Energy & Environment — US wants commercial fusion in 10 years

by Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk - 12/13/22 7:07 PM ET

The U.S. has achieved a net gain from fusion energy and hopes to deploy it in the next decade, despite potential hurdles. Meanwhile, the Senate will vote on whether to include Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) permitting reform amendment in a defense spending bill, and climate change is making the Arctic warmer and wetter.

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Researchers achieve fusion breakthrough

Scientists at a federal facility have created more energy from nuclear fusion reactions than they used to start the process, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm confirmed on Tuesday.

Granholm said the development moved the country significantly closer to the possibility of fusion energy, a carbon-free source, with officials calling the discovery a breakthrough.

“This is one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century,” Granholm said at a press conference, adding that researchers have been working on the effort for 60 years.

Hold on, what’s fusion?

Nuclear fusion refers to fusing atoms together to produce energy.
The type of nuclear energy that is commonly used today does the opposite, deriving energy from splitting atoms apart.
For decades, scientists have sought to advance nuclear fusion as a clean energy source that doesn’t produce the radioactive waste that occurs when atoms are split apart.
Yet it may have some radioactive byproducts that stay at the power plant site and do not require long-term storage like current nuclear waste, an expert recently told The Hill.

The timeline is a bit unclear:

Granholm said that the administration had a goal of achieving commercial fusion within a decade.
However, at the press conference, Kim Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where the breakthrough occurred, said it could take “decades” before the technology is commercialized.
“There are very significant hurdles” in both science and technology, Budil said. But, she added, “with real investment and real focus, that timescale can move closer.”

Playing defense?

Marvin Adams, deputy administrator for defense programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration, said fusion is also “an essential process in modern nuclear weapons.”
He said it would support the country’s national security by bolstering the image that “we know what we’re doing” to deter other countries from attacking the U.S.

More from The Hill:

Five takeaways from the fusion energy breakthrough

Senate to vote on Manchin’s permitting amendment

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is granting Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) another stab at getting his effort to speed up approvals for the country’s energy projects into a defense spending bill.

Schumer earlier this year promised Manchin that he’d support his energy approval efforts, known as permitting reform, in exchange for Manchin’s vote on the Democrats’ major climate, tax and health care bill.
“Yes, we’re going to vote on that amendment. As you know, Republicans blocked it in the House even though permitting reform is something that they’ve always supported in the past, so I hope they’ll help us and support it,” Schumer told reporters on Tuesday.

Manchin announced that he’d put forward the policies, which include faster timelines for environmental reviews, giving the federal government authority to direct electric transmission lines and approving a natural gas pipeline in West Virginia, as an amendment to this year’s annual defense spending bill after it was not included in the bill’s text.

The spending bill already passed the House without Manchin’s amendment and will need to get reapproved if the amendment ultimately ends up attached to it.

But what are the prospects?

It’s not clear whether the latest amendment push will be able to garner the necessary support. Six Democrats said in a letter last week that they opposed putting the energy policies into the defense bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Previously, a handful of other Senate Democrats and a sizable contingent of House Democrats also expressed opposition on environmental grounds despite support from Schumer and other Democrats who argue that a faster process is also needed to build out carbon-free energy sources.

Though Manchin made some changes aimed at getting Republicans on board, the push also faces headwinds there, with some Republicans saying the changes don’t go far enough.

Republicans have also expressed hostility to helping Manchin after he supported the Democrats’ climate and tax bill. And the party may be hesitant to hand a legislative win to Manchin, who faces a tough reelection bid in 2024.

CLIMATE CHANGE MAKING THE ARCTIC WARMER, WETTER

Climate change made conditions in the Arctic wetter and stormier in 2022, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The NOAA report determined the past year has been the region’s sixth-warmest year on record, and the Greenland ice sheet lost ice for the 25th consecutive year.

Annual air temperatures in the Arctic between October 2021 and September 2022 were the sixth warmest dating back to 1900. Overall, surface air temperatures were about 0.73 degrees Celsius warmer than the average from 1991 to 2020. All of the 10 recorded years for the Arctic were later than 2011.
The trend applied on land as well, according to the federal agency. Land temperatures were 1.31 degrees warmer than the 1991-2020 average.
Summer 2022 in particular featured “contrasting extremes,” according to NOAA. The past summer was the third wettest recorded in the region in
72 years, with the wet conditions particularly affecting areas in southern and southeastern Alaska. Parts of northern Norway, meanwhile, saw their highest-ever levels of rainfall for July.

WHAT WE’RE READING

One of climate change’s great mysteries is finally being solved (The Washington Post)
Coal plant tied to W.Va. governor faces $1M fine (E&E News)
Colorado air quality regulators miscalculated oil and gas emissions in latest plan to improve ozone pollution (The Denver Post)
Taking to the Woods With Maine’s ‘Tree Tippers’ (The New York Times)