Ontario bets on sparking nuclear 'renaissance' with new-generation fusion power

A next-generation fusion energy plant could come online in Ontario in as little as five years, marking a major stride forward for a technology long-considered the “holy grail” of the energy transition — and a key potential power source to meet rising provincial electricity demand.

Backed by investors including oil companies and billionaires Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, technology firms are racing to commercialize fusion and its theoretically limitless source of power as the planet shifts away from CO2-emitting fossil fuels that contribute to global warming.

But fusion has faced significant hurdles for decades and remains a “great scientific and technological challenge,” as consultant McKinsey & Co. said in a 2022 report. While fusion may have reached a turning point, "the next five to ten years will be critical" to overcoming those obstacles, it said.

Last week, the Ontario government and its largest power company, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Stellarex, a fusion company spun off from Princeton University. The aim is to make the province a frontrunner in the fusion race, with plans to develop an “intermediate-scale” version of a so-called stellarator reactor, along with a centre of excellence and supply chain for fusion energy in the province.

The MOU signed last week at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the world’s largest fusion laboratory in France, is also a first for the company-designed stellarator, a device that contains the plasma used in generating power from nuclear fusion reactions.

Fusion — unlike its more volatile cousin, fission — involves fusing rather than splitting an atom to create energy and has none of the risks commonly associated with nuclear power, such as meltdowns and disposal of radioactive waste.

"Ontario is embracing fusion energy as a transformational step-change. Working with OPG and the province, we can help bring the next generation of safe, reliable and affordable decarbonized energy to Ontario,” Stellarex Chairman Richard Carty told Canada’s National Observer.

The successful development of fusion could spark a "renaissance" for the sector and help underpin Canada's industrial development and energy security.

The announcement comes as the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), a federally backed research agency, urged Canada to catch up with its nuclear nation peers – France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom and United States – which are advancing their own fusion energy technologies.

"Canada currently provides the least government support for the development of fusion R&D and a fusion industry," CNL said in a draft strategy paper seen by CNO.

“Canada had a robust national fusion programme in the past, but has since then remained active primarily through initiatives by academic and scientific institutions and entrepreneurs,” the paper said, advocating for “far greater investment” from both public and private actors.

The "broad deployment" of domestic and international fusion plants could deliver between $232 billion and $523 billion in economic benefits to Canada by 2100, CNL said, depending on the level of investment and policy support. Major fusion plant projects could create more than 63,000 jobs by 2050.

"With the appropriate strategic investments, Canada could access export markets with a cumulative value of over $147 billion by 2100," the paper said.

However, commercialization of the technology so far has been slow. The first controlled thermonuclear tests by Lyman Spitzer at Princeton University took place during the Cold War, under the code name Project Matterhorn, which led to the development of the concept of a “stellarator” in 1951.

Stellarators emerged in the early 1950s along with Russian-made tokamak reactors as researchers pondered how to create magnetic fields to trap and heat plasma to temperatures necessary for fusion to produce power. The main difference between the two technologies is the placement of the coils that generate the magnetic fields in the reactor core.

In 2022 and 2023, the U.S. government-backed Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (LLNL) claimed a major breakthrough after generating 2.5 megajoules of energy, or 120 per cent of the 2.1 megajoules used to power the experiment, for a “net energy gain.”

But experts later said it was a success only in pure physics because the experiment did not account for the energy used to fire the laser and did not achieve a net energy gain in engineering terms.

The "magnetic confinement" reactor to be built as part of the Ontario plan is based on modelling validated on the Wendelstein 7-X — the world’s largest fusion stellarator.

Instead of high-powered lasers, this type of reactor uses massive magnets to hold the plasma in place while it is heated to temperatures hotter than the Sun to create power – an approach many developers believe will make fusion commercially viable for the first time.

Stellarex’s stellarator, a device that uses powerful electromagnets to generate "twisting magnetic fields," is designed to create optimal and stable conditions for fusion reactions and delivery of direct current electricity, the company said.

Stellarex aims to build a part-scale, so-called pre-commercial version of a 600-megawatt reactor that would at full size be able to power some 50,000 homes. The company said it hoped to have a demonstration reactor up and running "within five to seven years."

Dr. Yanwen Zhang, a leading international researcher in the field of nuclear materials at Queen’s University, was guardedly optimistic about the project.

“Although fusion energy is still in development, a prototype commercial stellarator fusion pilot plant will represent a significant leap forward, marking a game-changer in achieving sustainable and environmentally friendly energy solutions,” Zhang said in response to CNO.

The 2022 McKinsey report said technological advances and the need for a flexible zero-carbon power grid have renewed interest in fusion energy, but it also flagged a number of hurdles.

For one, creating the temperature and pressure conditions in the reactor to kick off the reaction and also prevent energy from "leaking out." So far, this has meant that fusion devices consume more energy than they generate. Also, the reactors are "complex machines” outfitted with ultra-high-powered magnets, and large machined components are hard to engineer to withstand the intense temperatures inside the reactor.

"The technology still needs to develop, and there is no guarantee that recent fusion concepts will ultimately produce net energy. Yet this time may be different for the longtime dream of fusion energy," the McKinsey report stated.

Meanwhile, Ontario’s government said the province’s established nuclear supply chain and experienced operators at three fission power plants make it “the place to be when it comes to the growing fusion-related industry.”

Ontario announced in January a $2-billion plan to extend by 30 years the life of its aging fission reactor facility at Pickering, Ont., as Canada’s most populous province plans to meet rising electricity demand in the decades ahead.

The province’s Independent Electricity System Operator has said electricity demand could double by 2050 — Canada’s target year for net-zero emissions — due to increased use of electric vehicles and other clean energy technology.

OPG, a Crown corporation that generates about half of the province’s electricity, has been “watching the progress of fusion-related technology in recent years,” according to Kim Lauritsen, its senior vice-president for enterprise strategy and energy markets.

“As the technology moves toward commercial implementation, this MOU recognizes the role fusion may play as Ontario's demand for clean energy increases over the next several decades,” Lauritsen said in a statement.

Carty said the MOU represents a "key piece of the puzzle" in the commercial deployment of its stellarator design and the fusion sector’s “industrial ecosystem,” which benefits from Ontario’s strong industrial base, skilled workforce and academic institutions.

Stellarex said it has nuclear-sector supply chain network relationships in Ontario and across Canada, as well as MOUs with several national nuclear laboratories and provincial universities.