermes 2 will build on lessons learned from the Hermes Low-Power Demonstration Reactor, which became the first U.S. Gen IV reactor to receive an NRC construction permit in December 2023. Following the Commission’s vote, Hermes 2 is now the first electricity-producing Gen IV plant approved for construction in the United States.
“The Commission’s approval of the Hermes 2 construction permits marks an important step toward delivering clean electricity from advanced reactors to support decarbonization,” said Mike Laufer, CEO and co-founder. “We are proud to lead the industry in advanced reactor licensing and look forward to continued collaboration with the NRC as we chart a path forward with future applications.”
The Challenger - Fusion Energy
Enter the challenger: nuclear fusion, the process that powers the sun and stars. Long hailed as the "holy grail" of clean energy, fusion promises a near-limitless fuel supply and minimal radioactive waste. In February 2024, scientists at the National Ignition Facility achieved a historic milestone: a fusion reaction that produced more energy than it consumed, known as "ignition." This breakthrough, which has been replicated multiple times, including a record yield of 5.2 megajoules of energy output from just over 2.2 megajoules of input, offers a beacon of hope for the future of energy generation.
Nuclear Fission's Economic Challenges
Nuclear energy has the classic incumbent challenge. We know more about this energy source than fusion energy. Here are some of the thornier problems.
High Upfront Costs - The World Nuclear Organization reports a fleet of 408 active nuclear fission plants worldwide; 60 reactors are under construction worldwide, and 110 are planned. Nuclear power plant construction costs run between $6-30B, depending on the number of reactors, regulatory issues, and delays.
Lengthy construction times - The construction time for nuclear power plants varies widely. Recent data shows that the median construction time for reactors connected to the grid in 2023 was 121 months or about ten years. However, some projects have taken much longer, with construction times in the US averaging almost 43 years in some cases.
Public Perception and Safety Concerns - Public perceptions and safety concerns about nuclear energy have been significantly influenced by significant accidents, particularly the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster 2011. This event led to a dramatic shift in public opinion, with opposing views towards nuclear power generation increasing from 20-30% to around 70% within months of the accident. While some experts argue that nuclear power can be made safer through improved regulations and design, public trust remains a significant challenge.
Nuclear Waste Management - Nuclear waste management remains a significant challenge for the nuclear energy industry, with various approaches being implemented globally. Most nuclear waste is stored in interim facilities, often on-site at nuclear power plants, in water tanks for initial cooling, and then transferred to dry casks for longer-term storage. The United States, which aims to triple its nuclear energy capacity by 2050, has accumulated over 86,000 tons of waste across 85 interim storage sites. Globally, the nuclear waste management market was valued at $4.8 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach $5.7 billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 1.9%. While some countries, such as Finland and Sweden, have made significant progress in developing deep geological repositories for long-term storage of high-level waste (HLW), many nations still need to grapple with the technical, social, and political challenges of permanent waste disposal.
Fusion's Credibility Challenge
The Fusion Report writes this article believing that our industry will be able to commercialize Fusion in the next 10 years. The current U.S. Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, said, "Harnessing fusion energy is one of the most significant scientific and technological challenges of the 21st Century. We now have the confidence that it's possible and probable that fusion energy can be a reality". However, we also recognize that we have yet to achieve the goal of commercial fusion energy, but we predict the following benefits of Fusion energy over Nuclear fission.
Commercial Fusion Plant Costs - A 1GW fusion plant should cost between $3 and $5 billion. Due to their unique technology, fusion plants may have different cost structures and reduced radioactivity levels. Second is the potential to eliminate the traditional steam turbine generation process for direct power generation from the fusion machine.
Fusion Fuel Costs - Fusion fuel costs are expected to be significantly lower than fission costs. Fusion reactors will primarily use deuterium and tritium as fuel. Deuterium can be extracted relatively cheaply from seawater, while tritium will be produced within the reactor. In contrast, fission reactors require uranium, which must be mined, enriched, and fabricated into fuel assemblies. The abundance of fusion fuel sources suggests fuel costs will be a much smaller component of overall operational expenses for fusion than fission.
Operational Maintenance Cost Savings - Operational maintenance for fusion plants could be substantially lower (20-30%) due to reduced radioactive waste management in fusion plants, which could be substantial. Fission reactors produce long-lived, high-level radioactive waste that requires expensive storage and disposal solutions for thousands of years. While some components of fusion reactors will become activated, these materials are expected to have much shorter half-lives. They could be recycled or disposed of more easily within 100 years. This could lead to significant reductions in long-term waste management costs, although exact figures still need to be available due to the early stage of fusion technology development.
Power Generation Costs—Current fission plants produce electricity at costs ranging from about $30 to $60 per MWh, depending on various factors. If the forecast of lower construction and operational, fuel, and waste management costs manifests as expected, we can expect fusion to be substantially more cost-effective than nuclear fission.
Regulatory Framework Benefits - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has decided to classify fusion systems under the byproduct material framework rather than the more extensive regulations used for fission reactors. This approach, recently codified by the ADVANCE ACT, could lead to a faster timeline for building fusion plants than fission reactors. While specific timelines still need to be established, the reduced regulatory burden could shave years off the planning and approval process, allowing fusion plants to be constructed and brought online more rapidly once the technology is commercially viable.
Fission & Fusion - Knowns and Unknowns
Nuclear Fusion is enjoying a renaissance due to AI and EVs; the US Energy Information Agency (US-EIA) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) predict that electricity demand will grow by 79% by 2050.
The Knowns
The current Biden administration has decided to triple down on nuclear fission.
The incoming Trump administration believes that fission energy is required to address the challenges of power demand.
Tech Giants Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are investing in nuclear fission.
Tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google invest in Fusion Energy.
Nuclear fission is here today, and that will drive adoption despite public concerns and waste management issues.
The technology for building nuclear fission is global; other nations, such as China, will export this technology globally.
The world is racing to produce commercially viable Fusion energy and is making material progress.
The Unknowns
We don’t know precisely when Fusion will be commercially viable. Helion Energy has said they have orders for 2028 for Microsoft and Nucor Steel. A survey of the Fusion Industry Association members leans toward 2035, and the DOE roadmap indicated the second half of the 2030s.
We don’t know the final construction and operation costs. This will be the subject of a new series of articles. However, the process and regulatory environment suggest they should be less demanding to construct, fuel, and operate.
We don’t know the cost per megawatt-hour. This question will require a better understanding of the efficiency of neutron generation to powering generation. The way fusion gets deployed as a new heat source to boil water for turbines, or do we eliminate turbines? Only time will tell.
Fission is the Bridge to Fusion
The clearest signal we have is that Fusion remains an excellent strategic choice since it will use plentiful low-cost fuel, does not have meltdown risks, does not enable weapons proliferation, does not create the same waste management challenges, could produce power at lower costs, and produces clean, carbon-free electricity.
Nuclear fission will have a renaissance because the US Energy Information Agency (US-EIA) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) predict that electricity demand will grow by 79% by 2050. We have to start now to answer this demand. Nuclear power generation is one of the best options for 24/7 dispatchable power generation.
The current U.S. Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, said, "Harnessing fusion energy is one of the most significant scientific and technological challenges of the 21st Century. We now have the confidence that it's possible and probable that fusion energy can be a reality.” The long-term solutions that Fusion Energy answers still make it a better strategic option for the future, but we will need to build a nuclear fission bridge to the “Fusion Future.” to answer the growing electricity demand.