Peter Black

Feb. 28, 2024

Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

If you’ve been paying attention, reader, you will know the world may be on the verge of a big change. Not today, not tomorrow, but likely during most of our lifetimes. 

That change is fusion energy, and, if you can believe what scientists and investors are saying, the new form of power is about to transform the world’s energy technology and possibly chase away the black clouds of climate change. 

Justin Trudeau once dazzled reporters – back in those “sunny ways” days – when he explained quite convincingly the concept behind quantum computing. I won’t and can’t do that when it comes to nuclear fusion energy.

The best I can venture is that fusion is the process of combining atoms to make energy, as opposed to fission, which is splitting atoms to make energy, like they do for nuclear reactors and atomic bombs. And, oh yeah, fusion has something to do with magnets.

Suffice it to say, creating fusion energy is vastly complicated, although it is based on the simple scientifically proven process by which our sun and all those countless stars create energy to shine so brightly. Recreating the sun’s energy? How hard can that be?

Hard, but not impossible, and hence the world finds itself in a sort of arms race, with a growing number of demonstration projects springing up around the world. It’s like having dozens of Manhattan Projects working feverishly to be among the first to build a viable, reliable commercial fusion energy plant. 

When that is done, they say, humans can start shutting down other kinds of carbon-based energy plants, because fusion will be cheap, safe and environmentally benign. 

Two Canadians are deeply involved in the quest for commercial fusion energy – our very own Oppenheimers, if you will – and both have solid Quebec connections.

It’s not often both The Economist and The New Yorker talk about two Canadians in the same article, so featuring two Canadian scientists, both of whom are working at the forefront of world-changing technology, may be a first. 

Michel Laberge is a physicist born in Quebec City who studied at Université Laval before heading off to do postgraduate work at UBC. After working at an industrial laser company in Vancouver, he created the General Fusion company, according to one biographical note, working alone in a converted gas station garage to develop a proof of concept model of his specialty, magnetized target fusion.

General Fusion boasts on its website: “We are leading the commercialization of fusion with the most practical, cost-competitive technology. Our innovative and protected technology is the result of 20 years of development and 150 patents, and pending patent applications.”

General Fusion is building a demonstration facility at its Vancouver headquarters, but also, as of last month, it has approval to build a 70 per cent scale prototype commercial fusion reactor in the quaint English countryside near the city of Oxford. 

The other prominent Canadian in this nuclear-fusion quest is Dennis Whyte, whom The New Yorker describes in an October 2021 article as “a gentle giant from Saskatchewan, Canada. “If you’ve ever been to the middle of nowhere, that’s where I grew up,” Whyte told the magazine.

Still, the Prairie boy thought big and followed up his University of Saskatchewan physics doctorate with a stint at the plasma physics program at the now-closed Université du Québec facility in Varennes, south of Montreal.

“I thought, ‘Great: I’ll learn French and get to work on a tokamak,’” he said, referring to the doughnut-shaped machine whose design is used for fusion experiments.

Whyte went on to the Plasma Science and Fusion Centre at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from which was spun off Commonwealth Fusion Systems which is building a prototype reactor on MIT’s Devens campus.

Commonwealth is targeting 2026 for when its gizmo, called SPARC, will generate “net gain,” meaning producing more energy than it takes to create it.

True, there are deeply seated concerns out there that, despite the enormity of the research effort and investment costs, fusion energy just might not be viable on a large enough scale. 

Of course, there were doubters who said the same about any quantum leap in technology, from human flight to the atomic bomb.

            30