By Kennedy Maize
Remember fusion? When it comes to the always touted, never delivered promise of unlimited amounts of energy from smashing atoms together, spring turning to summer produces optimistic proclamations of the advent of fusion energy that appear to wither and die when the autumn equinox arrives.
How far away is the practical application of fusion for civilian purposes, not just in thermonuclear weapons? Over the years, fusion has been 50-years away, 25-years away. Today in early June, the optimists are breathlessly looking a decade ahead for fusion’s fruition.That, or course, also may be wildly off, far too optimistic.
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Regardless of fusion’s arrival time on the energy stage — if it comes at all — the U.S. government hopes to receive it with delight. To that end, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission may soon issue rules for how it plans to regulate a technology that it guesses may soon appear.
In February, the NRC issued a proposed rule — Regulatory Framework for Fusion Machines — with a comment period that closed May 27. The proposed rule takes a broad brush to paint a regulatory canvass for reviewing applications for licenses to build and operate civilian fusion electricity production devices. The proposal says, “The technology-inclusive and risk-informed focus of this rulemaking will ensure applicability for the wide variety of anticipated fusion machine designs while also accounting for the differing quantities of radioactive material that may be used and produced by these machines.”
The commission adds, “In the context of this proposed rulemaking, the focus of licensing and oversight would be on possession, use, and production of radioactive materials associated with fusion machines, as well as activation products.” Noting the expiration of the comment period, Axios suggested “a final regulation expected as soon as this fall.”
The NRC’s interest in the regulatory issues of fusion power is not just an initiative of the Trump administration. When the NRC published the February proposed rule, the Foley Hoag law firm commented, “In 2023, the agency opted to regulate fusion machines under its byproduct material framework. Congress reinforced that approach in the ADVANCE Act of 2024. Broadly, the byproduct material framework is the NRC’s licensing system for the possession and use of radioactive material outside of nuclear power plants. It is the framework the agency uses for a range of medical, industrial, and research activities that involve radioactive material.”
In what might qualify as multidepartmental hubris, both the NRC and the Department of Energy have produced optimistic “roadmaps” for the development of the long sought generating technology, whose promise dates back a hundred years.
NRC’s roadmap promises “clear, efficient, independent, and reliable licensing and oversight through open processes.” It posits a wildly optimistic 3-5 year timeline for developing hypothetical fusion machines that can be licensed, but offers no end date for when the next step of actual operation might occur.
The agency fleshes out its graphic roadmap with a more detailed “vision statement,” noting, “The U.S. fusion regulatory framework enables clear, efficient, independent, and reliable licensing and oversight through open processes.” As time passes, it should become clear whether the agency’s vision is clear or a hallucination.
DOE’s “Fusion Science & Technology Roadmap,” unveiled last October, is considerably more bullish than the NRC’s document. It “defines DOE’s Build–Innovate–Grow strategy to align public investment and private innovation to deliver commercial fusion power to the grid by the mid-2030s.”
DOE’s science chief Dario Gil, a Spaniard and expert in computer sciences, proclaimed, with the obligatory obeisance to President Trump as well as overblown hyperbole, “For the first time, DOE, industry, and our National Labs will be aligned with a shared purpose—to accelerate the path to commercial fusion power and strengthen America’s leadership in energy innovation. Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, the Department is streamlining the full strength of the U.S. scientific and industrial base to deliver fusion energy faster than ever before.”
This, too, could turn out to be cockeyed optimism.
Why is fusion so difficult? Here are some key reasons courtesy of Gizmodo, which asked leading experts why fusion is so darn confounding:
Tammy Ma, head of fusion research at DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: “Fusion is hard. It demands creating and controlling plasma and material conditions more extreme than anything else on the planet and often beyond what we find in the core of stars. It demands pushing the limits of our scientific and engineering prowess.”
Shutaro Takeda of Kyoto University and chief strategist of Japanese fusion startup Kyoto Fusioneering: “A commercial fusion plant must combine plasma confinement, high-field magnets, extreme materials, tritium breeding, heat extraction, remote maintenance, regulation, supply chains, and power-market economics. Solving one of these does not automatically solve the others. This is why I would say the largest obstacle is no longer simply “plasma physics,” but systems integration under extreme conditions.”
Arianna Gleason, deputy director of Stanford University’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory: “Materials science. Fusion essentially asks: can we build something that survives the conditions inside a star — here on Earth — for years on end? Many in the fusion community agree that reactor components that must handle extreme radiation and heat are a top hurdle. Tritium breeding blankets? Materials. Plasma-facing tokamak walls? Materials. Inertial fusion targets that need to be designed, fabricated to incredible tolerances and mass-produced—flawlessly spherical and microscopically pure? Materials. High-temperature superconducting tape for the magnets? Materials.”