Fusion Update from the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Scott Hsu, Program Director scott.hsu at hq.doe.gov Fusion Power Associates 41st Annual Meeting (virtual) December 16–17, 2020 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ARPA-E CHANGING WHAT'S POSSIBLE Outline ‣ Introduction ‣ Fusion portfolio and 2020 highlights ‣ Plans/opportunities ARPA-E’s history and mission Timeline: • 2007: Rising Above the Gathering Storm report • 2009: American Recovery & Reinvestment Act Signed – ARPA-E's first appropriations of $400 million, which funded ARPA-E's first projects • 2020: 850+ Awards, 54 Programs, FY20 Funding: $425M Goal 1: Overcome long-term and high-risk technological barriers in the development of energy technologies that… - REDUCE IMPORTS - IMPROVE EFFICIENCY - REDUCE EMISSIONS Goal 2: Ensure that the U.S. maintains a technological lead in developing and deploying advanced energy technologies. Framing of fusion energy within ARPA-E’s program portfolio ‣ Fusion energy sits at arguably the highest-risk, highest-impact end of ARPA-E’s entire energy-technology portfolio – Fusion has the potential to be a high-power-density, firm, low-carbon energy source that can possibly be sited near dense population centers – Fusion can potentially disrupt the way humans generate and use energy ‣ Fusion is valuable risk mitigation for the world to achieve cost-effective “net-zero” GHG emissions while meeting growing energy demand and electrification – There are a limited number of low-carbon, primary-energy solutions, all with significant technical and/or socio-economic challenges: • Renewables + long-duration storage • Advanced nuclear fission • Fossil fuels with carbon capture, utilization, sequestration (CCUS) • Enhanced geothermal • + fusion? ARPA-E fusion timeline/programs • 2013: Program Director Dr. Pat McGrath decides to develop a fusion program • 2015: ALPHA program (Ref: C. Nehl et al., "Retrospective of the ARPA-E ALPHA Fusion Program," J. Fusion Energy 38, 506 (2019)) • 2018: OPEN 2018 (77 projects, included three fusion projects) • 2019: Diagnostic "capability teams" • 2020: BETHE; GAMOW (joint with DOE Fusion Energy Sciences) Thought process behind new ARPA-E fusion programs Aspiration: catalyze a new trajectory toward commercially viable DEMO on a two-decade time scale. Technical drivers: • More low-cost approaches at higher levels of fusion performance -> BETHE (+ diagnostic teams) • Innovative solutions from the first wall to the heat exchanger -> GAMOW (joint with FES) Programmatic drivers: • Engage larger portion of the fusion R&D community • Leverage SotA expertise/capabilities • Incentivize publicly and privately funded teams to work together BETHE* program: Catalyze R&D to deliver a larger number of lower-cost fusion concepts at higher performance levels *Breakthroughs Enabling Thermonuclear-fusion Energy Advance the performance of lower-cost concepts: • Concept development: – Projected net-gain experiment for ≲ $100M – Specify entry/exit milestones – Funding ceiling commensurate w/ achieved performance – Leverage capability teams – Selected projects include mirrors, spheromak, MIF, Z pinch, µ-catalyzed fusion • Capability teams Lower the cost of more-mature concepts: • Component technology development: – Potentially enable overnight capital cost <$2B, <$5/W – Selected projects include fast-ramping tokamak HTS central solenoid, new approaches to stellarator magnets, next-gen high-bandwidth lasers BETHE portfolio ($35M + $5M FES): 17 projects across 3 technical categories Category A: Concept development • University of Wisconsin-Madison • UMBC • Zap Energy • University of Washington • Los Alamos National Laboratory Category B: Component technology development (Jointly funded with FES) • Commonwealth Fusion Systems • PPPL • Laboratory for Laser Energetics (University of Rochester) • U.S. Naval Research Laboratory • Type One Energy Category C: Capability teams • Virginia Tech • Oak Ridge National Laboratory • Los Alamos National Laboratory • Laboratory for Laser Energetics (University of Rochester) • SapientAI, LLC • MIT Prime recipients: 7 universities, 5 private companies, 5 national labs GAMOW* program: Accelerate R&D in fusion enabling technologies to support commercially viable fusion concepts *Galvanizing Advances in Market-aligned fusion for an Overabundance of Watts; Joint program with FES Program Targets and Focus Areas: • Deployable in experiments well within a decade • Device simplification or elimination of entire subsystems • Significant cost reduction • Improvements in RAMI, safety, sustainability • >900-K blanket operation • HTS tape <$10/kA-m, substrate >3 GPa • <1000-Ci (100-mg) T annual release • >10-MW/m² continuous power handling at 1st wall • <0.75-kG T inventory for 500-MWth system GAMOW portfolio ($29M): 14 projects across 7 technical categories (Joint program with FES) Integrated First-Wall and Blanket Technology: • Fusion Energy Reactor Models Integrator (FERMI), Oak Ridge National Laboratory Plasma-Facing Components (PFC) and Divertor: • Renewable low-Z wall for fusion reactors with built-in tritium recovery, University of California: San Diego Tritium Fuel Cycle: • Interfacial-Engineered Membranes for Efficient Tritium Extraction, Colorado