Focus On: Fusion Policy in Australasia
In the September 2024 issue of the Fusion Energy Insights Quarterly, Martin Storey, co-founder and principal investigator of Meranti Research Laboratories, wrote the ‘Focus On’ article, putting a spotlight focus on the history and development of fusion in the Australasia region. Martin explored the policy environment in Australia that could enable fusion.
Here are three key insights from the article. You can also download the full article: Focus on Fusion Policy In Australasia.
1. Several of fusion’s pioneers began their lives and work in Australia
Two pioneers of fusion, Mark Oliphant and Peter Thonemann, were born in Australia, and they remain a source of pride for the country, even if both did their seminal work in Great Britain.
Oliphant, with his colleague Paul Harteck and under the supervision of Ernest Rutherford (himself a New Zealander), was the first to demonstrate nuclear reactions in the laboratory in 1930, with a release of energy as predicted by Arthur Eddington ten years earlier. After a consequential career in Great Britain and the USA, Oliphant returned to Australia in 1950 to become the foundation Director of the Research School of Physics at the Australian National University (ANU), in the federal capital Canberra. He contributed greatly to making Canberra a university city of excellence and a prominent research centre.
Thonemann was born and raised in Melbourne but moved to Oxford University in 1944 to pursue doctoral studies. He worked there with James Tuck on a pinch effect reactor concept and subsequently led the ZETA machine project. In 1965 he became the Deputy Director of the new Culham Laboratory.
2. Australian policy is anti-nuclear—what will this mean for fusion development there?
As in most countries, the Australian government policy on nuclear energy does not distinguish between fusion and fission. Moreover, Conservative Prime Minister John Howard had the Parliament enact the “Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act 1998,” placing a permanent ban on nuclear energy, or, more specifically, on “the construction or operation of a nuclear fuel fabrication plant, a nuclear power plant, an enrichment plant, a reprocessing facility.”
Fusion became a collateral victim of what is a difficult act to reverse democratically. Should this somehow happen in the Federal Parliament, individual states and territories of the Federation also have legislations obstructing all things nuclear.
Fission is undeniably the more relevant nuclear topic in Australia today, between the economic opportunities of uranium mining, of long-term radioactive waste storage and of responsibility towards the international community.
Lately fusion has begun to attract an interested following and it is compelling to imagine what could happen in Australia if the legal distinction between fusion and fission were recognised, as it is now in the USA, the UK, Japan, Europe and other countries’ legislative frameworks.
3. The fusion ecosystem in Australia today is growing
The ITER Association endures as the Australian ITER Forum, thanks to the work of a committed group of volunteer engineers and scientists under the leadership of Profesor Hole of the ANU Mathematical Sciences Institute. While ANU remains the main Australian academic institution for fusion research, there has recently been a growth in fusion science in mathematics schools at the University of Western Australia, the University of Sydney and Griffiths University, in particular. These are supported by the Government agency responsible for scientific research, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
Australia does not yet have many private companies working in fusion, but the situation may change quickly, as is happening worldwide. The main company is HB11, co-founded in 2017 by physicist and inertial fusion pioneer Heinrich Hora, and his academic colleague Warren McKenzie. HB11 received a US$15 million grant from the Australian government Department of Education and has raised funds from many sophisticated investors.
A second, fledgling independent company called Meranti Research Laboratories is investigating an alternative method of magnetic confinement of plasmas using a novel Z-pinch approach.
In September 2023, the University of New South Wales in Sydney announced “the first ever tokamak nuclear fusion device to be wholly designed, built and operated by students” under the supervision of Dr Patrick Burr.
In July 2024, Perth-based venture capital firm Foxglove Capital made the first ever Australian institutional investment in fusion to an American company, Type One Energy, which is developing a stellarator device.