We’re heading to Stockholm now to hear from Peter Roos, the Chief Executive Officer at Novatron Fusion. As the name implies, he works in fusion energy – which is the process where lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a single, heavier nucleus, releasing immense amounts of energy. This is the same reaction that powers the Sun, and its potential to provide clean, and some say limitless energy, has captivated scientists for more than a century. But Peter and his team think they may have cracked it. Chris Smith began by asking him to explain the challenges, and how he thinks he may have overcome them…
Peter – The approach is to actually try to industrialise fusion, work that has been done for so many years, almost 100 years now, how to harness the process that is in the core of the Sun that gives us the energy that we can live on here on Earth as well. And it didn’t take many seconds for humanity and the scientists to think, wow, now that we understand that process, how can we make that happen on Earth? Can we do that on a small scale, some kind of technology that we can use to do this? Because it would be safe. It would be more or less endless of energy because the fuel is abundant, and it would be a stable base load power that would serve all the needs that we will have for humanity without having any bad aspects to climate or sustainability and the environment. But obviously, we don’t have fusion reactors here on Earth yet because it’s really, really tricky to do that. And you need to have extremely high temperatures. We’re talking about 150 million degrees or more, which is 10 times higher than the temperature in the core of the Sun. Science has driven it to a stage where we have solved most of the problems, but still a few small hurdles left. One of them is to have a stable confinement of these so-called fusion plasma. That is, when you heat up hydrogen gas to these extremely high temperatures, the atoms rip apart, and this plasma is hard to contain in this machine without touching the vessel boundaries. That is what all the different projects around the world is now trying to solve to be able to have fusion energy for humanity.
Chris – And how does your approach differ? Or if there are lots and lots of projects trying to crack this nut, and it has proved to be a very hard nut to crack for decades, what’s your approach?
Peter -To be able to do that, having this extremely high tempered plasma, you need to have it in a vacuum vessel because it can’t really touch anything. It’s obvious that we don’t have any materials that can stand the type of heat. So it needs to be floating in mid-vacuum. And we use magnets, strong magnetic force to make sure that the plasma is floating in this, in the middle of these vacuum vessels. And this is the tricky part, because it’s like balancing a ball on top of a bowl that is upside down. It’s kind of an unstable confinement of the plasma, where the plasma really wants to hit the walls of this vessel. And when it does, the process just stops. That is what most approaches are trying to do.
Chris – And is Novotron Fusion better at doing the balancing act?
Peter – Exactly. Because what we are doing is, instead, we have the ball inside that bowl. By having a magnetic configuration that has this type of behaviour, it will be a self-stabilising solution, something that is inherently stable, which is rather the opposite from all the other concepts.
Chris – What’s been the breakthrough that’s enabled you to realise that, that others have not?
Peter – This insight has been known for decades, actually, but no one has really figured out how to design the magnets and to create the magnetic field, which this type of properties, with this concave in all directions behaviour. And that is what our inventor here in Sweden, Jan Jäderberg, really figured out. At the same time, the magnetic field doesn’t need to be very, very strong, as long as it has this shape. And this was something that he presented to scientists, and they were saying, this is the missing piece. This is the solution that will add the stability that we’re lacking right now.
Chris – Have you tested it?
Peter – We have built the first machine, the NOVATRON 1, here in Stockholm. It has been commissioned, and we’ve been running it for one year now, doing experiments. And so far, it looks really, really good.
Chris – You’re optimistic then? You think this is going to work? This is one of the most exciting interviews about nuclear fusion, I think I’ve heard in a very long time, because actually someone is saying to me, we have a possible solution.
Peter – Yeah, I hope so. Actually, we think we have what we’re missing. We are convinced. Yeah, we have found something that dramatically reduces the complexity of building such a machine. And that gives us hope.
Chris – What are you going to be doing in Davos?
Peter – We see that one of the big things about making commercial fusion a reality is that we need to understand, and make people understand, that there are large economical values in this as well. But there are also big discussions that need to be held regarding the fairness about access to energy. The countries that are really lacking energy, like Sub-Sahara, for instance, or places in Asia. What economical muscles should we use to make sure that this type of technology is not only implemented here in the Western countries, but on a global scale? What is our responsibility to humanity to make sure that we have a solution that works well for all people?
Chris – The classic line is that fusion is 10 years away, and it always will be. Are you telling me that quote is now going to be wrong? What is your timeline then to do this, including doing it in an equal and fair way?
Peter – What people have been saying for quite a long time is that it’s like 30 years away, and always will be 30 years away. So your 10 years is pretty optimistic. But we try to combine optimism with realism and say that we will be able to produce energy to the grid before 2040. For us to be able to do that, some things need to be fulfilled, like the financial muscles need to be there to make sure that all these different technologies that are needed to be developed, can be done, but also we talk about regulations, a political will, different type of partnerships, all those things needs to be aligned to be able to do that. But we see that it can be done. It is not unrealistic to have it at least ready for 2040, maybe even earlier, if we are really convinced that this is a necessity for humanity.