IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v149y2021ics0301421520307540.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Re-examining the role of nuclear fusion in a renewables-based energy mix

Author

Listed:
  • Nicholas, T.E.G.
  • Davis, T.P.
  • Federici, F.
  • Leland, J.
  • Patel, B.S.
  • Vincent, C.
  • Ward, S.H.

Abstract

Fusion energy is often regarded as a long-term solution to the world's energy needs. However, even after solving the critical research challenges, engineering and materials science will still impose significant constraints on the characteristics of a fusion power plant. Meanwhile, the global energy grid must transition to low-carbon sources by 2050 to prevent the worst effects of climate change. We review three factors affecting fusion's future trajectory: (1) the significant drop in the price of renewable energy, (2) the intermittency of renewable sources and implications for future energy grids, and (3) the recent proposition of intermediate-level nuclear waste as a product of fusion. Within the scenario assumed by our premises, we find that while there remains a clear motivation to develop fusion power plants, this motivation is likely weakened by the time they become available. We also conclude that most current fusion reactor designs do not take these factors into account and, to increase market penetration, fusion research should consider relaxed nuclear waste design criteria, raw material availability constraints and load-following designs with pulsed operation.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicholas, T.E.G. & Davis, T.P. & Federici, F. & Leland, J. & Patel, B.S. & Vincent, C. & Ward, S.H., 2021. "Re-examining the role of nuclear fusion in a renewables-based energy mix," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:149:y:2021:i:c:s0301421520307540
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2020.112043
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421520307540
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2020.112043?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ugo Bardi, 2010. "Extracting Minerals from Seawater: An Energy Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-13, April.
    2. Kleijn, René & van der Voet, Ester & Kramer, Gert Jan & van Oers, Lauran & van der Giesen, Coen, 2011. "Metal requirements of low-carbon power generation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 5640-5648.
    3. Weißbach, D. & Ruprecht, G. & Huke, A. & Czerski, K. & Gottlieb, S. & Hussein, A., 2013. "Energy intensities, EROIs (energy returned on invested), and energy payback times of electricity generating power plants," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 210-221.
    4. Child, Michael & Kemfert, Claudia & Bogdanov, Dmitrii & Breyer, Christian, 2019. "Flexible electricity generation, grid exchange and storage for the transition to a 100% renewable energy system in Europe," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 139, pages 80-101.
    5. Ueckerdt, Falko & Brecha, Robert & Luderer, Gunnar, 2015. "Analyzing major challenges of wind and solar variability in power systems," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1-10.
    6. Cany, Camille & Mansilla, Christine & da Costa, Pascal & Mathonnière, Gilles & Duquesnoy, Thierry & Baschwitz, Anne, 2016. "Nuclear and intermittent renewables: Two compatible supply options? The case of the French power mix," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 135-146.
    7. Mileva, Ana & Johnston, Josiah & Nelson, James H. & Kammen, Daniel M., 2016. "Power system balancing for deep decarbonization of the electricity sector," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 1001-1009.
    8. Locatelli, Giorgio & Boarin, Sara & Pellegrino, Francesco & Ricotti, Marco E., 2015. "Load following with Small Modular Reactors (SMR): A real options analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 41-54.
    9. Schaffer, Marvin Baker, 2013. "Abundant thorium as an alternative nuclear fuel," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 4-12.
    10. Gils, Hans Christian & Scholz, Yvonne & Pregger, Thomas & Luca de Tena, Diego & Heide, Dominik, 2017. "Integrated modelling of variable renewable energy-based power supply in Europe," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 173-188.
    11. Jacobson, Mark Z. & Delucchi, Mark A. & Cameron, Mary A. & Mathiesen, Brian V., 2018. "Matching demand with supply at low cost in 139 countries among 20 world regions with 100% intermittent wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) for all purposes," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 236-248.
    12. Brouwer, Anne Sjoerd & van den Broek, Machteld & Seebregts, Ad & Faaij, André, 2015. "Operational flexibility and economics of power plants in future low-carbon power systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 107-128.
    13. Wilson, I.A. Grant & Rennie, Anthony J.R. & Ding, Yulong & Eames, Philip C. & Hall, Peter J. & Kelly, Nicolas J., 2013. "Historical daily gas and electrical energy flows through Great Britain's transmission networks and the decarbonisation of domestic heat," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 301-305.
    14. Entler, Slavomir & Horacek, Jan & Dlouhy, Tomas & Dostal, Vaclav, 2018. "Approximation of the economy of fusion energy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 489-497.
    15. M. Lozada-Hidalgo & S. Zhang & S. Hu & A. Esfandiar & I. V. Grigorieva & A. K. Geim, 2017. "Scalable and efficient separation of hydrogen isotopes using graphene-based electrochemical pumping," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 8(1), pages 1-5, August.
    16. Pleßmann, Guido & Blechinger, Philipp, 2017. "Outlook on South-East European power system until 2050: Least-cost decarbonization pathway meeting EU mitigation targets," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 1041-1053.
    17. Zappa, William & Junginger, Martin & van den Broek, Machteld, 2019. "Is a 100% renewable European power system feasible by 2050?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 233, pages 1027-1050.
    18. Jenkins, J.D. & Zhou, Z. & Ponciroli, R. & Vilim, R.B. & Ganda, F. & de Sisternes, F. & Botterud, A., 2018. "The benefits of nuclear flexibility in power system operations with renewable energy," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 872-884.
