LLNL Scientists Report Fusion Breakthrough

On Dec. 5, a team at Lawrence Livermore National Lab’s (LLNL) National Ignition Facility (NIF) conducted the first controlled fusion experiment in history to reach fusion "ignition," which is believed to be a breakthrough milestone, where the fusion reaction begins to produce more energy from fusion than the energy applied to drive it.

Scientists studying fusion energy at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California determined via calculations that they had crossed a long-awaited threshold in reproducing the power of the sun in a laboratory. It took a few days for them to do their analysis of the energy product but by Sunday, Dec. 11th, word had begun to leak out. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) , having provided the primary funding for this work, took the lead in taking credit for the achievement and scheduled a press announcement for Tuesday, Dec. 13th. Meanwhile, various results were reported in the press, some claiming 120% gain, some going as high as 150% gain. While the exact number is not that critical, what is important is that these scientists and experts believe that there was a notable achievement in the operation of the plasma ignition that took place, even though it lasted for all of a fraction of a second.

“This is a landmark achievement for the researchers and staff at the National Ignition Facility who have dedicated their careers to seeing fusion ignition become a reality, and this milestone will undoubtedly spark even more discovery,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to supporting our world-class scientists — like the team at NIF — whose work will help us solve humanity’s most complex and pressing problems, like providing clean power to combat climate change and maintaining a nuclear deterrent without nuclear testing.”

LLNL’s experiment surpassed the fusion threshold by delivering 2.05 megajoules (MJ) of laser energy to the target, resulting in 3.15 MJ of fusion energy output, demonstrating for the first time a most fundamental science basis for inertial fusion energy (IFE). Many advanced science and technology developments are still needed to achieve simple, affordable IFE to power homes and businesses, and DOE is currently restarting a broad-based, coordinated IFE program in the United States. Combined with private-sector investment, there is a lot of momentum to drive rapid progress toward fusion commercialization.

Led by physicist John Nuckolls, who later served as LLNL director from 1988 to 1994, this revolutionary idea became inertial confinement fusion, kicking off more than 60 years of research and development in lasers, optics, diagnostics, target fabrication, computer modeling and simulation and experimental design.

To pursue this concept, LLNL built a series of increasingly powerful laser systems, leading to the creation of NIF, the world’s largest and most energetic laser system. NIF — located at LLNL in Livermore, California — is the size of a sports stadium and uses powerful laser beams to create temperatures and pressures like those in the cores of stars and giant planets, and inside exploding nuclear weapons.

[Note: Nucleation Capital has invested in Focused Energy, a private venture which has chosen to develop fusion by following the same Inertial Fusion Energy approach as that used by LLNL. Focused was founded by scientists who had worked at LLNL and who have spent their careers studying both fusion and lasers. Focused Energy has based their ability to deliver fusion upon their expertise in developing the next generation of high-powered laser and the next generation of fuel target, taking what LLNL has done forward with proprietary technology.]

Read more at Lawrence Livermore National Lab: National Ignition Facility achieves fusion ignition, published December 13, 2022; The New York Times, Scientists Achieve Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough With Blast of 192 Lasers, by Kenneth Chang, December 13, 2022; and the Financial Times, Fusion energy breakthrough by US scientists boosts clean power hopes, by Tom Wilson, December 13, 2022. Also see the statement from TAE, a fusion competitor, TAE Technologies’ statement on US nuclear fusion advancement.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Brilliant thinkers, Energy abundance, Future of Energy, History Timeline, History-making, Investor activity, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear innovation, Nuclear R&D, Politicians supporting nuclear, Private companies, Solving climate, US technological leadership, Zero emission energy

September 1, 2022

California Legislators Vote To Save Diablo Canyon

California's legislature, by nearly unanimous votes in both the Assembly and the Senate, agreed with Governor Gavin Newsom, to extend the operating life of Diablo Canyon. This was the result of multiple converging factors, the most important of which was that the closure would have worsened the already fragile state of the California energy grid, maing black-outs far more likely. But, behind this looming awareness were many other factors influencing public opinion and political pressure, which include pronuclear advocacy, scientific concerns about climate change, shifting political winds in the face of Russia's invastion of Ukraine and leadership from the Biden Administration. There will be many efforts to understand what tipped the political weights in favor of saving Diablo Canyon, and not all will be correct, but the good news for is that rationality prevailed in California, despite concerted anti-nuclear pressures.