School of Mines • Direct LiT Electrolysis Process Modeling & Scale up, Savannah River National Laboratory • EM-Enhanced HyPOR Loop for Fast Fusion Fuel Cycles, Savannah River National Laboratory Superconducting Magnets: • Advanced HTS Conductors Customized for Fusion, University of Houston High-efficiency electrical-driver systems: • Wide Band Gap Semiconductor Amplifiers for Plasma Heating and Control, Princeton Fusion Systems • AMPERE - Advanced Materials for Plasma-Exposed Robust Electrodes, University of California: Los Angeles • High Efficiency, Megawatt Class Gyrotrons for Instability Control of Burning Plasma Machines, Bridge 12 Technologies Novel Fusion Materials: • Advance Castable Nanostructured Alloys for First-Wall/Blanket Applications, Oak Ridge National Laboratory • Ultra High Flux DT Neutron Source for Accelerated Testing of Fusion Materials and Subsystems to Reactor-relevant DPA Levels, Phoenix LLC • ENHANCED Shield: A Critical Materials Technology Enabling Compact Superconducting Tokamaks, Stony Brook University Advanced and Additive Manufacturing: • Plasma Facing Component Innovations by Advanced Manufacturing and Design, Oak Ridge National Laboratory • Microstructure Optimization and Novel Processing Development of ODS Steels for Fusion Environments (MONDO-FE), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Prime recipients: 5 universities, 3 private companies, 6 national labs Tech-to-Market (T2M) priorities for the ARPA-E fusion portfolio ‣ Investor engagement ‣ Market studies (Report: Early Markets For Fusion Energy) ‣ Updated reactor-costing tool, studies, and support of concept teams (Woodruff Scientific) ‣ Engaging NGOs (who will be the advocates for the ultimate commercial adoption of fusion) ‣ Supporting/coaching our project teams (on development plan, team building, securing follow-on funding, etc.) Summary of findings from ARPA-E report Early Markets for Fusion Energy ‣ Most-promising early markets are high-priced electricity markets around the world (up to $110/MWh, e.g., Singapore, Japan, California) – Eventually, fusion may need to cost <$50/MWh to access very large markets (to compete with natural gas w/CCS and $50/ton carbon tax) ‣ Load-following may not be economically feasible for fusion (it cannot afford to sit idle half the time due to large capital cost) – Integrated thermal storage may be needed so plant can run at high capacity factor ‣ Process-heat and hydrogen-production markets will be tough early markets (also, fusion may not be able to achieve the needed high temperatures) ‣ Desalination & direct air capture alongside power generation or retrofitting coal power plants may help make fusion more economically competitive See Malcolm Handley’s talk from BETHE kickoff, and read the report when it is released in the near future. Upcoming opportunities ‣ Teaming partner announcement posted for potential OPEN 2021 FOA (agency-wide) – Fusion energy – Energy/electrification applications of low-temperature plasmas (LTP) – Nuclear waste disposition ‣ Recruit my “successor” to start hopefully no later than mid-2022 Please contact me to discuss any of the above: scott.hsu at hq.doe.gov. Check https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov regularly for new FOAs. Sign up for ARPA-E newsletter to receive updates. Join the Team that is Transforming the Energy of Tomorrow Roles at ARPA-E: • PROGRAM DIRECTOR: – Program development – Active project management – Thought leadership – Explore new technical areas • TECHNOLOGY-TO-MARKET ADVISOR: – Business development – Technical marketing – Techno-economic analyses – Stakeholder outreach • FELLOW: – Independent energy technology development – Program Director support – Organizational support Learn more and apply: www.arpa-e.energy.gov/jobs or [email protected]. https://arpa-e.energy.gov U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ARPA-E CHANGING WHAT'S POSSIBLE Diagnostic capability teams: “Transportable” diagnostics & expert diagnosticians to support ARPA-E fusion concept teams ($7.4M) Capabilities & Institutions: • Density, ion temp/energy: PPPL, UC Davis, Oak Ridge National Laboratory -> Magnetic "alternates" • Thomson scattering: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory • Neutron detection: Laboratory for Laser Energetics (University of Rochester), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory -> Pulsed, intermediate density • X-ray detection: Los Alamos National Laboratory, Caltech -> Pulsed, intermediate density BETHE capability teams • Virginia Tech: High-fidelity moment-kinetic models, Gkeyll | Teams supported: Wisconsin, LANL, UMBC, General Fusion • SapientAI, LLC: Data analytics, machine learning, AI | Teams supported: CTFusion, LANL, General Fusion • Laboratory for Laser Energetics / University of Rochester: Rad-MHD (FLASH), hybrid/kinetic (TriForce), kinetic PIC (OSIRIS) | Teams supported: MIFTI, PFS/PPPL, LANL, Compact Fusion Systems • Massachusetts Institute of Technology: RF modeling | Teams supported: Wisconsin, PFS/PPPL, UMBC • Los Alamos National Laboratory: Solid-state X-ray imager; multi-chord spectroscopy | Teams supported: tbd • Oak Ridge National Laboratory: Doppler-free saturation spectroscopy (B and E) | Teams supported: PFS, TAE (via INFUSE)