• WE ARE PROMOTING A STRATEGY AND BUSINESS CASE

    for building a fusion energy plant in Canada

  • ENERGY FROM FUSION IS

    abundant, safe, reliable, lowest environmental impact, economical, a base-load energy source and an ideal complement to existing fossil fuel generation.

  • WE PROMOTE EXCELLENCE

    in commercialization engineering of Fusion Energy across Canada

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US NASEM Fusion Debrief with FECC & OCNI

The Fusion Energy Council of Canada (FECC) and the Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries (OCNI) is pleased to present a special debriefing on a milestone report regarding fusion energy.

Abstract 

 In 2020 the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) assembled a committee to provide guidance to the U.S. Department of Energy, and others, that are aligned with the objective of constructing a pilot plant in the United States that produces electricity from fusion at the lowest possible capital cost, i.e. a “Fusion Pilot Plant”.  The report’s finding will be presented by three of the committee members, followed by a Q&A session with participants. The primary recommendation of the study is that “For the United States to be a leader in fusion and to make an impact on the transition to a low-carbon emission electrical system by 2050, the Department of Energy and the private sector should produce net electricity in a fusion pilot plant in the United States in the 2035—2040 timeframe.”

Presenters from the US NASEM committee include:

R. J. Hawryluk, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
K. McCarthy, Oak Ridge National Lab, Director US-ITER
D. Whyte, MIT, Director Plasma Science & Fusion Center

and joining the discussion

M. Campbell, U. Rochester, Director Laboratory for Laser Energetics

UNLIMITED ENERGY

“Fusion, the nuclear reaction that powers the Sun and the stars, is a source of safe, non-carbon emitting and virtually limitless energy…”
– ITER Organization

FECC / OCNI 2021 FUSION WEBINAR

To learn about the challenges of harnessing nuclear fusion and about the almost limitless energy that fusion can bring to future generations, watch the first Fusion event under the auspices of the FECC-OCNI MOU signed on March 11, 2021.

Given the extraordinary clean-energy production potential of fusion, the webinar starts with a comparative overview of fission and fusion fundamentals. The scientific and technical challenges of fusion energy production are then objectively characterized. Followed by an outline at a high level of the implications of fusion energy deployment and uses for business, government, and the environment, together with their opportunities and risks.

The presentation, given by Dr. Axel Meisen (FECC Interim President) and Dr. Robert Fedosejevs (FECC Board Member at Large and Professor, University of Alberta) is followed by a question-and-answer session, in which Allan Offenberger (Professor Emeritus, University of Alberta and Founding President, Fusion Energy Council of Canada).

Watch Webinar Here: 

WHAT IS FUSION?

Fusion is the energy source of the Sun and stars. In the tremendous heat and gravity at the core of these stellar bodies, hydrogen nuclei collide, fuse into heavier helium atoms and release tremendous amounts of energy in the process.

Twentieth-century fusion science identified the most efficient fusion reaction in the laboratory setting to be the reaction between two hydrogen isotopes, deuterium (D) and tritium (T). The DT fusion reaction produces the highest energy gain at the “lowest” temperatures.

Three conditions must be fulfilled to achieve fusion in a laboratory: very high temperature (on the order of 150,000,000° Celsius); sufficient plasma particle density (to increase the likelihood that collisions do occur); and sufficient confinement time (to hold the plasma, which has a propensity to expand, within a defined volume).

At extreme temperatures, electrons are separated from nuclei and a gas becomes a plasma—often referred to as the fourth state of matter. Fusion plasmas provide the environment in which light elements can fuse and yield energy.

– ITER Organization