Innovation systems of emerging fission and fusion technologies

Climate change mitigation, energy security concerns and cumulative technical development have led to a renewed interest in nuclear energy.

However, established nuclear fission technology suffers from long construction times, high up-front costs, limited learning, and high political risk.

Small modular reactors (SMRs) could potentially open a new trajectory for nuclear fission, and thermonuclear fusion could open a completely new space for innovation and industrial development.

To realise such visions, not only technical problems, but also a broad set of economic and institutional barriers related to developing new industrial value chains need to be overcome.

This PhD project at Chalmers, in cooperation with RISE, applies the technological innovation systems (TIS) framework to identify barriers and drivers in different parts of the emerging sociotechnical systems around SMRs and fusion reactors, with the aim of providing foresight to policymakers and industry.