FEBRUARY 14, 2024

Good day!

Anca has been on the ground in Paris reporting on the International Energy Agency ministerial event. Say hi if you’re there too! Anca@ciphernews.com.

In today’s edition: Bill visits a fusion facility in Massachusetts, a Voices expert foreshadows a “perfect storm” for airports’ energy needs and Amena dives into data on Europe’s energy-intensive imports.

 
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The Commonwealth Fusion Facility in Devens, MA. The hole in the middle of the floor is where the fusion reactor, seen in the picture on the wall, will be built. Photo by Bill Spindle.

Fusion power takes a commercial turn

BY: BILL SPINDLE

DEVENS, Mass. — In a wooded enclave an hour’s drive from Boston, there’s a cavernous building with a large, circular hole cut into the sprawling concrete floor. That’s where the fusion reactor will go.

Across the 47-acre campus, hard-helmeted workers oversee machines coiling thousands of meters of superconducting metallic ribbon. These ribbons will be carefully arranged to form the heart of the reactor. Within it, a glob of matter heated to around 150 million degrees Celsius — more than 10 times hotter than the sun — will produce energy. If the machine works, it will produce more energy than it takes to keep the reaction going.

This energy would be generated without producing greenhouse gas emissions.

I’ve visited dozens of factories and construction sites in three decades as a reporter — a potato chip plant in Iraq, a milk production facility in India, a car factory in Japan and a solar panel manufacturer in Texas. The facility in Massachusetts is something else altogether.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems, the company behind this reactor, wants to set the world’s energy system on a new trajectory toward a future of limitless clean energy. Here in Devens, those lofty aspirations are meeting the real-world challenges of building a commercial power plant.

The company is a well-funded startup whose financial backers include Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV is a program of Breakthrough Energy, which also supports Cipher). It is among a handful of companies trying to turn fusion not just into a reality, but into viable businesses. Their efforts are backed by government support around the world. Others in the space include Helion Energy, TAE Technologies, General Fusion, Avalanche Fusion, Zap Energy, nT-Tao and UK Industrial Fusion Solutions.

Fusion takes place naturally and constantly across the universe in stars like our sun. Staggeringly high temperatures and intense pressure cause atomic particles to smash together, generating fantastical amounts of energy as they fuse. Making that happen on Earth is hard. Harder still is doing it continuously and cost effectively, the key to commercializing the technology.

Existing nuclear power plants rely on a different reaction known as nuclear fission, where atoms are split apart. That process creates hazardous radioactive waste and without careful control can result in a self-sustaining, destructive runaway reaction. Fusion reactions, in contrast, cannot become self-sustaining and don’t produce radioactive waste.

In recent years, researchers in an experimental lab have generated more energy from a fusion reaction than they put into it — a major scientific breakthrough. The method they used can’t be practically commercialized, though.

Some attempts at commercial fusion are modifying that method — which uses high-powered lasers — while others have opted for different methods. Commonwealth will deploy special electro-magnets — what they call their “special sauce” — to enable a reactor the company is betting will be less expensive to construct and operate.

Commonwealth aims to switch on its reactor, dubbed SPARC, in 2026. The device is being built to demonstrate a fusion reaction can be sustained in a commercially viable way. A larger reactor would then be built to begin generating commercial power in about a decade, the company says.

“You can’t jump straight to the commercial,” said Bob Mumgaard, chief executive and a founder of the company. “But compared to the laboratory, SPARC is delivered in a much more manufactured way. It’s got things that before were made in a high-end, tinkered way but now are replaced with an off-the-shelf thing from a large supplier.”

Read the full article on Cipher’s website.

Investors in Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Zap Energy include Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a program of Breakthrough Energy, which also supports Cipher. Bill Gates, founder of Breakthrough Energy, is also individually invested in Commonwealth Fusion. 

Lunchtime Reads and Hot Takes

The World Is Quietly Losing the Land It Needs to Feed Itself — Bloomberg
Cat’s take: This story from Akshat Rathi is a super important reminder that global decarbonization and climate mitigation efforts must include land use innovations and improvements.

Rich countries miss key deadline for loss and damage fund launch — Devex
Amena’s take: It is unfortunate that bureaucracy, not a lack of contributions, is holding up funds to countries devastated by climate impacts. To quote a delegate from the article, this is "problematic."

Carbon capture tech a ‘complete falsehood’, says Fortescue Metals chairman — Reuters
Anca’s take: Key quote: "We're going to keep burning fossil fuels and somehow magically get rid of the carbon down into the ground where there is no proof that it will stay there but heaps of proof that it fails."

Aramco’s Capacity Halt Is Due to Energy Shift, Minister Says — Bloomberg
Amy’s take: This is a surprisingly blunt, clear comment considering when the company first made this move a couple weeks ago experts speculated it was due to various factors, not necessarily directly this reason.

