Google bets on MIT Commonwealth nuclear energy
Last Monday, Google announced to the press that it had signed a deal to purchase electricity from a fusion energy project in Virginia. This project focuses on nuclear fusion for electricity generation. Google has entered into a corporate power purchase agreement for this technology with Commonwealth Fusion Systems, reports https://xrust.ru/. This company spun out from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2018. The deal secures 200 megawatts of electricity, sufficient to power a small city. The agreement is linked to Virginia, home to the world’s largest energy-intensive data center hub. Financial details of the deal remain undisclosed.
For decades, physicists from national laboratories and companies have attempted to use lasers or large magnets to trigger nuclear fusion reactions, where light atoms combine to release significant amounts of energy. In 2022, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California temporarily achieved a net energy gain in a fusion experiment using lasers. However, achieving so-called “engineering breakeven,” where the energy output from the reaction exceeds the total energy input required to initiate the fusion process, has remained elusive.
For a fusion plant to generate electricity, the reactions must be continuous rather than sporadic. Google’s advanced energy division has acknowledged the significant physical and engineering challenges of this project. However, the deal’s initiators simultaneously claimed that their investment would bring the future closer.
https://xrust.ru/ https://xrust.ru/news/311359-google-sdelala-stavku-na-termojadernuju-jenergetiku-mit-commonwealth.html
https://xrust.ru/news/311359-google-sdelala-stavku-na-termojadernuju-jenergetiku-mit-commonwealth.html