Climate change and Russia's invasion of the Ukraine are looming backdrops to this stunning victory. Yet, most directly, the basis of the success comes down to the fact that Governor Newsom himself became convinced that delaying the closure of Diablo Canyon was both the right thing to do and was politically feasible. It isn't clear exactly how he arrived at this conclusion but it is certain that his political weight made it happen. What caused the politics to shift? Possibly, Newsom found sufficient political cover and acceptable polling data from the fact that Illinois Governor Pritzker and Michigan Governor Whitmer, both Democrats, took action to protect their nuclear power.

Nevertheless, coming out in favor of extending the life of Diablo Canyon, was enormously risky and difficult for Governor Newsom, as it involved making a 180 degree shift from his prior position of working to ensure that Diablo got closed. Yet, with state policy experts warning that the closure would cause blackouts and likely deaths as a result, Governor Newsom bit the bullet and did the right thing.

There were a multitude of pronuclear individuals and groups providing support and political cover for this decision. As far back as 2015, Michael Shellenberger and his organizations, The Breakthrough Institute and Environmental Progress, argued on behalf of nuclear power. Shellenberger split out of TBI, a think tank, in order to engage in more active pronuclear advocacy. He and a group of younger activists organized and held the first pronuclear rally, a three day protest and parade against the closure of Diablo Canyon. From there, numerous groups were formed which contributed advocacy towards the support of nuclear power: Californians for Green Nuclear Power, Generation Atomic, Mothers for Nuclear, Climate Coalition, Rethink Nuclear, Nuclear New York, Protect Nuclear NOW and many others.

Meanwhile, filmmakers Robert Stone and Dave Schumacher produced luscious documentaries that challenged the status quo attitudes about nuclear power. Their films, Pandora's Promise and The New Fire respectively brought new insights into our understanding of both the facts about nuclear power and the reality about the concerted and often nefarious efforts to besmirch nuclear's reputation. These films had surprising reach and helped soften widespread knee-jerk antinuclear reactions. Then, the academics from Stanford and MIT played their parts and issued a report providing evidence that closing Diablo Canyon would cost the state $21 billion.

While, no single person or group can take sole credit for this victory, there was little discernable action until the joining of Isabelle Boemeke to the campaign. Representing the younger generation and signing up to support Diablo Canyon as the first "nuclear influencer," Isabelle served as the spark to ignite public attention to the support that Diablo Canyon had as our largest source of clean energy, and helped turn the tide in favor of saving it. Under the handle "Isodope," she adroitly leverage social media tech platforms, including Instagram, TicTok and Twitter, to send highly stylized, informative and compellingly snarky videos to a broad spectrum of followers. She also acted on the momentum garnered by the Stanford/MIT report to organize an in-person rally in San Luis Obispo, complete with support from local politicians and residents. That turned to be very successful and she then parlayed that success to corral scientific experts to weigh in with a direct letter appeal to Governor Newsom.

Finally, with the introduction of the Biden Administration's Civil Nuclear Credit program and its offer of up to $6 billion in support of saving aging plants, Governor Newsom could no longer afford to ignore the reality that saving Diablo Canyon could help him avoid energy embarrassment and liability from the rash of civil lawsuits that would have followed black-out related deaths.

There are now many articles coming out with their assessments of the factors that enabled this success. None capture the whole picture, which spans much more engagement, work and adroit advocacy in California, across the US and even internationally, that contributed to making ignoring reality of nuclear impossible for Gov. Newsom.

Read the Forbes article, In Big Win For Nuclear, California Legislators Vote To Save Diablo Canyon, by Robert Bryce, September 1, 2022 here. There are many other articles reporting on this significant achievement but we can't list them all here.

Published by Nucleation Capital in 100% Renewables, Anti-nuclear campaign, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Climate mayhem, Environmental support for nuclear, Government support, History Timeline, History-making, LINKS, Nuclear-inclusive energy policy, Politicians supporting nuclear, Pro-nuclear campaign, Solving climate, Zero emission energy

April 29, 2022

Newsom tells L.A. Times editors that he’s reconsidering the Diablo Canyon closure

Governor Gavin Newsom, a consumate politician, finally is willing to declare his support for Diablo Canyon, something he has long refused to do. As the L.A. Times reports in an article titled California promised to close its last nuclear plant. Now Newsom is reconsidering, Newsom has chosen to come out publicly with support for saving Diablo Canyon. It is doubtful that Newsom has suddenly "seen the light" about nuclear. More likely, he's seen recent polling showing that a majority of Democrats and Republican understand the importance of nuclear power for addressing the goal of reliable clean energy in the absence of fossil fuels.

It appears that Governor Newsom is now working to delay the closure of Diablo Canyon. While this will disappoint his fossil fuel donors and those touting renewables (which is a majority of environmental organizations of all stripes), it is definitely the right thing to do.

There are numerous reasons for Newsom having finally found the political will to disrupt what many in California consider a settled matter. As the article mentions, the reality is that shutting Diablo would cause the forthcoming energy shortages that are already projected to be far worse. Back in August 2020, hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses lost power during some of the hotest and smokiest days of the year, and the state narrowly avoided even worse blackouts a few weeks later. Now CALISO is projecting increased grid fragility going forward, even without shuttering Diablo Canyon, given increasing heat waves, more aggressive forest fires and reduced hydropower supply, as a result of California's extended drought.

Additionally, the DOE recently announced their Civil Nuclear Credit program and are now dangling some $6 billion that is earmarked for at-risk nuclear power plants. Gavin recognizes that such funds could help underwrite some face-saving upgrades to the plant, possibly even to the once-through-cooling (OTC) system, the imposed costs of which by the State Water Resources Board were ostensibly the basis for PG&E finally giving up on their plan to re-license the plant.

Then there the small matter of the upcoming election and a Democratic primary where the leading contenders for Gavin's place on the ticket were nearly all expressing strong pronuclear positions and calling Gavin out for his apparent retrograde or donor-induced political ignorance of climate science.

Needless to say, that the joint Stanford/MIT report providing evidence that closing Diablo Canyon would cost the state $21 billion, which was followed by a pronuclear rally in San Luis Obispo, itself followed by the very public letter from 79 high-level scientists, academics and business leader urging Governor Newsom to protect this existing (and paid for) asset, was a triple punch that probably alarmed everyone that he was being seen as being on the wrong side of science.

While the article suggests that Newsom is simply in process of "reconsidering," in fact the word on the street is that a deal has been done to preserve Diablo Canyon, although what that is remains unknown, as no information has yet been officially issued. Needless to say, these are very encouraging signs. Nucleation Capital supports protecting Diablo Canyon, Michigan's Palisades plant and other at-risk plants.

Read the L.A. Times article, California promised to close its last nuclear plant. Now Newsom is reconsidering, by Sammy Roth, April 29, 2022 here. To learn more about what you can do to support Diablo Canyon, see the Save Diablo Canyon campaign at Climate Coalition.

Published by Grant Mills in Carbon emissions, Climate change, Energy abundance, Future of Energy, Government support, History-making, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear-inclusive energy policy, Politicians supporting nuclear, Reduced ecosystem impacts, Regulatory reform, Scientific debate, Solving climate, US technological leadership, Zero emission energy

December 30, 2021

Radiant Nuclear

Radiant Nuclear – An El Segundo, California-based developer of Kaleidos, a mobile high-temperature gas nuclear microreactor that replaces diesel generators.

Published by Nuclea_Admin in PORTFOLIO

October 8, 2021

Anti-Nuclear Chickens Coming Home to Roost

Ted Nordhaus is a highly respected expert who, as executive director of the Breakthrough Institute, has been on the bleeding edge of those pushing more effective solutions to our energy and environmental woes for decades. His opinion piece, "In Global Energy Crisis, Anti-Nuclear Chickens Come Home to Roost," he provides a bold assessment of how badly the progressive agenda for climate has performed. Wherever "green" policies hold sway and nuclear power plants have been closed, clean electricity has been replaced with dirty power.

Contrary to what many people think, the rapid growth of renewable energy has led largely to increases in emissions, sky-high electricity prices and the loss of some of our most critical clean energy assets, which have caused power shortages and life-threatening energy crises. Germany, which persists in closing its nuclear power plants, has been reduced to decimating ancient forests and villages in its desperate pursuit of new coal resources for the resulting surge in demand for coal power.

California has been forced to build new gas plants and to demand that utilities with backup diesel generators, operate them non-stop when demand is high and renewable generation is down—not the outcome that those who support renewables want to see. In particular, the planned closure of Diablo Canyon, which was approved with the hope that its generation would be replaced by renewables, is nowhere near on track to do so. As a result, the CPUC is both bending and breaking rules to enable coal and gas to replace the clean generation provided by Diablo, while planned geothermal and battery storage are taking longer than had been assumed. Nordhaus calls out the "Pollyannish assumptions" and unrealistic plans that find California in the position of prematurely shuttering its largest single source of clean energy, only to add back more fossil power, to the delight of the fossil fuel industry.

Nordhaus doesn't explicitly ask "How's them chickens?" but you can almost hear him pose that question to those who read this assessment and care to adddress climate change with smart, effective solutions.

Read Foreign Policy's In Global Energy Crisis, Anti-Nuclear Chickens Come Home to Roost, by Ted Nordhaus, published October 8, 2021.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Anti-nuclear campaign, Brilliant thinkers, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Climate mayhem, Climate policy, Future of Energy, LINKS

July 15, 2021

China launches national carbon market

According to Bloomberg Green, China's national carbon market opened with a "flurry of trades that sent prices surging." This is exceptionally exciting news, yet Bloomberg's annonymous report went on to enumerate many reasons why this is a less than stellar achievement, claiming that "it’ll be years before the system helps the top polluting nation curb its emissions."

We say "bull pucky" to that. China pulls way ahead of the U.S. with this launch, which requires even state-owned oil giants such as China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., known as Sinopec, and China Energy Investment Corp., one of the world’s largest coal producers, to participate in trading carbon allowances. The frenzy produced a rise of 10%—deemed the daily limit—within about 10 minutes of the launch.

While there are always issues to be worked out whenever a new market is launched, as far it goes, China Carbon market's first day was a huge success. Carbon allowances opened at 48 yuan ($7.42) a metric ton and traded as high as 52.80 yuan, limited by the defined max.

China's carbon prices may be starting low but it won't take long for them to exceed those of California's Cap & Trade system, where the price of carbon started at $12 in November 2014 and which grew a total of 40% over the subsequent five years. It then languished at around $17 from 2019 until May of this year, when it suddenly began to climb. This performance is an embarrassment and shows the power of the fossil fuel lobby in California throughout the last decade, since the price of buying CO2 hovers at around $150 on the commondity market. China's carbon market could theoretically exceed the price of carbon in California within a matter of weeks, even with a 10% daily cap.

We are encouraged by China's achievement and believe that they are moving along with an important tool to place the appropriate market signals on carbon emissions. It is not clear why Bloomberg feels the need to dis their efforts and diminish the importance of this launch but we believe this will light a fire under the U.S. to take more action, which may explain why the price of California's permits started showing some upward movement in price during the May auction.

Read Bloomberg Green's unsigned report, Top Carbon Market Launch Won't Help China Tame Emissions Yet," posted July 15, 2021.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Carbon emissions, Carbon markets, Climate change, Climate policy, Government support, History Timeline, History-making, LINKS

September 23, 2020

California will phase out sales of gas-powered cars by 2035

Governor Gavin Newsom, issued an executive order to require all new cars sold to be zero-emission vehicles by 2035 and threw his support behind a ban on the controversial use of hydraulic fracturing by oil companies. California will be the first state in the nation to limit new car sales to 100% zero-emission vehicles in 15 years, but just the 16th country to have done so, as 15 other countries have already have committed to phasing out gas-powered cars.

Newsome will not prohibit either the ownership, use or sales of used internal combustion engine cars, nor did he take executive action to ban the controversial oil extraction method known as fracking but instead he called on the state Legislature to do so, setting up what will be a contentious political fight when lawmakers reconvene in Sacramento next year. He further orders the Air Resources Board to immediately begin drafting regulations to achieve the ban by 2035, which is the "goal."

Read more at the Los Angeles Times: "Newsom orders 2035 phaseout of gas-powered vehicles, calls for fracking ban"

Published by Nucleation Capital in Carbon emissions, Climate change, Climate policy, Fossil fuels, Future of Energy, Government support, History Timeline, History-making, LINKS, US technological leadership

June 15, 2020

Advanced nuclear history is made by Oklo

Oklo new post

Oklo's combined license application, the first ever (non-light water) advanced fission technology, was accepted by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The application was submitted to the NRC in March, and its historic acceptance augurs a whole new era in the commercialization of carbon-free advanced fission technologies.

Oklo’s CEO and co-founder, Jacob DeWitte, said the acceptance indicates that the NRC is prepared to license advanced fission technologies like Oklo's, which has been named Aurora. The Aurora powerhouse utilizes advanced fission to generate 1.5 megawatts of clean power.

“Advanced reactors are an important tool for climate change, and we are proud to be the first to submit a full license application and the first to have it accepted,” said DeWitte. “As a start-up, Oklo is persistently driving innovation by doing things differently. We are setting a different paradigm by challenging the current system, while getting feedback, iterating, and ultimately getting approval on things that traditionally have not been done before.”

“Advanced fission is a real solution to meeting increasing energy demands while alleviating climate change,” said Oklo’s Director of Licensing, Alex Renner. “We trust that the NRC can successfully license an inherently safe reactor that is capable of protecting our health and the environment,” added Renner.

Oklo is the first company to submit a combined license application of any type since 2009, per the NRC website, and the modernized application structure that the company pioneered will serve as an accelerating precedent for future advanced fission license submittals.

Read more about this announcement at Business Wire's "Oklo Announces Historic Acceptance of Combined License Application." Read through the Combined License Documents for Aurora — the Oklo Power Plant Application documents submitted by Oklo to the NRC at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission website.