China’s Carbon Emissions Are Set to Decline Years Earlier Than Expected — The Wall Street Journal
Bill’s take: While still committed to coal, China’s vast renewables rollout is gradually turning the emissions tide. Western media and policy makers are just waking up to the enormity of this change.

Total boss warns governments risk mis-selling energy transition — Financial Times (subscription)
Anca’s take: The CEO of France’s TotalEnergies defended his group’s two-pronged strategy to invest in renewable power while still pursuing new oil and gas projects decried by climate activists.

This unexpected material might be in your next sweater — The Washington Post 
Cat’s take: A material designer in Amsterdam is developing processes to make fabric from human hair swept off the floor of hair salons. It's fascinating to consider how materials currently considered garbage can be used to make other products, giving that material a new and unexpected second life.

America Wanted a Homegrown Solar Industry. China Is Building a Lot of It. — The Wall Street Journal
Amy’s take: Important research sure to raise concerns in Washington, D.C. It shows how companies can move around government constraints, in this case tariffs or import bans on panels made in China

Lithium Liabilities: The untold threat to water in the rush to mine American lithium — Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University
Amena’s take: Should mining take place at the expense of leaving communities "bone dry?" This is a question all governments must address as they boost mining in water-scarce regions.

More of what we're reading:

• Three COP summit hosts unite to raise climate ambitions — Reuters
• Energy Department Awards $20 Million For Research Into Carbon-Free Geologic Hydrogen — Forbes
  
  

Airports face an energy "perfect storm" — but there's a way out

Illustration by Nadya Nickels.

BY: JUAN MACIAS

Macias is the CEO of AlphaStruxure, a joint venture of Schneider Electric and Carlyle, that designs, builds, owns, operates and maintains advanced on-site energy systems, including microgrids. You can reach Macias on LinkedIn.

At airports across the country, the energy transition is arriving and the status quo is departing. In the coming years, some turbulence is likely if the industry doesn’t take action now.

Airport electricity demand is expected to multiply five times by 2050 and is among the leading worries for airport executives over the next two decades, according to a recent survey from the American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE) and AlphaStruxure. While 2050 seems far away, the survey also found that in just five years, at least one large hub will see its electricity demands triple.

The traditional energy infrastructure airport operators have relied on for the past half century may not be able to keep pace with ballooning power requirements. For many airports, it’s time to think outside the grid.

Read the full article on Cipher’s website.

Europe turns to energy-intensive imports amid high electricity prices

Source: International Energy Agency: Electricity 2024 • Electricity equivalent of imports calculated by determining how much electricity would be used to produce that material in the EU, based on EU electricity intensities. The countries shown in the figure are not members of the EU. Aluminum refers to primary aluminum, rather than recycled aluminum. UAE = United Arab Emirates. UK = United Kingdom. U.S. = United States.

BY: AMENA H. SAIYID

High electricity prices are hurting domestic manufacturing in European Union countries and prompting the bloc to import more energy-intensive goods from abroad, including from countries heavily reliant on fossil fuels, according to a new International Energy Agency (IEA) report.

This trend is one of many consequences of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which fueled an energy crisis in Europe, driving up electricity prices and making it more expensive to produce energy-intensive products like steel, aluminum and concrete within the bloc.

By importing goods made abroad, the EU indirectly contributes to the use of electricity, and any ensuing carbon dioxide emissions, in those countries. Renewable energy is responsible for about 40% of the EU’s electricity mix; in contrast, several of the countries producing aluminum and steel going to the bloc still rely largely on fossil fuels.

The IEA estimated the indirect electricity use for each type of good imported into the EU in the above chart by calculating how much electricity would have been used to produce that product within the bloc.

In 2022, imports of energy-intensive goods increased about 8% over the previous year. While energy-intensive imports declined in 2023, they remained about 4% higher than pre-invasion levels, the IEA concluded.

Aluminum, used to build cars, clean energy systems and more, drove the trend as the EU imported large volumes of the metal from non-EU countries like Norway, Russia and Iceland, followed by India and United Arab Emirates. Norway and Iceland get most of their electricity from hydropower and geothermal, while Russia, India and UAE rely heavily on fossil fuels.

Russia’s share of these indirect electricity imports has dropped from 18% in 2019 to just 9% last year, driven by the impact of sanctions, IEA estimates, though aluminum remains unaffected.

IEA expects the EU’s use of a border carbon tax to serve as a check on the flow of energy-intensive goods as it is phased in over the next nine years.

AND FINALLY...
Battery stop

Cipher associate editor Jillian Mock snapped this photo of a shop selling electric vehicle batteries while zipping through traffic in Bengaluru, India, late last year. This stand isn't a battery swapping station, like those covered in Bill's article last week, but it is selling batteries for 2- and 3-wheel vehicles separate from the vehicles themselves.

Editor’s note: In addition to supporting Cipher, Breakthrough Energy also supports and partners with a range of entities working to tackle climate change, including nonprofits, corporations, startups and research firms. For more information on Cipher’s editorial policy, click here.