Edward Conard

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Upside of Inequality Oxford Unintended Consequences

AI Summary. A peer-reviewed analysis of a conceptual General Fusion plant design found that, because the plant consumes energy itself, only about 40% of its electricity would be available for sale, requiring it to generate more than twice as much power as a conventional thermal plant to deliver the same amount to the grid.

Ryohtaroh Satoh Financial Times
Date Posted:

Steven Cowley, director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, says he is “confident” that a fusion plant will be built by the end of the 2030s, but cautions it will be a “technology experiment,” not a commercial project.

How much of a fusion plant's electricity is available for sale?

Core argument: Adam Jackson’s peer-reviewed paper on General Fusion’s 2023 conceptual plant design found only about 40% of the electricity generated would be available for sale to the grid, with the rest consumed by the plant itself.

Adam Jackson, a former systems engineer at General Fusion, thinks fusion companies are unrealistic about electricity pricing. In a peer-reviewed paper published after he left, Jackson analysed a conceptual plant design by General Fusion from 2023. Because the plant itself was consuming energy, only about 40% of the electricity would be available for sale to the grid. General Fusion estimates that the cost of building and operating a fusion plant over its lifetime will be $64-$73 per MWh of electricity it produces. Commonwealth Fusion Systems, the industry’s biggest player backed by Google, has a target of about $50/MWh for its commercial plant, while stressing that the figure is a guideline. In the US, electricity from a new nuclear power plant costs about $71/MWh, while solar from a farm, rather than rooftops, may cost about $38/MWh.

Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI

  1. Adam Jackson’s peer-reviewed paper on General Fusion’s 2023 conceptual plant design found only about 40% of the electricity generated would be available for sale to the grid, with the rest consumed by the plant itself.
  2. Jackson’s paper found that a fusion plant would need to generate more than twice as much electricity as a conventional thermal power plant to deliver the same amount to the grid.
  3. General Fusion estimates lifetime build and operating costs of $64–$73/MWh and Commonwealth Fusion Systems targets about $50/MWh as a guideline, against roughly $71/MWh for electricity from a new US nuclear plant and about $38/MWh for solar farms.

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