Bezos has funded a project that aims to revolutionize the world of nuclear power by creating clean energy and provides for the construction of a fusion plant in England.
Jeff Bezos is ready to leave for Space with the New Shepard of his company Blue Origin, and in the meantime also aims to revolutionize the world of nuclear power. The Amazon founder has funded a project by General Fusion to build a nuclear fusion pilot plant in Oxfordshire, England. The plant differs from the traditional nuclear approach by attempting to fuse atoms together instead of splitting them; the goal is to create clean, cheap nuclear energy from water.
Nuclear plant project funded by Jeff Bezos
Canadian General Fusion is one of the leading private companies aiming to turn nuclear fusion into a commercial energy source. The new facility will be built in Culham, home of the U.K.’s national fusion research program. It will not generate power, will be 70% the size of a nuclear reactor, and is reported to cost about $400 million to develop. Bezos would fund nearly $20 million of that. The goal would be to have the plant operational by 2025.
Fusion is the process by which the Sun generates energy: the General Fusion method promises a safer, carbon-free energy source that produces very little radioactive waste. At the heart of the project is the idea of fusing atoms at temperatures much higher than the surface of the Sun. This presents a huge technological and financial challenge. The Canadian company uses an approach called magnetized target fusion. In this process, a superheated gas called plasma, consisting of a special form of hydrogen, is injected into a cylinder that is surrounded by a wall of liquid metal. Hundreds of pneumatic pistons are then used to compress the plasma until the atoms melt, generating huge amounts of heat that is then transferred from the liquid metal and used to boil water and produce steam to drive a turbine.
According to General Fusion, the advantage of this approach is that much of the technology already exists in industry. The decision to locate the demonstration plant in Oxfordshire was made possible by funding from the U.K. government, which said the agreement with General Fusion will support hundreds of jobs in the area during the 3-year construction phase and many more during the operational phase.
In addition to nuclear power, there is a lot of research being done with the aim of finding new sources of energy. In Singapore, for example, a way has been discovered to convert human sweat into electricity that could be used to power small devices.
Stefania Bernardini