How fusion powers the energy transition and a zero-carbon industrial revolution
ARC fusion power plants will meet the growing power needs that modern living demands.
Fusion energy is a big deal for tackling one of the biggest challenges of our time, climate change.
Electric vehicles for transportation and heat pumps for home heating are part of the reason our appetite for electricity is growing again. Commonwealth Fusion Systems’ ARC power plants will produce clean, abundant, safe, zero-carbon power that’ll satisfy that appetite.
But our fusion energy will extend deeper into the modern economy, too. It’ll let modern industries move away from processes that today generate gigatons of planet-warming greenhouse gases. Think zero-carbon fuels for aviation and shipping, electric rock grinders and dump trucks at mines, and heat for paper and chemical manufacturing.
In short, our ARC fusion power plants, arriving in the early 2030s, will be the general-purpose energy machines of the future.
We’ve had eras defined by new technology — iron working, sailing ships, steam engines, jet aircraft, the internet, smartphones. Get ready for a fusion age next as we bring the energy source of the sun to the surface of the Earth.
Here’s a look at some of the areas that fusion power will profoundly transform.
Electricity everywhere
Driven by climate change, we’ve all embarked on the energy transition, a shift away from fossil fuels. The rallying cry is “electrify everything.” That means new electricity demand for transportation, industrial processes, and heating and cooling of homes and businesses.
It’s one reason that energy demand is growing in the US after staying flat for two decades. Globally, electricity generation should rise 30% to 76% by 2050, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
Fusion is a perfect fit, helping speed the arrival of heat pumps and EVs into homes and garages. Power plants can be built near where electricity demand is high, even slotting neatly into the sites of closed coal power plants and minimizing difficulties of new power line construction.
Wind and solar are part of the solution too, but they’re variable sources of energy that need massive battery investments to smooth over the ups and downs of their power generation. ARC fusion plants provide steady round-the-clock power, but they can also be adapted with molten salt storage systems that store energy when power demand is relatively low and add more power to the grid when it’s high.
Electrifying industry
Heat pumps for your home and EVs for your garage are obvious examples of electrification, but fusion also will profoundly transform deeper elements of modern life. We’re talking about cement, steel, fertilizer, chemicals, and other products that we rely on.
The steel business, which accounts for about 8% of carbon emissions, is shifting from coal blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces. Fusion could help there: New electrolysis-based production methods promise further carbon emission reductions but require more electricity.
Cement, the critical ingredient used to make concrete, is also on the brink of decarbonization. Startups are employing new electricity-intensive techniques to replace cement plants that today account for 8% of carbon emissions.
The fusion process inside an ARC power plant produces heat. That heat can be converted into electricity, but it also can be used more directly. Plenty of processes, including paper processing and chemical plants, need a combination of heat and power that adapted ARCs can supply.
These industrial applications typically need continuous power, not intermittent supplies from wind and solar.
Ammonia-powered jets
Some basic chemical compounds that aren’t very economical today could become more appealing with an ARC boost. One is ammonia. Yes, the same ammonia that makes you wrinkle your nose when you spray some to clean your windows.
A new generation of jet engines could use ammonia, upgrading an aircraft fleet that’s a significant carbon dioxide emission source. Today, aviation in the US accounts for 45,000 flights each day.
Ammonia is also used in fertilizers, which today are made with the electricity-guzzling Haber-Bosch process. Fusion heat and electricity from an ARC plant can get the job done.
Ocean-based shipping is another candidate for ammonia-based fuel.
Another possible green fuel is hydrogen. Indeed, ammonia as a fuel can be split into nitrogen and hydrogen just before use as fuel, with the hydrogen burning and producing water vapor exhaust and the harmless nitrogen entering the air. But to make ammonia, you need hydrogen.
Hydrogen also can be used directly in hydrogen fuel cells for vehicles, industrial processes, and to heat homes during winter. ARC power plants can supply the electricity needed to split water into hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis.
Desalination
ARC plants will be transformative beyond decarbonization to areas like fighting water scarcity. People and farms need fresh water, but there’s a shortage in places like California. That’s where an energy-intense technology called desalination comes in.
Desalination is unusual today — Arizona officials want to build a desalination plant in Mexico to pipe fresh water to Phoenix — but it’s too expensive for agriculture.
ARC plants change that equation with cheap, steady power that desalination plants need to run full time. The reverse osmosis method for desalination requires plain old electrical power, but ARCs also could be adapted to produce heat for steam distillation processes. That’s less efficient, but its output doesn’t need further treatment like reverse osmosis does.
One trouble with desalinization is the very salty brine produced as a waste product. It also typically contains metals that complicate disposal. But researchers in recent years have begun investigating ways to recover those potentially valuable materials.
With ARC, desalination could spread beyond affluent nations where it’s used today, including Australia, the United States, and countries in the Middle East like Israel and Saudi Arabia. Given that demand for fresh water is expected to outstrip supply by 40% in 2030, that expansion is important.
Developing nations
Fusion isn’t tied to a country’s oil reserves or incident sunlight and uses tiny quantities of fuel compared to natural gas or coal. As ARCs bring electricity costs down, the power plants could spread energy to countries that today can’t afford the power their populations need.
Indeed, the chief underlying feature of the fusion era is energy abundance.
“You’ve got the rest of the world — call it 80% of the world’s population — who are trying to live a life of prosperity, like we do here,” Phil Larochelle, a partner at Breakthrough Energy Ventures, told Heatmap News. “Sustainable abundance for all. That’s, I think, where fusion really shines.”
