The Race for Fusion: Will America Secure the Critical Components?
A new report from SCSP on the Fusion Supply Chain
Yesterday, we concluded two jam-packed days at our AI+Space Summit. Together, we explored space security, commercial space, and space exploration in the age of AI. Thank you to our amazing speakers and everyone who attended in person and followed along online. If you missed it, you can enjoy all of the sessions on our SCSP YouTube Channel!
In today’s newsletter, Caleb Barnes, Associate Director for Fusion, previews the release of SCSP’s new Fusion Supply Chain Report, out today. Also out, is an opinion piece by SCSP President, Ylli Bajraktari, in the Washington Times: The U.S. is Losing the Fusion Race to China. We hope you enjoy.
Fusion, the combining of light atoms to release energy, is the future of the American energy grid. It will be an emissionless, inherently safe source of electricity and heat that could be built anywhere. It stands as an optimal solution to the increases in energy demand that Americans are noticing every year.
But it only matters if we can build it.
Fusion’s chain of supplies should look fundamentally different from the large power plants that burn natural gas, coal, biomass, or even uranium. Among the promises of fusion is the ability to create its own fuel. Once fusion power plants are fully developed, blankets of lithium will breed more fuel than the power plant consumes, creating a fuel cycle unlike anything yet on the market.
But a fusion industry will still need a developed supply chain, with all the challenges and opportunities that offers. At its current scale, fusion power mostly depends on advanced manufactured components. As it scales, it may require new levels of mining and production of some raw materials.
For a number of components, China stands to control the supply chain. China cornered the market in solar panels and rare earths with a focus on government-subsidized production, and is well on the way towards doing the same with electric vehicles. China has already poised themselves to become a leader in producing a number of the vital components for fusion machines, but targeted actions today could secure the industry for tomorrow.
SCSP’s U.S. Fusion Supply Chain Report evaluates a number of fusion supply chain inputs, ranking each component by the number of companies that will use it and the funding raised by those companies, then grading the risk level of each input to supply chain disruption and its notable constituent materials. For inputs with a risk level of “Medium” or higher, the report suggests policy mitigations to ensure that American companies will have access to the relevant components and materials.
Not all components will be used by all companies. To clarify this, we created a Commercial Fusion Ecosystem Map to show which components will be used in which fusion approaches. It’s still unknown which fusion approaches will be best technically or economically. This report contextualizes the needs of each approach.
A few components stand out as the most threatened to the companies that will use them. A supply of enriched lithium-6 (for breeding fuel) is one such problem, but it could be solved by opening a facility to pursue one of a number of novel enrichment techniques, and may be incidentally solved by advanced fission companies demanding lithium enriched in its other naturally occurring isotope, lithium-7. High-temperature superconductors allow fusion machines to be much smaller and more efficient, and China has dramatically begun to scale up their production to eclipse the former industry leaders. Laser diodes and Capacitors could each become the largest individual cost for certain inertial fusion companies, and access to a cheap domestic supply would greatly help those companies achieve their aims. Beryllium and Cryogenics are two inputs where America and its allies have a current lead in production, but will need to increase in scale for a working fusion industry.
These potential problems and opportunities all have solutions. Tax credits (like 45x and 48c) are a common potential solution to entice domestic manufacture of fusion inputs. Other components will require more bespoke, individualized solutions.
For more about fusion energy, read the report of SCSP’s Commission on the Scaling of Fusion Energy, Fusion Forward: Powering America’s Future.