China Is Outspending the U.S. on Fusion

Current conditions: New York City is digging out from upward of six inches of snow • Storm Emilia is deluging Spain with as much as 10 inches of rain • South Africa and Southern Australia are both at high risk of wildfires.

THE TOP FIVE

1. China is outspending the U.S. on fusion energy

Last month, I told you about China’s latest attempt at fusion diplomacy, uniting more than 10 countries including France and the United Kingdom in an alliance to work together on the holy grail energy source. Over the weekend, The New York Times published a sweeping feature on China’s domestic fusion efforts, highlighting just how much Beijing is outspending the West on making the technology long mocked as “the energy source of tomorrow that always will be” a reality today. China went from spending nothing on fusion energy in 2021 to making investments this year that outmatch the rest of the world’s efforts combined. Consider this point of comparison: The Chinese government and private investors poured $2.1 billion into a new state-owned fusion company just the summer. That investment alone, the Times noted, is two and half times the U.S. Department of Energy’s annual fusion budget.

Still, the race between the two countries is heating up. Cumulative investment in fusion energy soared 30% between June and September to $15 billion, up from a little over $11 billion, according to a report by the European Union’s F4E Fusion Observatory written up by NucNet. That fusion is, as Heatmap's Katie Brigham has written, “finally, possibly, almost” arriving at the same time that data centers to power artificial intelligence are driving up electricity demand is fortuitous. Or, it would be, if AI doesn’t end up proving to be inflated by hype. On Friday, Wall Street showed jitters over the possibility that the bubble may burst, sending shares of companies such as Oracle and Nvidia plunging. It begs the question Katie raised in another story in September: What if we get fusion, but we don’t need it?

2. A Korean battery maker ended its partnership with Ford

The South Korean battery manufacturer SK On canceled its partnership to work on electric vehicles with the Ford Motor Company, throwing the fate of the two companies’ three factories in the American Southeast into jeopardy. The announcement, E&E News reported, also casts doubt over the $9.6 billion loan the Biden administration gave the joint venture, known as Blue Oval SK. The collaboration came as American automakers teamed up with Korean battery companies to hasten the establishment of an EV supply chain. General Motors inked a deal with LG Energy Solution and Ford with SK On. But as sales of EVs flatline — due in part to President Donald Trump axing the federal tax credit for purchases of new electric vehicles — the nascent supply networks are withering on the vine. Ford isn’t down for the count, however. In August, as I wrote in the newsletter at the time, the company unveiled what it billed as its “Model T moment” for EVs, a whole new assembly line structure meant to scale up and iron out production of battery-powered cars.

3. Mark Carney’s climate pullback faces blowback

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

Prime Minister Mark Carney has scrapped Canada’s carbon tax, inked major oil and gas deals, and pumped the brakes on a scheme to boost electric vehicle sales. Now the leader of the Liberal Party is facing blowback from allies and sustainability-minded executives who say the reversals put Canada’s net-zero goals out of reach. The former environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, quit the cabinet in protest, as have two founding members of the federal government’s Net Zero Advisory Body. “From a climate-science standpoint, this risks undermining the urgency of emissions reduction,” Paul Polman, the former chief executive of home-goods giant Unilever and a campaigner for sustainable capitalism, told the Financial Times. “Betting heavily on unproven massive-scale CCS [carbon capture and storage] and a cleaner-oil narrative while accelerating production ... seems like a gamble with global emissions targets, and with the credibility of net zero by 2050. Gambling with firm science does not seem smart to me.”

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4. Utility-scale batteries face heightened risk from cyberattacks

Utility-scale battery storage systems are facing increased risk of cyberattack from hackers working either for governments or criminal groups. That’s according to a white paper from the consultancies Brattle Group and Dragos. Battery deployments are expected to grow by as much as 45% in the next five years, raising the need for new protections against digital meddling. “Battery storage systems are being used across the grid to enable the deployment of variable demand sources such as solar and wind,” Phil Tonkin, field chief technology officer at Dragos, told Utility Dive’s sister publication Cybersecurity Dive. “This growing dependence makes them an attractive target.” Even relatively small-scale attacks can have devastating consequences. A single outage involving a 100-megawatt system for four hours in the U.S. would cost up to $1.2 million in revenue, the report found. A large-scale cyber attack that takes out 3,000 megawatts for a day would take a $39 million toll on the economy. Dragos is currently tracking as many as 18 groups that “are known to pose a threat to the electrical grid.”

5. France foresees ending oil consumption in as little as 15 years

Canada may be taking a U turn on climate policy, but France just updated its National Low-Carbon Strategy with an end date for using fossil fuels. The document “foresees the end of oil use between 2040 and 2045,” France24 reported, with natural gas phasing out by 2050. France is far ahead of most developed countries toward decarbonizing its power system since the nation has generated the majority of its electricity from nuclear reactors since the late 20th century. Under the plan, the French government expected electricity consumption to increase as heat pumps replace furnaces and electric vehicles swap in for diesel cars. Renewables are expected to cover the increase in electricity production.

THE KICKER

Conspiracy theorists who think condensation trails from airplanes are some kind of population-control chemical may have their hands full with the paranoia fodder that geoengineering efforts represent. But actual scientists at Leipzig University have made a discovery about contrails’ effect on warming. The researchers found that “hidden” contrails within naturally forming cirrus clouds — previously not factored into assessments — contribute up to 10% of the warming all contrails cause. “We now know that not only the visible contrails we see in the sky but also those that form within clouds need to be taken into account when assessing the impact of aviation on the climate,” Torsten Seelig, the study's lead author, said in a statement.