Draft:Fusion Island

• Comment: No. As before: not enough secondary sourcing on the specific topic, narrowly speaking. This is really expository writing with an infusion of original research/synthesis. Drmies (talk) 22:45, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: Wikipedia is the wrong place for an article like this. Wikipedia is a place where articles are on establised topics, it is not on possible future technologies. Please look carefully at what Wikipedia is not, and also not a crystal ball. If you trim down this by a factor of 10 (10% of the current length) and just state established facts it might have a chance. Ldm1954 (talk) 19:22, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

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Fusion Island

Fusion Island in the mid 21st Century [Image via Dall-E]

Fusion Island is a tokamak-based fusion energy technology concept for the oil industry first described in 2005. It is based on the production for distribution and sale of cryogenic liquid hydrogen, where the same liquid hydrogen is also used to cool magnets made from high temperature superconductor (HTS). Fusion Island is an example of a fusion process heat commercialization strategy.. Importantly the Fusion Island strategy concept relies on the use of hydrogen cryomagnetics for the major magnet windings of the tokamak avoiding the need for supplies of scarce and expensive liquid helium. Fusion Island is an example of a compelling technology concept of the future that has not yet been developed. As such it is similar, in conceptual status, to other bold prospective technology concepts, such as the space elevator or Hyperloop.

Generic tokamak concept showing main magnetic coils in red (toroidal) and blue (poloidal). Source US DOE.

The oil industry has a history of operating island facilities - this example is a THUMS oil island near Long Beach, California.

Origins

The term Fusion Island was first coined in October 2005 by William Nuttall, Bartek Glowacki and Richard Clarke writing in the British magazine The Engineer.. The concept of Fusion Island was explored for the UK Energy Research Centre at an April 2007 meeting hosted by Worcester College Oxford and the Culham Science Centre. The meeting had the title: Sustainable Hydrogen Production: A role for Fusion? It examined the potential for large scale Hydrogen production through methods other than electrolysis. A report prepared by Michael O’Brien, then of the UKAEA, is available. The Fusion Island concept was further elaborated in July 2008

In 2005 Nuttall et al. defined Fusion Island in the following terms:

"On ‘Fusion Island’, hydrogen would be:

• The product sold commercially;
• Potentially the cryogenic liquid used to cool the fusion reactor magnets;
• The source of energy to fire-up the fusion machine; and
• A link to an industrial sector that is willing and able to fund the high capital cost of a fusion system."

The UKERC meeting observed that in 2007: "... currently there was no business model for Hydrogen, neither was there one for fusion, nor for the coupling of Hydrogen to fusion - but the economies of scale concerned with these technologies were great."

In the 2020s, however, the question of fusion as a source of commercial hydrogen production is attracting more attention. Key technological enablers of the Fusion Island concept are becoming available and the pressure on the international oil industry to find low carbon alternative business models is growing.

In 2005, Fusion Island was presented by Nuttall et al. as literally an island electrically isolated from the mainland. It supplies liquid hydrogen to global markets in a manner similar to the liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes of today. A graphical impression of the earliest form of the Fusion Island concept is available online.

From the outset the Fusion Island idea challenged the dominant orthodoxy that the dominant path to large scale commercialisation of fusion energy would be based on electricity generation in a fusion power plant. In 2022 a Japanese fusion start-up, Kyoto Fusioneering, proposed a fusion cluster concept giving prominent emphasis to low-carbon hydrogen production and maritime distribution

Role of the Oil Industry

Suiso Frontier prototype liquid hydrogen tanker in Kobe Shipyard, Japan, October 2020. Fusion Island's hydrogen could be supplied to global markets using similar technology.

The concept is that Fusion Island would be developed by an International Oil Company (IOC) perhaps in collaboration with an industrial gases company. Such companies include the necessary skills and competences but also such engineering propositions are well-matched to risk appetite of an IOC. IOC stock valuations have long been shaped by a desire to see reserve replacement. As a liquid fuel production facility, Fusion Island has the potential to support reserve replacement thinking.

Oil Industry Interest in Fusion

In 2021 oil companies ENI and Equinor both invested in Commonwealth Fusion Systems. Meanwhile Cenovus Energy has invested in Canadian fusion company General Fusion. While oil industry interest in fusion energy is now clear, thus far there is little sign of the electricity generation industry showing enthusiasm for fusion technology.

An alternative source of low carbon process heat for IOC process heat applications is conventional nuclear fission energy. Nuclear fission, however, is associated with several important safety and security concerns including: a large amount of stored energy in the reactor core and the need for post-shutdown decay heat management. Neither of these concerns apply to tokamak fusion, with its fuel stored outside the reactor and its straightforward shutdown procedures. Oil industry processing infrastructures (currently refineries etc.) are safety critical locations. For such locations, the regulatory burden for a fusion process heat source can be expected to be far lower than for a fission alternative.

Use of term "Fusion Island" by First Light Fusion

In 2019 UK fusion company First Light Fusion started using the term fusion island in a different sense to that described above, and elaborated in 2023. This alternate use of the term is a variant of the established term "nuclear island" in conventional commercial nuclear fission based power plant design, where the plant can be said to be divided into the nuclear island, on its own basemat, with the electricity generating turbines generally being part of a separate balance of plant.

References

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