#98 The Fuel for Nuclear Fusion Doesn’t Exist
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By Steven B. Krivit
Jan. 12, 2022 (Updated Jan. 27, 2022)
This is a summary article. This a short encapsulation of two other very detailed articles about fusion fuel.
The Tritium Fusion Fuel Discrepancy: The Scientific Facts
Lithium, Lithium, Everywhere, and None to Use for Fusion Reactors
Although deuterium is abundant and available as a natural resource, tritium is not. Some fusion scientists say that they can produce all the tritium they need for fusion reactors by breeding tritium from lithium. This claim is not supported by the science. There is no known way to breed tritium fast enough from enriched lithium. There is also no known legal, non-toxic way to produce the necessary industrial quantities of enriched lithium. The scientists know this. Some of them have been transparent about communicating it. Others have not. Without a source for tritium, without a source for tons of enriched lithium, fusion will never be a source of energy.
Many fusion scientists and their publicists have told investors and members of the public that the fuel for deuterium-tritium fusion reactors is “abundant, virtually inexhaustible, and equally accessible to everyone.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. These wonderful qualities apply to deuterium but not to tritium. Fusion reactors will need a 50/50 mixture of deuterium and tritium.
Tritium Sources
Tritium does not exist as a natural resource. Tritium is a government-controlled, radioactive material produced by an aging fleet of specialized nuclear fission reactors that will not be replaced. The cost for tritium ranges from $30,000 per gram to $100,000 per gram. All of these special fission reactors are scheduled to be decommissioned by 2060, with no known replacements planned. (References and Sources)
Lithium-6 Sources
Fusion scientists know this, of course, and for 50 years, they have had an alternate plan. They have hoped that fusion power plants could make their own tritium by breeding it from lithium-6. But lithium-6 cannot be mined directly from the earth or from brine pools. Processing plants must take natural lithium and enrich its percentage of lithium-6.
- Minor problem: There appear to be only two industrial-scale lithium processing plants in the world: one in China and one in Russia.
- Minor problem: The purpose of these processing plants is to separate lithium-6 for use in nuclear weapons.
- Minor problem: These plants use a toxic mercury separation technique that was banned in the United States decades ago.
- Minor problem: Although lithium-6 concentrations can be purchased in quantities of grams from chemical supply houses, fusion reactors would require tons of lithium-6.
- Minor problem: Even if a new, environmentally friendly lithium processing method were developed, a plant large enough to produce industrial-scale quantities would take 20 years to build.
(References and Sources)
In January 2022, I discussed these issues with Tony Donné, the head of EUROfusion, and asked Donné about his planned source for the tons of enriched lithium needed for his EU DEMO reactor. He confirmed, buttressed with optimism, that the enrichment technology does not exist.
“We have enough time until the fusion reactors are rolled out to develop the technology and set up plants to enrich the lithium,” Donné wrote.
Lithium in Seawater
Can lithium for fusion fuel be obtained from seawater? Today, lithium is mined from the earth and extracted from brine pools. The world is already seeing supply-chain resource conflicts for the lithium needed for batteries.
Fusion scientists say that lithium can also be obtained from seawater. For perspective, some fusion scientists also say that helium-3, as an alternate fusion fuel source, can be mined from the moon. Both statements are true. Neither statement accounts for the cost to obtain the particular fuel.
No economical method exists to harvest natural lithium from the ocean. That is because the concentration of natural lithium in seawater is dilute: roughly 0.2 ppm. Until and unless an economical method of ocean harvesting is developed, fusion fuel will need to come from conventional sources, which will only add to the current geopolitical lithium resource conflicts.
Using lithium for fusion will be even less practical than using it for batteries, because only about 7.5 percent of the lithium in that 0.2 ppm contains the needed lithium-6 isotope. Additionally, ocean-harvested lithium-6 is subject to all of the same problems as discussed above (lack of processing plants, proliferation risks, etc.) that mined lithium is.
Tritium Breeding
Putting aside all of these practical inconveniences, lithium, from the perspective of physics, can certainly breed some tritium through an induced fission reaction. The crucial question has always been whether fusion power plants can breed enough tritium. (References and Sources)
The answer, according to a peer-reviewed paper published in the preeminent journal Nuclear Fusion in 2020, is no:
We focus in particular on components, issues and research and development necessary to satisfy three “principal requirements”: (1) achieving tritium self-sufficiency within the fusion system, (2) providing a tritium inventory for the initial start-up of a fusion facility, and (3) managing the safety and biological hazards of tritium. A primary conclusion is that the physics and technology state-of-the-art will not enable [the European] DEMO [reactor] and future power plants to satisfy these principal requirements.
The authors represent some of the most renowned fusion research laboratories:
- Mohamed Abdou, University of California, Los Angeles
- Marco Riva, University of California, Los Angeles
- Alice Ying, University of California, Los Angeles
- Christian Day, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
- Alberto Loarte, ITER Organization
- R. Baylor, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- Paul Humrickhouse, Idaho National Laboratory
- Thomas F. Fuerst, Idaho National Laboratory
- Seungyon Cho, National Fusion Research Institute, Republic of Korea
(References and Sources)
The peer-reviewed scientific research from these credible scientists stands in contrast to claims by fusion promoters like Michel Laberge, the founder of General Fusion Inc. Here’s what Laberge said in a 2014 TEDx lecture in Kansas City:
The fuel that you need for fusion, you can extract it from the ocean. You can extract the fuel from the ocean for one-thousandth of a cent per kilowatt-hour. If the whole planet was run on fusion, there would be enough fuel in the ocean for 2 billion years. So there’s enough fuel, and it’s nice, and it’s clean, and it’s fantastic.
Jan. 27, 2022: This article was updated to add the Lithium in Seawater section.
March 14, 2022: This article was updated to add the paragraphs about Donné.
