MON AM News: UW-Madison fusion energy project hits ‘major milestone’ by producing plasma; Baldwin announces $7.2M grant for coal plant conversion

July 22, 2024

— UW-Madison has achieved a “major milestone” in an ongoing energy research project, announcing its fusion device has generated plasma for the first time.

Plasma is superheated material that’s often referred to as the “fourth state of matter,” distinct from solid, liquid and gas, according to an overview from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Much like heating a liquid will change it into a gas once it’s hot enough, heating a gas will lead to the formation of plasma. Importantly for the field of fusion energy research, matter heated to the temperatures required for this goal takes the form of plasma, the overview notes.

The UW-Madison research team has spent the last four years building and testing a fusion energy device known as the Wisconsin HTS Axisymmetric Mirror, or WHAM. Last week marked its transition to official operations mode, and UW-Madison Prof. and project leader Cary Forest said generating plasma is “a crucial first step” toward the goal of decarbonizing the energy sector.

The university notes fusion could be “one of the cleanest potential energy sources” due to it producing carbon-free byproducts.

“We think fusion will be as good at producing electricity as any energy source would be, and we think it might be even better to use it as a source of industrial heat for making things,” Forest said in the release.

While nuclear fusion is occurring constantly within the sun and other stars, scientists have been striving for decades to unlock its power for energy generation.

UW-Madison’s mirror device seeks to limit the escape of the charged particles within the reactor using inward-facing magnets. The failure to efficiently contain the plasma, crucial for a net-gain of energy, has “greatly limited the function” of such machines until recently, according to the university.

But in recent years, much stronger high-temperature superconductor magnets have been developed, giving scientists a new tool for advancing fusion research. After getting the stronger magnets earlier this month, the UW-Madison team achieved plasma formation one week ago.

A video from the university shows a brief flash of blue light within the machine accompanied by a faint wailing noise.

UW-Madison, MIT and Massachusetts-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems have received $10 million from the U.S. DOE since 2020 to build the WHAM device. It’s now being operated as a partnership between UW-Madison and local company Realta Fusion, Inc.

Jay Anderson, co-founder of Realta Fusion and UW-Madison scientist, says WHAM is a “unique” experiment as it has set a world record in magnetic field strength for magnetically confined plasmas while also giving graduate and undergraduate students an opportunity for hands-on physics work.

“Realta over the last year and a half has really amplified what the UW team [has] been able to accomplish,” Anderson said in the release.

— U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin has announced a $7.2 million grant for Alliant Energy’s plans to replace a coal plant with a carbon dioxide-based energy storage system.

The funding supports the Madison-based utility’s plans to build a “grid-tied compressed carbon dioxide long-duration energy storage system” at the coal-fired Columbia Energy Center in Pacific, Wis. Alliant Energy in 2021 announced the plant would be shut down by 2025, but the following year updated its decommissioning date to mid-2026, citing supply chain issues.

Such an installation would be the first of its kind in the country, according to the release from the Madison Dem. It will be used to store excess energy from the grid by converting CO2 gas into a compressed liquid form, which “ reduces the cost and complexity” of storing energy, the release shows.

The Department of Energy has awarded funding for the Columbia Energy Storage Project to conduct the first phase of the project, expected to last between 16 and 22 months. The utility company and project team will use the time to formalize their plan and establish partnership agreements, as well as conducting interconnection studies, environmental planning, engineering and design work and more.

Baldwin notes the project is being funded thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and touts its investments in the state’s broadband, water and energy infrastructure.

“Replacing Wisconsin’s aging energy infrastructure makes our power grid more efficient and resilient, while also improving our air quality, cutting energy costs, and combating the impacts of climate change like flooding and extreme weather events that are devastating communities across our state,” she said in the release.

See the release.

— Wisconsin Whey Protein Inc. is required to pay $350,000 under a settlement related to violations of the state’s wastewater and stormwater laws.

The settlement, approved this month by the Lafayette County Circuit Court, pertains to the company’s operation of a cheese and whey plant in Darlington.

The company allegedly dumped treated wastewater into a tributary that exceeded various chemical and temperature parameters allowed under its wastewater permit, according to the release from the state Department of Justice.

The company also allegedly didn’t properly operate or maintain its wastewater treatment facility, which led to untreated wastewater being spilled into nearby waterways multiple times, and failed to get stormwater permit coverage for construction and industrial operations.

In addition to the financial penalty, the company must also install and begin operating a “chiller” to lower the temperature of its wastewater. The installation cost is estimated at nearly $620,000, the release shows.

“We must protect our waterways from wastewater,” Attorney General Josh Kaul said in a statement. “This case serves as another reminder of our commitment to obtaining accountability for violations of our environmental laws.”

See the release.

— Seven of the 31 finalists for this year’s Wisconsin Innovation Awards are developing new health care-related products and services, ranging from diagnostics and therapies to monitoring devices and health insurance.

Organizers for the awards program recently announced the finalists for this year, which also includes businesses and nonprofits across agriculture, gaming, education and other fields. Winners of the 2024 Wisconsin Innovation Awards will be announced Oct. 8 at a ceremony in Madison.

Health care-related finalists include:

*Madison-based AyrFlo, which is creating a wearable sensor for monitoring patients’ breathing. Its goal is to eliminate preventable respiratory complications after surgery.

*CranioSure, also based in Madison. This startup has created an app that can detect skull abnormalities in infants earlier, to avoid the eventual need for surgery. See a recent story on the company.

*ImgGyd, LLC of Middleton, which is creating hardware and software for image-guided neurosurgery procedures.

*InMEDBio LLC, based in Oshkosh, which has a wound dressing product called the PhoenixAID that’s meant to prevent infections and improve healing of chronic wounds.

*Intuitive Biosciences, Inc. of Madison. This company has a platform for sensing intracellular communication to diagnose diseases.

*Madison-based InvivoSciences, a precision medicine company that aims to personalize drug development with a custom heart tissue testing platform. See an earlier story on the business.

*Self Fund Health of Verona, which offers a self-funded health insurance plan as an alternative to existing market options.

The awards event was created in 2014 by entrepreneur Matt Younkle and Joe Boucher, founding shareholder of the Madison law firm of Neider & Boucher, according to the website. It’s gotten funding and other support from various corporate partners and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.

See the full list of finalists in the release.

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