创业公司探索核能发电新玩法

    勒那相信，在铍电极的帮助下，到明年中旬，他的实验室将克服一个长久以来一直困扰着核聚变研究的难题，让我们从核聚变反应堆中获得的能源超过我们投入的用于点燃反应堆的能源。如果试验成功的话，届时可能会有大量资金涌入。LPP的研究总共要花费5000万美金，听起来倒是不少，但相比之下ITER的核聚变项目预计需要30年的建设时间，光是头10年的预算就高达180亿美元，还要建筑一个20层楼“托卡马克”装置。这样看来，LPP的5000万美金简直太便宜了。

    勒那相信，凭借这笔资金，到2020年的时候，他的公司将能够量产单价在30万到50万美元之间的小型核聚变发电机。每台这种发电机的尺寸只有一个停车位那么大，发电量达到500万瓦特，足够支持3000个家庭的用电量。

    可惜LPP的后盾远远不及竞争对手Tri-Alpha能源公司。这家公司已经从高盛（Goldman Sachs）、微软（Microsoft）共同创始人保罗•艾伦、俄罗斯国有企业Rusnano等投资人处融到了1.4亿美元资金。像LPP一样，这家位于加州尔湾市的核能创业公司也希望开发出一台无中子核聚变发电机，从而不需要借助汽轮机也能发电。

    ITER和NIF这两大政府机构则采取了更加“传统”的核聚变方案，也就是通过融合氢的同位素氘和氚和释放热量，从而驱动汽轮机发电。（相比之下，无中子核聚变倾向于将标准的氢与硼进行融合）。此外还有一大批创业公司相信，他们可以比这些举倾国之力的大科学项目提前研究出可控核聚变技术，并且开发出小型的核聚变发电机（NIF的核聚变设施有3个足球场那么大，10层楼高）。

    总部位于加拿大温哥华附近的通用聚变（General Fusion）公司的CEO南森•吉利兰德指出：“我们可以把它与人类基因组计划或太空探索技术公司（Space X）做一下比较，因为在后两者的领域中，大型政府性项目最终也是被私人领域的更灵活、更实用的创新超越了。”通用聚变公司从加拿大石油公司Cenovus和亚马逊（Amazon）CEO杰夫•贝佐斯等投资人那里融得3200万美元资金。

    虽然核聚变的前景非常诱人，但更多的创业公司可能活跃在核裂变领域，他们研究的一些新方法比行业现有的对铀燃料棒进行裂变然后用水冷却、稳定的方法要先进得多。

    很多公司正在围绕新型的核裂变方法展开试验，比如使用液态燃料，或是使用不同形状的固态燃料（如砖型或卵型），以及使用盐或气体作为冷却剂与缓和剂等等。许多设计都吸收了几十年前不被政府允许的理念。比如由比尔•盖茨任董事长的泰拉能源公司（TerraPower）正在设计一种不需要对中子进行缓和的“快速反应堆”。有些公司则设想利用钍元素来代替铀作为裂变燃料。

    很多创业公司的方案在提高核裂变安全性、大大减少核废料、变“废物”为燃料、最大程度降低武器化风险、降低成本和提高效率方面都具有广阔的前景。许多方案都具有“小型模块化”的特征，能够满足量产和经济性发电的需要。（俄勒冈州的创业公司NuScale能源公司最近获得了2.17亿美元的联邦基金，用于研发一种小型的、但相对传统的核反应堆。）

    加拿大米西索加市创业公司Terrestrial Energy的CEO西蒙•艾里什指出：“市场对核能领域创新的拉动力越来越强。所以我们开始看到，很多在核能领域从事不同研究的创业公司如雨后春笋般涌现出来。”艾里什的公司正在研发一种基于液态燃料的“熔盐”反应堆（MSA）。

    Lerner is boldly confident that the beryllium would by the middle of next year enable his lab to overcome the problem that has vexed fusion projects forever: It would harness more energy out of its reactor than what goes into it. Additional financing might then rush in. LPP will need $50 million in total, virtually nothing next to the nearly $18 billion that ITER has budgeted for only the next 10 years of an expected 30 years of construction and development of a 20-story “tokamak” facility.

    With the financing, Lerner believes that by 2020 he could license the mass-production of small $300,000-to-$500,000 fusion machines—each the size of a one-car garage—with a capacity of 5 megawatts, enough to power 3,000 houses.

    If only he had the wherewithal of rival fusion startup Tri-Alpha Energy, which has rounded up over $140 million from Goldman Sachs, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, and Russian state-owned company Rusnano, among others. Like LPP, Irvine, Calif.-based Tri-Alpha hopes to develop an aneutronic machine that delivers electricity without using turbines.

    ITER and NIF, the government groups, are taking a more “conventional” fusion approach, aspiring to drive turbines with heat released by fusing isotopes of hydrogen. (In contrast, an aneutronic process tends to fuse standard hydrogen and boron.) So, too, are a number of startups that believe they can crack fusion long before the big science projects do by developing smaller machines (NIF’s facility is 3 football fields long and 10 stories tall) and deploying different technologies.

    “We liken it to the Human Genome Project or SpaceX, where large government programs were ultimately outrun by more nimble and more practical innovation in the private sector,” notes Nathan Gilliland, CEO of General Fusion near Vancouver, Canada. General Fusion has raised $32 million from sources including the Canadian oil company Cenovus and Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive.

    As intriguing as fusion is, there is probably more startup activity in fission, where novel approaches promise great improvements over the industry’s addiction to fissioning solid uranium fuel rods then cooling and moderating them with water.

    A host of startups are experimenting with different approaches including the use of liquid fuel, the use of solid fuel with different shapes (such as bricks or pebbles), and the use of alternative coolants and moderators such as salts and gases. Many of the designs draw on ideas that politics suppressed decades ago. Some, like Bill Gates-chaired TerraPower in Bellevue, Wash., are designing “fast reactors” that don’t moderate neutrons. Some envision using the element thorium instead of uranium.

    Between them, they portend leaps in safety, cut way down on nuclear waste, use “waste” as fuel, minimize weapons proliferation risks, slash costs and tremendously boost efficiencies. Many fit the “small modular” form that enables mass production and affordable incremental power. (Oregon startup NuScale Power recently secured $217 million in federal funds to develop a small but comparatively conventional reactor.)

    “There is a growing market pull for innovation in the nuclear space, so you’re beginning to see a blossoming of startup companies doing different things in nuclear,” says Simon Irish, CEO of startup Terrestrial Energy, Mississauga, Canada, which is developing a “molten salt” reactor (MSR) based on liquid fuel.