3 Key Insights – The Japanese Fusion Grand Vision
In our member Q&A session on the 12th September 2024, we discussed Japanese fusion strategy with our expert speaker Shutaro Takeda, an Associate Professor at the Urban Institute of Kyushu University.
In June 2024, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida and his cabinet officially approved the new Japanese fusion grand vision. The country now aims for electricity generation from fusion in the 2030s, and will also consider milestone-based funding for private competition to achieve this. It’s a big leap forward in Japanese fusion strategy and Shutaro explained the implications of Japan’s transition from fusion as mainly an academic research field to fusion as a competitive industry.
Here are three key insights from the event.
1. A key change in Japan’s approach to fusion occurred in 2024 when it announced the acceleration by ten years of its target for power generation from fusion.
Shutaro opened the event by discussing Japan’s ambitious fusion policy. It is only since April 2023, with the launch of Japan’s first national strategy for fusion, that Japan began to move away from fusion as solely scientific research to focus on the commercialisation of fusion and the wider fusion industry.
As Shutaro says: “Japan, for the first time, saw fusion as a new industry, rather than science and technology. So that was the significance of the document from April 2023, it actually led to new fusion policies and supporting schemes.”
Originally, Japan had planned to demonstrate fusion power in 2050, but this target has advanced and the timeline is now power generation by the end of the 2030s, which is closely aligned with the UK’s target of 2040.
However, questions remain as to how Japan will achieve its grand vision of fusion for the country. Principally,
- how will Japan achieve power generation by the 2030s?
- who could achieve demonstration of fusion power by the 2030s?
2. Japan’s Moonshot Programme is a new funding scheme for fusion
Japan’s Moonshot Programme for fusion is a decade-long focus on pioneering innovations aiming to make “disruptive change.” There are ten goals within the programme and the tenth goal is focused on fusion:
“Goal 10 – Realisation of a dynamic society in harmony with the global environment and free from resource constraints, through diverse applications of fusion energy, by 2050.” (Japan Science and Technology Agency)
The Moonshot Programme provides $130 million of funding to support innovative applications of fusion. This funding is not enough for mainstream fusion research – it’s not enough to create a prototype fusion plant – but it is sufficient to allow research into key areas to support fusion, for example developing a neutron source.
The funding for the Moonshot Programme was significant because as Shutaro states “in the year 2022, the entire national fusion spending and fusion budget was $200 million. By adding the Moonshot Programme, we effectively doubled the budget… that’s why it is a significant moment.”
The Moonshot Programme “is a very innovative and, I think, an effective way to facilitate innovative new approaches and innovative new proposals in terms of fusion research and fusion science. Essentially the Moonshot Programme is a decade-long programme that supports the high risk, high reward type of research that stems in all areas of natural science,” says Shutaro.
3.There is no single right path to fusion. Countries are taking different approaches depending on their strengths.
Around the world each country is approaching the development of the fusion industry slightly differently, but with one common theme: the successful commercialisation of fusion bringing economic and clean energy benefits to all.
Different approaches include:
- The US is mainly supporting the private sector to develop fusion. Shutaro notes that this works in the US: “it’s a very good strategy of the United States where there are dozens and dozens of private companies with billions of funding.”
- The UK is providing more structural support to build up the grassroots of the industry. “The UK has a much more structural supporting scheme, the private sector is supported heavily, but the public sector is also very competitive and they’re facilitating public-private partnerships,” says Shutaro.
- China where fusion strategy is 100% government-led.
- Shutaro says that “Japan is in a position that we can actually learn from the US and UK. That’s the benefit of coming later to the competition. That’s why we are heavily benchmarking US and UK policies and supporting schemes.”
Japan will not be following the ITER pathway in its national fusion strategy, it will remain involved with ITER but has detached its fusion programmes within the country.
And finally…
Currently, there is no large fusion funding agency in Japan because there is legislation prohibiting investment into nuclear-related technologies. Arguments are being put forward to change this and to separate fusion from nuclear.
Discussions are ongoing as to whether Japan should try to establish a large fusion funding agency, or add funding capabilities to existing government agencies or scientific organisations.
Shutaro finished by saying this future funding capability “has a significant meaning to the international community because in the future the funding could be open to the international community as well.”