The Star Builders Read online

  You may wonder why anyone would bother trying to re-create the fusion taking place in stars. Is it sheer arrogance? Such attempts to dominate nature can sound like human folly. It’s true that star builders are partially attracted by the sheer challenge. The theoretical physicists and computer scientists want to know if their models and simulations can come close to reality. The experimentalists want to understand and measure untold extremes. The engineers want to build machines that can withstand such extremes. But there’s another reason too, one that’s much more important for the rest of us. Building a star and perfecting power from nuclear fusion could provide humanity with millions, perhaps billions, of years of clean energy. When the BBC asked Professor Stephen Hawking what world-changing idea he would like to see humanity implement, he said, “the development of fusion power to give an unlimited supply of clean energy.” No wonder star power is sometimes described as the “Holy Grail of energy production.”6

  Like the Holy Grail, fusion has been elusive. This has spawned a delightful range of jokes. Most star builders have their favorite, but perhaps the most pointed is “Fusion is the energy of the future… and always will be,” with common variations along the lines of “Fusion is thirty years away… and always will be.” The British prime minister had his own go in 2019, saying of a European Commission–run fusion lab: “They are on the verge of creating commercially viable miniature fusion reactors for sale around the world. Now I know they have been on the verge for some time. It is a pretty spacious kind of verge.”7

  Certainly, it wasn’t meant to be this way. “It is the firm belief of many of the physicists actively engaged in controlled fusion research in this country that all of the scientific and technological problems of controlled fusion will be mastered—perhaps in the next few years,” said early star builder Richard Post, a scientist at the predecessor of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. That was in 1956.8

  For a long time, the commitment of a scientist to fusion was measured in decades rather than years. The tribe of star builders around the world transcends language, political leaning, and cultural differences. A good example is how, at the height of the Cold War, a British team went over to Russia to find out about and verify the then astonishing progress of a new, Soviet-designed magnetic confinement fusion device. Or how China, Russia, the US, the EU, India, South Korea, and Japan are working together today on the direct descendent of that Soviet machine. Even with an unusual spirit of collaboration, government backing, and very talented people, great patience has been required. As lifelong star builder Marshall Rosenbluth put it in 1985, “May our grandchildren live to see fusion power.”9

  Perhaps one of the issues making nuclear fusion difficult is its name. Say that a technology involves “nuclear” anything and you may find yourself getting a frosty reception. You can see why nuclear has a bad reputation in some quarters. Most commonly, it’s associated with nuclear fission power, which divides opinion and produces radioactive waste that we’ll have to store for thousands of years. At worst, it’s associated with the death and destruction wrought by nuclear weapons. Star builders have a lot to say about why nuclear is not automatically bad. Nuclear is a tool like any other technology. We’ve seen its worst already, they say; now it’s time to see its best.

  Their arguments that nuclear fusion could help save the planet have stirred interest among the public. Sir Steve Cowley, a professor who now runs a star machine at Princeton University, has given a talk on fusion that has received more than half a million views; Taylor Wilson, who built his first fusion reactor at fourteen, has a TED Talk that’s racked up millions of views.10 Some fusion start-ups have tapped into the interest directly through crowdfunding websites.11 Even Hollywood has caught the fusion buzz: both Batman and Spider-Man have grappled with evil star machines.

  Whether all the talk about fusion has propelled fusion research or, rather, scientific breakthroughs have increased the chatter, there’s no question that the race to achieve fusion is heating up. There’s a wave of new or overhauled star machines coming online. There are more competing teams than ever. There’s been a sudden rise in the number of private fusion start-ups, creating the biggest shake-up in star building since the 1960s. Despite the risks of dealing with matter at extremes, investors are betting that private firms can succeed where governments have failed. By 2019, the new fusion start-ups had received funding in excess of $1 billion.12

