The Promise of Fusion Power
An article over at PeakOil.com lays out “The Promise of Fusion Power.” The article discusses the huge advantages that fusion energy could provide – clean, safe, abundant, and secure energy for millions of years. The article is a good overview of where we are at with fusion power.
The next step experiment, ITER with a power gain of over five, will explore the uncharted physics of burning plasmas, in which the energy liberated from the confined products of reaction exceeds the energy invested in heating the plasma. The ITER project is supported by a consortium of nations and alliances spanning half the planet, and is the world’s largest science experiment.
But it also notes an important concept about the timeframe for fusion development:
Technology roadmaps schedule DEMO for operation in the mid 2030′s, leading to commercial fusion power by the middle of the century. Like many technologies, faster implementation is a function of global political will.
To read the full article, click here.
