From MIT a model to evaluate the economic sustainability of nuclear fusion energy plants

The research extends the famous to the financial field Lawson criterion developed in the 1950s, which calculates the value of “Q in plasma” to measure the ratio between the energy produced by fusion and the external energy used to power the process; the researchers formalized it as follows a value of “Cheap Q“definable as the ratio between the capital generated and the overall costs incurred for the construction and management of the power plant, indicating that this parameter must be greater than one to guarantee the financial feasibility of the project.

On the need to analyze the technology from a cost perspective, Dennis Whyte, a professor of nuclear engineering and science at MIT, said: “We must necessarily look at the economic aspect. If we want this technology to actually be significant in the world economy, we need to start being clear with ourselves on these issues”.

The developed algorithm identifies ten fundamental parameters, including the power density of the plant, the efficiency of conversion of energy into a commercial resource and the life of the components subjected to wear, and is formulated in such a way as to be scalable and applicable to any type of reactor, whether based on magnetic confinement or on the use of laser technologies.

Andrew W. Lo, professor of finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management, highlighted: “It seems difficult to reduce complex scientific and engineering requirements to economic consequences. But if we don’t, we won’t get the funding we need to achieve the impact we want. It doesn’t matter whether the fusion power plant is small or large, the bottom line is: in both cases it’s better that the money going out exceeds the money coming in, otherwise it won’t stay in circulation for very long”.

The model thus offers a mathematical system useful for quantifying the impact of individual industrial design decisions in the context of recent private investments directed towards the nuclear fusion sectorestablishing objective parameters to monitor the progressive reduction of energy production costs in the long term.