  “An energy miracle is coming, and it’s going to change the world,” says Bill Gates, who has sunk some of his cash into one fusion start-up. PayPal founder, billionaire, and member of former President Trump’s inner circle Peter Thiel has done the same, investing $1.5 million in 2014.13 Other Silicon Valley entrepreneurs involved in fusion include Jeff Bezos, executive chairman of Amazon, and, before his death in 2018, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen.14 Goldman Sachs has plowed money into an effort, Lockheed Martin has its own initiative, and even fossil fuel firms like Chevron are hedging their bets by investing in fusion. In a sign of the times, one fusion scheme is backed by Brad Pitt; another by a reality TV star, Richard Dinan of the UK’s Made in Chelsea. Dinan has posted pictures on social media of what looks to be a photo shoot inside a reactor vessel (“Just chilling in my fusion reactor”).15

  Such is the activity that a fusion industry lobby was recently formed and the US House of Representatives passed a bill unlocking hundreds of millions of dollars of funding for public-private fusion partnerships.16 It’s not just eccentric Silicon Valley entrepreneurs funding fusion; Legal & General Capital, the early-stage investment arm of Europe’s second largest institutional investor, is making “modest” investments in nuclear fusion. Senior investment analyst at Legal & General Nicola Daly said, “Nuclear fusion has the potential to be a game-changer in a world that needs some game-changers.”17 But it goes bigger still: the governments of Canada, Malaysia, and Russia are hedging their bets by putting cash into challenger fusion firms alongside their existing science programs.

  The British PM may have joked that fusion was taking longer than expected, but his speech also announced an additional £200 million (approximately $270 million) of funding. The Obama administration’s science advisor argued that fusion needs much more investment. In 2016, the German chancellor Angela Merkel, who also holds a PhD in quantum chemistry, launched a new experimental fusion reactor with the words “Every step we are taking on the long road towards a fusion power plant is a success.”18

  As well as the international experiments that are in progress, governments around the world are beginning to pursue home-grown fusion reactors. International collaborations can be slow because they become mired in discussion about where facilities will be built (and so who receives the benefits of investment) and who will build their components. Running a parallel in-house scheme is expensive but could allow a nation to leapfrog the competition.

  “Currently, megajoule scale lasers are under construction in both France and Russia. The Chinese have completed and are operating the second most energetic laser in the world and are publishing papers with designs for lasers fifty percent to three times the size of NIF,” testified Dr. Mark Herrmann, director of NIF, to the US House of Representatives in 2018.19

  China will begin construction of a net energy gain–capable magnetic fusion device in Hefei in the 2020s, using the knowledge they have honed on a smaller but similar machine called EAST. They also have an inertial confinement site called the Shenguang-III laser facility. A Russian news agency released a video in 2019 confirming their government was building a facility to rival America’s National Ignition Facility, although details have been scarce. In 2020, there were eighty-eight fusion reactors in operation around the world, with a further nine under construction. Public and private, big and small, star machines are taking off.20

  Everyone is talking about the new wave of innovation.21 One estimate by the International Atomic Energy Agency suggests that the annually published number of peer-reviewed research papers on fusion for ene
rgy has more than tripled since the mid-1990s. Net energy gain used to be decades away, and always would be. Now both start-ups and national laboratories are saying that net energy gain is a question not of if, but when. Not decades, but years. Not how, but who—who will get there first? In this book, we’re going on a journey to find out why fusion is so important to the Universe, how it could be transformative for planet Earth, and who is closest to taming its tremendous energy. Whoever does achieve net energy gain first is going to fundamentally change how fusion is seen. Just as occurred with flight, once “fusion for energy” is clearly demonstrated, an explosion of innovation will be unleashed. And from there the path may open to powering the planet.

  CHAPTER 1 THE STAR BUILDERS

  “If, indeed, the sub-atomic energy in the stars is being freely used to maintain their great furnaces, it seems to bring a little nearer to fulfilment our dream of controlling this latent power for the well-being of the human race, or for its suicide.”