    19. Sophie Gabriel & Anne Baschwitz & Gilles Mathonnière & Tommy Eleouet & Florian Fizaine Fizaine, 2013. "A critical assessment of global uranium resources, including uranium in phosphate rocks, and the possible impact of uranium shortages on nuclear power fleets," Post-Print halshs-01227916, HAL.
    20. Raugei, Marco & Leccisi, Enrica, 2016. "A comprehensive assessment of the energy performance of the full range of electricity generation technologies deployed in the United Kingdom," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 46-59.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carayannis, Elias G. & Vincenzi, Marco & Draper, John, 2024. "The economic logic of open science in fusion energy research: A policy perspective," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    2. Lee, Chien-Chiang & Ho, Shan-Ju, 2022. "Impacts of export diversification on energy intensity, renewable energy, and waste energy in 121 countries: Do environmental regulations matter?," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 1510-1522.
    3. Sadik-Zada, Elkhan Richard & Gatto, Andrea & Weißnicht, Yannic, 2024. "Back to the future: Revisiting the perspectives on nuclear fusion and juxtaposition to existing energy sources," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 290(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. van Zuijlen, Bas & Zappa, William & Turkenburg, Wim & van der Schrier, Gerard & van den Broek, Machteld, 2019. "Cost-optimal reliable power generation in a deep decarbonisation future," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 253(C), pages 1-1.
    2. Maeder, Mattia & Weiss, Olga & Boulouchos, Konstantinos, 2021. "Assessing the need for flexibility technologies in decarbonized power systems: A new model applied to Central Europe," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(PA).
    3. Niina Helistö & Juha Kiviluoma & Hannele Holttinen & Jose Daniel Lara & Bri‐Mathias Hodge, 2019. "Including operational aspects in the planning of power systems with large amounts of variable generation: A review of modeling approaches," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(5), September.
    4. Price, James & Keppo, Ilkka & Dodds, Paul E., 2023. "The role of new nuclear power in the UK's net-zero emissions energy system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 262(PA).
    5. Hansen, Kenneth & Breyer, Christian & Lund, Henrik, 2019. "Status and perspectives on 100% renewable energy systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 471-480.
    6. Knezović, Katarina & Marinakis, Adamantios & Evrenosoglu, C.Yaman & Oudalov, Alexandre, 2021. "Role of grid and bulk storage in the integration of variable renewable energy resources: Framework for optimal operation-driven multi-period infrastructure planning," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    7. Dong, Zhe & Liu, Miao & Zhang, Zuoyi & Dong, Yujie & Huang, Xiaojin, 2019. "Automatic generation control for the flexible operation of multimodular high temperature gas-cooled reactor plants," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 11-31.
    8. Kan, Xiaoming & Hedenus, Fredrik & Reichenberg, Lina, 2020. "The cost of a future low-carbon electricity system without nuclear power – the case of Sweden," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    9. Marco Raugei & Mashael Kamran & Allan Hutchinson, 2020. "A Prospective Net Energy and Environmental Life-Cycle Assessment of the UK Electricity Grid," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-28, May.
    10. Jafari, Mehdi & Korpås, Magnus & Botterud, Audun, 2020. "Power system decarbonization: Impacts of energy storage duration and interannual renewables variability," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 1171-1185.
    11. Misconel, Steffi & Zöphel, Christoph & Möst, Dominik, 2021. "Assessing the value of demand response in a decarbonized energy system – A large-scale model application," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 299(C).
    12. Gabrielli, Paolo & Poluzzi, Alessandro & Kramer, Gert Jan & Spiers, Christopher & Mazzotti, Marco & Gazzani, Matteo, 2020. "Seasonal energy storage for zero-emissions multi-energy systems via underground hydrogen storage," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    13. Ringkjøb, Hans-Kristian & Haugan, Peter M. & Seljom, Pernille & Lind, Arne & Wagner, Fabian & Mesfun, Sennai, 2020. "Short-term solar and wind variability in long-term energy system models - A European case study," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    14. Gaure, Simen & Golombek, Rolf, 2022. "True or not true: CO2 free electricity generation is possible," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    15. Chyong, Chi Kong & Reiner, David M. & Ly, Rebecca & Fajardy, Mathilde, 2023. "Economic modelling of flexible carbon capture and storage in a decarbonised electricity system," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    16. Finke, Jonas & Bertsch, Valentin, 2023. "Implementing a highly adaptable method for the multi-objective optimisation of energy systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 332(C).
    17. Lopez, Gabriel & Aghahosseini, Arman & Child, Michael & Khalili, Siavash & Fasihi, Mahdi & Bogdanov, Dmitrii & Breyer, Christian, 2022. "Impacts of model structure, framework, and flexibility on perspectives of 100% renewable energy transition decision-making," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    18. Gawlick, Julia & Hamacher, Thomas, 2023. "Impact of coupling the electricity and hydrogen sector in a zero-emission European energy system in 2050," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    19. Zappa, William & Junginger, Martin & van den Broek, Machteld, 2021. "Can liberalised electricity markets support decarbonised portfolios in line with the Paris Agreement? A case study of Central Western Europe," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    20. Cole, Wesley & Frew, Bethany & Gagnon, Pieter & Reimers, Andrew & Zuboy, Jarett & Margolis, Robert, 2018. "Envisioning a low-cost solar future: Exploring the potential impact of Achieving the SunShot 2030 targets for photovoltaics," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 690-704.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:149:y:2021:i:c:s0301421520307540. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.