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US Fusion Firm Eyes Australia for Mid-2030s Plant
28 Dec
Summary
- A US company aims for a commercial fusion plant in Australia by mid-2030s.
- Fusion technology seeks to replicate sun's conditions for clean energy.
- Australian experts express skepticism about commercial fusion viability.
A US company, Type One Energy, is pursuing ambitious plans to construct a commercial nuclear fusion power plant in Australia by the mid-2030s. This venture, centered around stellarator technology which uses intense heat and magnetic fields to fuse atoms, aims to generate vast amounts of clean energy. The company is currently building a testbed facility in Tennessee and has expressed interest in deploying a 350MW reactor in Australia, projecting costs as low as $US2 billion per plant.
Despite the company's confidence, the scientific community in Australia is cautious. Fusion power, while theoretically a source of abundant, clean energy, has yet to demonstrate commercial viability. Only one experiment has reportedly produced more energy than it consumed, and this was not in a typical reactor configuration. Significant scientific and technical challenges persist, leading organizations like CSIRO to exclude fusion from their energy modeling.