  —Arthur Eddington, “The Internal Constitution of the Stars,” 19201

  Who are the fusion pioneers aiming, like Prometheus, to steal the secret of fire from the heavens? The individuals who are bold enough—some might say “crazy enough”—to try to bring star power to Earth? Throughout this book we’ll be meeting them and learning why they’ve dedicated their lives to the fusion dream.

  The first star builder I meet as I try to find out who is ahead in the nuclear race is Dr. Mark Herrmann, the gentle-mannered director of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

  Like everyone I meet here at NIF, Mark opens our conversation by stressing that managing the United States’ stockpile of nuclear weapons is the primary mission of both NIF and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The scientists here are tasked with maintaining America’s nuclear deterrent and understanding how aging nuclear weapons deteriorate over time. This is why the entire site is protected by armed guards and lined with serious-looking double fences. As I walked along Livermore’s winding paths to get to my meeting with Mark in the NIF visitors’ center, I passed numerous other buildings that were strictly no entry for those without security clearance. Inside, the weapons secrets of the most powerful nuclear state on Earth are held. The combination of high security and the brightly colored visitors’ center might seem incongruous, but everyone I talk to is friendly and seems to have found peace with their responsibilities, Mark especially.

  Livermore does a vast range of science in addition to weapons research and nuclear fusion; super-computing, climate change, and the creation and discovery of new elements (including livermorium, which is named after the lab). Make no mistake, this is big science—NIF alone has 650 staff who are managed, ultimately, by Mark. I begin by asking him how close the lab is to demonstrating net energy gain.

  “By the end of the 2020s we’ll have achieved ignition or have an ignition facility under construction,” he says, his eyebrows jumping above the rim of his thick glasses to make the point. “Ignition” means a high net energy gain from nuclear fusion in which the reactions really take off and become self-sustaining, like a roaring fire. Mark has been working on unlocking energy from atoms for more than two decades, and leading NIF since 2014. Although he has graying hair and a salt-and-pepper goatee, he’s full of energy and enthusiasm for NIF’s mission.

  Mark was previously employed at the Sandia National Laboratory, where he was the director of the Z Pulse Power Facility, another machine that combines classified and open science. When I ask why he’s at NIF, he tells me that he got into fusion research because of the interesting science and the long-term benefit for humanity. His first step in the field was completing his PhD in 1998 at Princeton and writing an award-winning thesis on the rival magnetic confinement approach. Shortly after, he joined Livermore to work on inertial confinement fusion.

  Despite Livermore’s focus on stockpile stewardship, one of the laboratory’s long-term goals is inertial fusion energy, and always has been since its founding in 1952. Mark is clear that NIF is the world’s best hope for understanding fusion, and he tells me that it’s the only facility that has the prospect of achieving net energy gain in the next decade. That’s controversial given that other fusion laboratories and start-ups are claiming that they’re ahead. Earlier in the day, Dr. Bruno Van Wonterghem, NIF’s operations manager, told me that the extent to which Livermore is explicitly pursuing fusion has gone through “highs and lows,” perhaps hinting that the political weather might be why everyone I spoke to began our conversation by telling me the primary objective was maintaining the United States’ nuclear arsenal.

  I ask Mark about the tension between managing nuclear weapons and pursuing fusion energy. “Holistically it’s all stockpile stewardship.” What he means is that the physics of fusion reactions is similar whether those reactions are occurring in a thermonuclear weapon, in a fusion reactor, or in space.

  One person in particular is representative of the strides that NIF has made since 2013, and is also most emblematic of the paradox of mass destruction and planet-saving energy provision that characterizes Livermore’s portfolio: Dr. Omar Hurricane, NIF’s chief scientist. You’d be forgiven for thinking that he was the star of an action film with a name like that; as it is, he’s something of a star in the inertial confinement fusion community. His thesis advisor was the UK’s previous star builder–in-chief Professor Sir Steve Cowley, but after Omar finished his PhD at UCLA in 1994, he left magnetic confinement fusion in favor of an inertial confinement fusion job at Lawrence Livermore.

