3 of Japan's Nuclear Fusion Institutes to Receive ¥10 Billion in Funding, as Govt Aims to Speed Up Research
From ITER's website
A rendering of a tokamak fusion reactor
The government aims to significantly improve the ability of three core institutes to research nuclear fusion, hoping to move up the timeline on powering the grid with fusion. It will spend about ¥10 billion on equipment needed for experiments, such as devices to examine the durability of reactors.
Private companies will also be able to use the new equipment, with the government seeking to place Japan ahead of the international competition.
The Yomiuri Shimbun
In nuclear fusion, a reaction that occurs inside the sun, atomic nuclei are joined together, releasing vast amounts of energy. Scientists estimate that one gram of nuclear fuel could, through fusion, produce the same amount of energy as is released from burning eight tons of oil.
Compared to nuclear fission, which is how nuclear power is currently generated, nuclear fusion has a lower risk of going out of control and could be safer. Nuclear fusion also emits no carbon dioxide, and competition to develop fusion as an energy source is expected to intensify around the globe.
There are three major kinds of fusion reactors. In Japan, all three approaches are being pursued by the National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST), the National Institute for Fusion Science and the University of Osaka's Institute of Laser Engineering.
But the research projects at these institutes are still in the experimental stage, and it is not clear when their fusion technologies will be ready for practical use.
That is why the Education, Sports, Culture, Science and Technology Ministry and the Cabinet Office plan to improve the research capabilities of the three institutes through an injection of about ¥10 billion this fiscal year. The plan includes improvements to equipment at the QST's Rokkasho Fusion Institute.
The government aims to accelerate future experiments by the three institutes and put the three types of fusion reactors into practical use as soon as possible.
In concrete terms, the funds will go toward building equipment for examining the durability of devices that convert energy produced by nuclear fusion into heat. They will also go toward improvements in laser devices for heating nuclear fuel.
In recent years, startups have been launched in Japan and abroad that aim to commercialize fusion. As a result, private funding has flowed into research and development projects, which had been led by governments.
In the United States, highly influential companies that have attracted funds are moving quickly to develop nuclear fusion technologies.
To help the industry grow, the Japanese government will open up the institutes' upgraded facilities to the private sector. By doing so, the government aims to allow private companies to conduct experiments that need massive devices that would be difficult for them to build on their own. It also expects firms will test technologies for maintaining nuclear fusion reactions over a long period.
The government is set to revise its national strategy policy on pursuing the use of nuclear energy as a power source. It will put forward a goal of introducing fusion in the 2030s, up from around 2050 in the current plan.
Since the strength of the private sector will be needed to achieve this goal, the government plans to make the three institutes a base for collaboration among business, government and academia.
To generate power using fusion, nuclear fuels, such as deuterium and tritium, are heated to 100 million C or higher to cause the atoms to join together. Energy discharged from the reaction is converted into heat to generate electricity.
The three main reactor types are the tokamak, which confines extremely hot plasma to trigger a fusion reaction; the stellarator, which functions in the same way; and laser reactors, which heat nuclear fuel with laser beams.
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