Eka’s Weekly Roundup (16 December 2022)

Issue 13 l Energy goes nuclear

Dec 16, 2022

For the first time ever, a fusion experiment produced more energy than it required. This was hugely encouraging for the scientific community. There are still many steps ahead: improving energy conversion, increasing the energy out / energy in ratio, and bringing costs down. But this is a welcome milestone for all of us watching nuclear closely.

This is the last issue of 2022 - we’ll be back in early Jan after a short break! Enjoy the winter holidays in the meantime ❄️.

Fusion’s big break? 🗞️

☢️ Nuclear within the energy supply

Nuclear energy has been a relatively slim part of the global energy supply (BP Review of World Energy 2022). In the UK for example, Nuclear is around 15% of total energy generated. For context, France’s nuclear mix is closer to 70% of total national power output. Still, at the global scale, this pales in comparison to oil and natural gas, as seen in the chart below.

The UK’s live grid data as collated by Kate Morley is a helpful tool to see how important nuclear power is on the UK grid at any point in time. We can see the dramatic fall in coal’s importance year-over-year from >15GW in 2012 to almost negligible generation output in 2022 (the most recent data does show a small uptick, but this is still relatively small). This is a snapshot of how the UK grid’s fared this past week.

Fossil fuels were about two-thirds of generation this week - still very high when compared to nuclear, wind, and solar.

🤔 Fusion versus fission - what’s the difference again?

There are many, many, articles explaining this better than we can (Duke Energy, US Dept of Energy, or Euro Fusion). As a reminder, fission is what we currently use and fusion is what’s been in the news recently. Here’s the TLDR version:

Fission: The very short version is that you’re breaking up large atoms which releases energy, which then causes more large atoms to break up, releasing even more energy. This is triggered by uranium atoms absorbing a neutron which makes the nucleus unstable. This then breaks up and produces more neutrons, which then break up and become unstable in turn, creating a chain reaction.
Fusion: Another very short version is you slam two small atoms together to form a heavier atom. Two hydrogen atoms fuse together to form one helium atom. This is the same process as what happens in the sun and creates several times greater energy than fission. It also avoids producing highly radioactive material.

😮 Breakthrough and why it matters

The problem with fusion is that scientists haven’t found a way to make the energy output > energy input. That changed three days ago, when US scientists announced they have produced more energy from a fusion experiment than was put in.

There are a couple different ways scientists are trying to prove fusion. The France-based ITER is using magnetic confinement fusion - using magnetic fields to contain fuel in plasma form. The US’s breakthrough was using a different method. They used a laser-based inertial-confinement fusion device.

The difference is that magnetic confinement (ITER) creates a stable continuous plasma where fusion can take place. Inertial confinement instead creates energy from a series of discrete fusion reactions. This article from Science Direct will explain it better than we can!

The US National Nuclear Security Administration said the US laboratory had inputed 2.05 MJ of energy to the target (energy in) compared to 3.15 MF of output (energy out).

However, there are still a few steps before fusion can be commercially viable.

Energy required. Even though the energy produced was greater than the energy required, this doesn’t take into account the entire energy required to power the system. Instead, the energy out (2.05 MJ) was only the energy input into the lasers (MIT). For context, it took nearly 300 MJ to produce the lasers compared to the 3 MJ output (Wired).
Conversion. A conventional combustion engine is roughly 40% efficient at converting the energy it produces into electricity. Fusion is much lower, at roughly 10-20% (see more comments on this below). Improving accuracy will help scale this more quickly.
Commercial scale. For fusion to be commercially viable, scientists estimate we would need a 30-100x ratio of energy out vs. energy in (FT). These projects are also expensive - ITER has had an investment of €20b so far.

The UK government recently decided that West Burton was going to be the home for the UK’s prototype fusion energy plant. The UK aims to build this plat by 2040 - a long way away. This will include £220m of funding for the first phase of the construction, funded by the UK government.

🌎 How far away is a fusion world?

There’s the old saying that ‘nuclear fusion is 30 years away, and always will be’ (Discover). A Sifted article from just February of this year said that breaking energy in < energy out would be another 5 years away. And here we are!

The scientific community has hailed this achievement, but also notes there is a long way to go before fusion is powering our homes. We need to develop the infrastructure which powers fusion reactors - cheaper targets, improved grid integration, developing the reactor infrastructure (some of which is still the same as it was in the 1980s).

VCs are taking note of the fusion boom. Lowercarbon Capital in the US raised a $250m fund focused on fusion companies earlier this year. In late 2021, the Fusion Industry Association published that there had been $2b of private capital allocated to fusion. Since then, US startup Helion Energy raised a $500m Series E round. Commonwealth Fusion Systems announced a $1.8b Series B round.

While we’re still quite a few steps away from a fusion-dominated grid, Tuesday’s announcement is an important milestone in a world for more sustainable energy generation.

3 Key Charts 📊

1. Nasa’s temperature anomaly over time (compared to 1951-1980 average)

2. Inflows into ESG ETFs is down to pre-2020 levels

3. Potential to move 20% of Medicare & Medicaid spend virtually

Deal Capture 💰

Deals in the impact space across the UK and Europe

Getting in Touch 👋.

If you’re looking for funding, you can get in touch here.

Don’t be shy, get in touch on LinkedIn or on our Website 🎉.

We are open to feedback: let us know what more you’d like to hear about 💪.

Eka Ventures Newsletter

Discussion about this post