  “I got hired into the weapons program instead,” he tells me, as we sit down to talk. He was irked by his rejection but made the most of the unexpected career he found himself in. After nuclear testing ended in 1992, a different type of stockpile stewardship was required. “How can we be confident about certifying the nuclear stockpile,” Omar says, “when we’re not doing experiments anymore? That led to the stockpile stewardship program, my generation.” He was involved in extending the lifetime of the W87, a thermonuclear bomb that is used in intercontinental ballistic missiles.

  Omar isn’t afraid of celebrating his successes: “I’m pretty good at making mathematical models of things, even things that aren’t my area,” he says, and explains that, following the worse-than-expected performance of fusion experiments at NIF, “the director of the lab saw it wasn’t going well and asked me and a few others from the weapons program, ‘Would you be willing to jump in and help?’ And so I jumped in with other colleagues. The experiments were quite successful [and in] late 2013, early 2014, we started getting some exciting results. All of a sudden, I got asked whether I wanted to be chief scientist.”

  Under Omar’s leadership, laser fusion experiments performed at NIF in 2018 released sixty times the energy of experiments on the same machine in 2011. But NIF isn’t the only front-runner with decades of experience in nuclear fusion.

  Five thousand miles away, a UK government laboratory called the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy has the latest iteration in a line of fusion machines that goes back decades. It’s now the world’s leading operational magnetic fusion facility. Unlike Livermore or Sandia in the USA, Culham doesn’t do classified weapons science. The site isn’t protected by armed guards, although on my way in I did see some pretty mean-looking ducks. Star power is the sole mission.

  Professor Ian Chapman leads both the laboratory and the UK Atomic Energy Authority, the arm’s-length civil service organization tasked with star building. Ian Chapman is exactly what you’d expect if you crossed a scientist with a civil servant. He wears a suit and tie (unusual for scientists), but it’s out of respect for the seniority of his position rather than pretense. He has close-shaved hair and a broad grin. He’s thoughtful, talkative, and polite, but he’s also not one to mince his words. That’s useful if you’re trying to steer a fifteen-hundred-person laboratory. Most of his staff are scientists, each with their own interests, and I imagine the internal management of
Culham involves a degree of cat-herding. He sees his role in leading the world’s largest (for now) magnetic fusion experiment as a duty, though he clearly misses being in the details.

  “I’m chief executive and my role here is fundraising, stakeholder management, dealing with the government, Brexit”—he chuckles, acknowledging the scale of that particular challenge for Culham, whose biggest fusion experiment is funded directly by the European Commission—“all that not very fun stuff.”

  We’re talking in Chapman’s office, which, despite his responsibilities, looks like the inside of an office trailer on a building site. The only hints that it might not be are the equations on the whiteboard. Ian is another award-winning scientist, having bagged the latest of many trophies in 2017 for research on the stability of magnetic fusion experiments. I ask him about the prize and he’s characteristically self-deprecating.

  “I used to be a scientist—yeah, I just received an award for science I used to do. I spent thirteen years doing proper science, but I’ve written off doing any real work while Brexit is happening, as that’s going to occupy me for years.”

  It’s worth noting that the award was for outstanding early career research. Ian has risen remarkably fast. He went from finishing his PhD in 2008, to making groundbreaking contributions to science, to running the world’s most successful fusion experiment in less than a decade.2 Given his inexperience, his appointment was described by some as a risk.

  “It’s a risk in that I didn’t have decades of experience running big organizations with thousands of people. Conversely, had you appointed someone who knew how to organize but didn’t have a passion and a knowledge about fusion, you’d be taking a risk at the other end. It’s clear that I have a passion about fusion. I’m also the right age profile to make it happen, shall we say,” the thirty-eight-year-old adds, smiling.