NuScale Power’s Post

Happy Tuesday! Today's article is "An 'artificial sun' achieved a record-breaking fusion experiment, bringing us closer to clean, limitless energy" Read it here: https://lnkd.in/dBvX6Gwx

"Fast reactor technology is nothing new," as noted by Argonne National Laboratory. Fast reactor technology, like what Oklo is commercializing, is rooted in decades of proven operational data. Argonne, the team behind the groundbreaking EBR-II reactor, laid the foundation long ago. Through the DOE’s GAIN program, we’ve partnered with Argonne to demonstrate our reactor design using experimental data that mirrors real-world scenarios. This collaboration underscores the readiness and reliability of Oklo’s technology for deployment. Learn more about Argonne’s research on fast reactors here: https://lnkd.in/efqgZW72

Incredibly exciting to see the progress Blykalla is making towards the first new SMR in Sweden, maybe even Europe! For us as impact investors, it’s obvious that we need nuclear power to produce cheap, green and safe baseload energy that can complement the rollout of renewables. This will be critical for Europe decarbonising industries, powering AI and data centers, and building energy safety.   That investors are now committing funding to take the first steps to build new nuclear facilities in Sweden would not be possible without the regulatory changes and support from the government over the past years. Political will makes a huge difference.

We’re thrilled to share that Navid Samandari, Head of Ventures at The Footprint Firm, will be joining us as an honorary opening speaker at the Rethink Cities Innovation Award! 🚀 As the co-founder of groundbreaking nuclear energy company Seaborg Technologies, which is pioneering next-generation nuclear solutions, Navid is no stranger to the complexities of working with the public sector to grow and scale a company. His insights will be invaluable for any energy company looking to secure support for innovative projects and navigate the regulatory landscape effectively. In addition to his keynote address, we are excited to announce our collaboration with The Footprint Firm, a leader in sustainable investment and innovation. As part of our partnership, The Footprint Firm will be leading an exclusive roundtable discussion at the Rethink Cities Innovation Awards. We believe that strong partnerships with forward-thinking organisations like The Footprint Firm are key to accelerating the transition to greener, more resilient cities. Their expertise in supporting businesses to navigate the challenges of sustainability makes them an ideal partner for our journey toward a carbon-neutral future. By joining forces, we aim to empower startups and innovative companies to overcome obstacles, scale their solutions and make real progress toward decarbonising cities. Don’t miss this incredible opportunity to be part of the conversation and drive change. 👉 Get your ticket here: https://lnkd.in/ewm4anwa 👉 Apply for the award here: https://lnkd.in/d6G3RGjy 📅 See you in Sønderborg on November 18! #RethinkCities #CircularEconomy #PublicPrivatePartnerships #Sustainability #UrbanInnovation #NetZero

The future belongs to those who have the energy to imagine it. And build it. As global energy demands increase, we have the choice to meet them in a decarbonised way. Introducing our client, newcleo: a groundbreaking, sustainable, and safe method of generating nuclear energy. Founded in 2021 by visionary leaders Stefano Buono and Elisabeth Rizzotti, newcleo leverages 30 years of R&D in metal-cooled fast reactors and liquid-lead cooling systems. With a senior management and advisory team possessing hundreds of years of collective experience, newcleo's mission is to provide safe, clean, economic, and virtually inexhaustible energy to the world through an innovative combination of existing, accessible technologies. newcleo addresses the three main challenges of the nuclear industry: waste, safety, and cost. They are also investing significantly in MOX fuel manufacturing in developed countries, extracting energy from current nuclear industry by-products. With approximately 600 highly skilled employees across Europe, newcleo has the business, scientific, operational, and industrial manufacturing capabilities within a vertically integrated model designed to achieve its ambitious market plans. Founders - Stefano Buono, Elisabeth Rizzotti Venture Partner - stefano de nart #KoboFunds #newcleo #nuclearinnovation

"The total time those puzzles stayed in the right place was 2.2 seconds—by nuclear fusion standards, that’s a pretty good result. “Compared to the turbulent transport time scale and to the energy confinement time, those 2.2 seconds of good performance is very long. It’s meaningful in respect to the important time scales,” Garofalo said. The question is if the same trick will work outside of DIII-D tokamak in San Diego. “Historically, other machines that switched from graphite walls to tungsten, like, for example, JET, had trouble recovering the good performance,” Garofalo said. “It took many years to improve the performance to the level they were having with graphite.” With so many variables in the fusion process, you typically can’t just copy/paste a good scenario from one machine to the other. So Ding and his team aim to try their approach at other tokamaks, especially the ones with metal walls. “The wall material people envision for future fusion pilot plants is probably metal,” said Ding. The issue is serious because, even with the best confinement, some of the plasma eventually will hit the wall and erode it. This means the material from the wall will mix with the plasma in the machine. “Different wall materials define what kind of impurity you will get in the plasma. The impurity you get from a metal wall may affect the plasma differently,” Ding added. And metal, specifically beryllium, is the material for the walls of ITER. ITER, the world’s first power-plant-size fusion device now under construction in France, is scheduled to run its first tests with plasma in December 2025. Right now, the goal for ITER is Q=10 which means making 10 times the energy it needs to run. The plan to achieve this involves using a plasma current reaching over 15 MA. “One problem with 15 MA is that you have very large [instabilities called] ELMs that can melt the wall,” Garofalo said. “The other problem is that there is increased probability of plasma collapsing very quickly and damaging the machine—we call that disruption. Our scenario reduces the plasma current, which makes the ELMs smaller, makes the probability of the disruption smaller, and makes the consequences of disruption more benign. It’s potentially a safer path to this Q=10 goal.”

The world’s biggest fusion-energy experiment is planning a reboot.

MIT Associate Professor Zachary Hartwig has built his career around advancing commercial fusion energy and hopes to keep pushing innovation forward. In 2017, he helped found Commonwealth Fusion Systems to build the world's first commercial-scale fusion power plants. "I’m driven to work on very hard problems. There’s something intrinsically satisfying about that battle. It’s part of the reason I’ve stayed in this field. We have to cross multiple frontiers of physics and engineering if we’re going to get fusion to work,” states Hartwig. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eWAjXQgA

This article is interesting! Very excited about the recent funding and technological developments for fusion, but I'm eager to get some more questions answered... - If Q > 1 is achieved, what will be the top 3 biggest problems in scaling to commercial viability? - Do we have enough lithium supply for both the increase in battery demand and fusion fuel generation? - How does the industry plan to get STEM experts outside of plasma physics more involved? This seems to be coupled with scaling. Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Tokamak Energy, Zap Energy, Helion, Michael Ginsberg, EngScD, Charlie Baynes-Reid, Sam Wurzel, Andy Freeberg, Xin (Laura) Zhang

Today in The Economist, science & technology editor Geoffrey Carr looks at what’s to come in the race to commercialize clean #fusionenergy – a potentially landmark year in the real-world demonstration of fusion technologies. The article highlights our LM26 fusion machine, which will begin integrated operations in early 2025 to validate our uniquely practical MTF approach. LM26 will compress plasmas at large-scale, aiming to achieve key temperatures of 1 keV in the first half of the year, then 10 keV, and progress to scientific breakeven equivalent (100% Lawson) by 2026. Read more: