If you get news alerts for climate or energy, you may have seen a flurry of recent announcements regarding nuclear fusion. Scientists in Europe and North America have made breakthroughs in recent weeks, using different techniques, in the quest for a stable, energy positive nuclear fusion reactor. These developments are tantalizing and exciting, but we should also keep things in perspective. Let’s be clear, commercial nuclear fusion reactors are still years away and given the time constraints, they may not have a serious impact on our climate goals. So, while these developments around fusion are unambiguously positive achievements, we should not count on fusion to save us.

As I’ve said before, we must focus on reducing emissions now. The danger with fusion is that we drag our feet on emissions reduction because we think this miracle tech is going to solve our problems, like some modern “deus ex machina.” That’s a recipe for disaster. At the same time, we should all want nuclear fusion to work. It’s truly a revolutionary innovation with the potential to address a number of problems, including climate change. So, my point is not to disparage these recent developments, I think we should be celebrating them, but the hype machine is running at full capacity and we’re in danger of losing our perspective.

First, let’s start with some basics. There are two kinds of nuclear energy production: fission and fusion. Fission involves splitting a heavy atom like uranium, which releases a large amount of energy. Fusion involves smashing together two light atoms, typically two hydrogen atoms, to form a heavier atom, in this case helium. Every nuclear plant on Earth uses fission, however, fusion is the thing that powers the Sun (and every other star as far as I know).

I’ve written before that nuclear fission is a perfectly viable zero-carbon power source and has some advantages over other power sources. But, it also has a number of challenges, namely perceived safety risk, price, and radioactive waste.

Fusion is one of those technologies that seems more appropriate for Star Trek than serious policy discussions. It seems too futuristic, too science fiction-y. But, it’s a very real technology with some pretty amazing potential. Part of the reason it seems too futuristic is because it always seems to be just over the horizon. Scientists have been working on a fusion reactor for decades, with relatively little progress for us outsiders to see. There’s a tired joke among energy nerds that “fusion is always 30 years away” because scientists seem to have been saying that for decades.

As an outsider who does not work in the industry and cannot appreciate the magnitude of recent technologic advancements, fusion still feels like it’s decades away. That’s an important caveat when reading my analysis, I am not qualified to assess the veracity of claims made about the technology, I can only go on what the experts say. My questions about fusion relate to things like timeframes and costs, rather than technological feasibility. By all indications, we’re marching steadily towards a working fusion reactor sometime in my lifetime. And that’s exciting!

Now, when people talk about fusion, they often use hyperbole. They will say things like “fusion can create near limitless power” which is silly. I think they say this because the fuel comes from sea water, and water is obviously quite abundant. The promise of fusion is that we will be able to get an enormous amount of energy from just a small amount of water. Further, not only is our planet covered in water, but Mars, Europa, and Enceladus all have abundant water reserves. So, we’d be set on fuel for many centuries. But, fuel is not the only limiting factor. We will need to build a fleet of these reactors, and as of right now, we don’t even know what materials we need to do that. Until we know exactly what we need to build these things, we should not assume that the materials will be cheap and abundant.

Assuming, though, that the materials are easy to obtain, we still have unanswered questions. The plants themselves would have a maximum capacity, so the question is, how much energy would a typical fusion plant produce? I have yet to see a good answer for this. The ITER project in southern France is the largest nuclear fusion reactor in human history. It’s been under construction since 2007, costs tens of billions of dollars, and when it finally comes online (supposedly in 2025), it will produce 500 Megawatts of power. That’s not a small amount of power, but it’s still less than a typical fission reactor. ITER is obviously an experimental station, and not meant to compete with commercial energy generation, but with all that money and material, we’re still talking about a fairly small amount of power generation. So the question remains, how much power will we get out of these reactors? That will tell us how many we need to build.

The next question is cost. Of course, as with any new technology, the cost of the initial projects will be astronomical. But, what is the expected cost per watt in say 2040? As an energy nerd, I know predicting energy prices 18 years out is a fool’s errand, but we should at least be reasonably confident that costs will be competitive in an acceptable timeframe. Remember that solar, wind, and energy storage systems are all getting cheaper every year and that’s likely to continue. Eventually fusion will need to compete with them on cost, but it will undoubtedly need a lot of government support to get there. Personally, I have no problem subsidizing fusion since it has enormous upsides. Without government support, the fusion sector would probably wither and die.

Perhaps most important is the timeframe for these things. This is pretty hazy right now. First we need to have a working fusion reactor, which is something we’ve been working on for decades and still don’t have. If it takes a few more decades, then it will be too late for fusion to impact our climate fight. But even if we get a working fusion reactor say in the next 5 years, it would still be decades before fusion reactors were producing power at scale.

Unfortunately, time is not on our side when it comes to climate. Ideally, the electricity sector will be mostly decarbonized by 2035. Fusion may or may not be available at by then, but it almost certainly won’t be at scale in 10 years (if it is, I’ll gladly eat my words since that would be an amazing achievement for our civilization). We need to be focusing on the solutions we have right now, while supporting fusion and other advanced energy technologies. Solar panels use rare Earth minerals and there may be an upper limit to how many we can really install. We never want to put all our faith in a single technology. This isn’t an either/or situation, we can support advanced energy technologies and implement our existing solutions.

So, let’s celebrate the wins on fusion, keep the research money coming and encourage these achievements, but we should not count on a technology that does not yet exist. Until we have a working commercial fusion reactor, we should not rely on it as one of our solutions. A tool isn’t a tool if it’s still being designed. Or, as we say, don’t count your chickens until they hatch.

If you take anything away from this post, it should be this, advanced energy technologies like nuclear fusion are fantastic ideas that are worth our support and we should celebrate their development. However, no single technology will save us, we are in a race against time, greed, and indifference and we’re losing. We must accelerate our existing solutions, we must cap our emissions as soon as possible and begin the long, laborious, and complex process of decarbonizing our civilization. We do not need new technologies to do this, and we should not wait for some innovation to swoop in and save us at the last minute.

Assuming we don’t see any developments on the BBB front, I will next explore green hydrogen and genetic engineering as climate solutions. Have a wonderful weekend and stay safe!

This year there have been some major announcements regarding nuclear fusion. From the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory to a company based down the road from me in Cambridge, MA called Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) it seems like we’re on the verge of some major advancements in this futuristic technology. The CEO of CFS is just the latest person to argue that fusion is an “essential” component of decarbonizing our world. I am in no way qualified to evaluate the technology being used here, or if the timelines presented by the various fusion backers are realistic, however even if they are correct (this is a big if), then that really doesn’t change the fundamental truth, that fusion probably won’t play a major role in decarbonizing our economy.

Let’s look at why. First, according to the timelines presented by the backers, we may have a working fusion reactor by 2025 and a commercial reactor by 2030. These targets seem pretty ambitious to me, considering we’ve been “10 years from fusion” since the 1960s, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume they are correct.

A working commercial fusion reactor would be an amazing achievement. It isn’t hard to imagine a future where fusion plays an important role in powering our society. Maybe fusion reactors will power our starships, or help us suck carbon out of the atmosphere.

But, they are unlikely to play a major role in decarbonizing our economy. If we have our first commercial fusion reactor by 2030, then that means we have managed to clear all the regulatory hurdles in at least one jurisdiction. But, that doesn’t mean every jurisdiction will automatically accept it. Creating regulations for a brand new type of power plant, particularly one with the word “nuclear” in it, would be challenging. Under normal circumstances, it would take years to get these regulations approved, and in the United States, much of this regulation is done by individual states. So we’re talking about potentially hundreds of individual jurisdictions who have to give their approval, and then each individual power plant has to win approval, potentially over the objections of local opposition. Siting new power plants is slow, combative, and bureaucratic.

Further, it takes years to build a new power plant. So if the first commercial plant is operational in 2030, how many others will be built that same year? One? Ten? How much power will these plants produce and at what cost? We have no idea what these costs would be, and it seems unlikely that the first iteration of a nuclear fusion plant would be the cheapest, and even if fusion is a wonderful technology, if it can’t compete with renewables on price, it isn’t going to get built (without subsidies).

That being said, even if we are able to build cheap, abundant nuclear fusion plants by the 2030s, and they are quickly approved by every major jurisdiction, we still have other problems.

Of the major sectors that require decarbonizing, the electrical grid is the easiest. Followed by light transportation and mass transit, and then building heat. Industry, heavy transportation, and agriculture are likely the hardest sectors to decarbonize. This is why the Biden climate plan focuses on decarbonizing the electricity, light transportation and building heat sectors between now and 2030, with research and development aimed at the other sectors in anticipation of decarbonization between 2030 and 2050.

Fusion reactors don’t create usable energy on their own. They create an enormous amount of heat that is used to boil water, which creates steam that is used to turn a turbine that generates electricity (all fossil fuel power plants follow the same principle).

As you can see, the timelines just don’t add up. If we decarbonize the electricity sector by 2030 or 2035, there won’t be much need for nuclear fusion. And if wind, solar, and storage have all become even cheaper than today, then fusion may not even compete on price and reliability.

Waiting for fusion reactors to become available before decarbonizing would be a disaster. At the current rate of emissions, we will use up our carbon budget in 10 years. If we wait that long to decarbonize, we will lock in 2 or 3 degrees C warming. 2 degrees would be extremely difficult, 3 degrees would be catastrophic.

However, in case you think I’m against fusion, let me be clear that I’m very much in favor of it. It’s an amazing technology that could play an important role in making our society truly sustainable. It’s possible (and perhaps likely) that there are ways fusion could help decarbonize our economy that I haven’t even thought of. And, having cheap, abundant, reliable, and pollution-free energy at our disposal is an unambiguously good development.

But, the danger is complacency. We cannot wait for some miraculous technology to save us. This isn’t an Ancient Greek play where the gods are going to swoop in at the last moment. We still don’t know if commercial fusion reactors are even viable, and we certainly don’t know if they will be available by 2030. We have solutions in hand that can help us cap and reduce our emissions immediately, and we need to implement them. Even if wind and solar are eventually supplanted by fusion reactors sometime in the future, we need to cut our emissions right away.

These advancements in fusion technology should be celebrated. These companies and labs should be funded, and we should encourage people to study the sciences and develop these and other sustainable technologies. But, we cannot put our faith in techno-wizardry with no guarantees of success. We simply don’t have time to wait for a miracle, especially when we can get moving in the right direction with the solutions we already have.

This week the Biden Administration released a roadmap to expand our solar energy capacity dramatically over the next 2 decades. The report is titled “The Solar Futures Study” and was created by the National Renewable Energy Lap (NREL) at the Department of Energy (DOE). The Biden Admin claims that solar, which currently supplies 4% of our electricity needs, could meet 45% of our needs by 2050. To get there, we would need a significant expansion in the amount of solar we install each year.

2020 was already a record year for solar installations, when 15 gigawatts of solar capacity were added to the grid. For reference, one average single family house needs roughly 10 kilowatts of capacity to meet their needs, so 15 gigawatts is approximately enough for 1.5 million homes. To get to 45% by 2050, we would need to double our annual installations every year from now until 2025 and then double them again, to 60 GW per year after that.

There are a huge number of challenges in doing this. First, it’s not so easy to double the amount of solar capacity installed in just one year. We need massive investments in supply chains, in worker training, and incentives. A great deal of this will have to be done by utilities, many of whom may resist adding so much solar to their generation assets. And, in order to hit this target without totally destabilizing the grid, we will need unprecedented investments in energy storage, as well as in transmission lines, both of which come with their own problems.

That’s not to say that we can’t do it. I am very pleased with the Biden Admin’s goals here. But we should be realistic about what it will take to get there.

Part of the administration’s plan involves something called a clean energy payment plan, this would be a subsidy for utilities to switch to renewables. Many utilities are slow to adopt changes, even if they are making big commitments on climate. The best way to get them there without a mandate (which can’t happen without Republican support) is with financial incentives.

Solar is, in many jurisdictions, the cheapest form of electricity. In some instances, it’s actually cheaper to build a solar facility than it is to keep running an old coal-fired power plant. However, while fossil fuel plants can be concentrated in specific locations (something that causes no shortage of environmental justice issues), solar facilities have to be spread out in much larger areas. Solar can also be put on houses, businesses, over parking lots or parking decks, or even above roads. The grid was designed for large, centralized power plants, not distributed energy resources like solar. And, the best solar resources are often far from population centers. This means that we need colossal investments in the electrical grid, including the construction of large (unsightly) transmission lines. These are all significant challenges that a require funding, as well as advocacy (who wants power lines running through their neighborhood?).

The challenge to make this happen is enormous, but the potential rewards are even greater. In addition to lower carbon emissions, we would drastically cut all sorts of air pollution, including sulfur dioxide, smog, particulate matter, aerosols, and mercury. Cleaner air means healthier lungs.

The Biden plan is good and if we can implement it, we will begin the heavy work of moving ourselves away from the climate-altering experiment we’ve been performing for the past century.

However, as I’ve said, securing the funding is only the first step.

I’m going to be frank, the past 2 weeks have been pretty awful. Between the chaotic and tragic scenes in Afghanistan, the terrible Supreme Court abortion ruling, the rise of people using horse de-wormer instead of an FDA approved vaccine, and the powerful, deadly hurricane I’m feeling more than a bit overwhelmed. So many people are more personally and acutely effected than me. I’m not an Afghanistan veteran or part of a Gold Star family, I don’t personally know anyone who has died of Covid-19, I wasn’t hit hard by the hurricane, and I don’t have a uterus. I recognize that all of these things are essentially priviledges for me. Still, watching these mostly preventable things happen in real time is hard to watch. Knowing that I have it easier than other people gives me no comfort.

I think it’s important to understand the role that politicians have played in all of these events. Warmongering politicians got us into Afghanistan in the first place. Anti-woman politicians passed the Texas abortion law and appointed the anti-woman justices. Anti-vaccine politicians are promoting the horse de-wormer. And climate denying politicians have prevented us from doing anything about climate.

Even this week, Senator Joe Manchin published an infuriating op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, a fitting place for such a piece, stating that Democrats should hit the pause button on their $3.5T spending package. This package includes President Biden’s two signature climate policies: the clean energy payment plan, and the extension of the clean energy tax credits. Even these two market-based schemes will probably be inadequate, but it’s the best he could do under the Senate’s crazy, anti-democratic structure.

And now Manchin’s op-ed has put us on our heels at the last minute. Is he bluffing? Is he just trying to appear “fiscally conservative”? In Manchin’s defense, he has a tendency to make big, bold proclamations challenging Democratic leadership only to vote along with his party when the time comes. Maybe that’s why his Senate colleagues aren’t ringing alarm bells.

If he and the other so-called moderates need to extract their pound of flesh, then so be it. But there’s a limit.

I apologize for sounding so negative in a climate solutions post. As I said, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed.

The most important thing we can do for the climate is elect leaders who will take the issue seriously. In a perfect world, Democrats, Republicans and third parties would all work together on this issue. We’d be arguing about how to fight it, not whether or not we should.

If you’re a Republican or know a Republican, encourage them to vote in primaries. Vote for candidates who acknowledge climate change and want to do something about it. If you’re a Democrat, do the same in Democratic primaries. But more importantly, vote in as many primaries and elections as you’re legally allowed. Every level of government has a roll to play, and lower level elections, like the recall in California or the state elections in Virginia that are both coming up soon, tend to have very low turnout. Cities and state legislatures have the ability to make great progress on these issues, but the most reliable voters tend to be older and more conservative.

Climate change is fundamentally a political problem. We don’t need some magic technology, we have solutions already. We need to implement them as soon and as widely as possible. Every president since LBJ has known about climate change and every president since LBJ has failed miserably to address it. Some presidents, notably Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, actively worked to make things worse.

We’re running out of time to get this right. Vote, march, organize, run for office, do something to get the needle moving. Politicians who deny climate action must be punished at the ballot box. Systems that unfairly allow those politicians to stay in power must be altered.