Starting to See Fusion as a Viable Choice
The International Relations and Security Network, a Switzerland-based international relations service has a new podcast out featuring an interview with Dr. Stewart Prager, the Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. This podcast was brought about because of Prager’s July 10 OpEd in the New York Times, “How Seawater Can Power the World” in which Pragen makes that case that fusion is approaching a stage where it can be commercialized.
Last week the Guardian asked “Fusion Power: Is it Getting Any Closer?” Their answer was a qualified ‘yes’. They begin by quoting Professors Stephen Hawking and Brian Cox, who in an interview last year, when asked to name the most pressing scientific challenge facing humanity, both gave the same answer: producing electricity from fusion energy.
The Guardian story, the New York Times OpEd, and Dr. Prager’s podcast all show that fusion is being taken more seriously by press and foreign-policy professionals as a long-term, sustainable form of energy. Too often fusion is only thought-of by the mainstream as something that is either too far into the future, or something that is too far-fetched.
This attention on fusion is important because great strides are being made right now. Magnetic fusion promises to achieve break-even (where more power is gained from the reaction than used to contain it) within 5 years at the JET (Joint European Torus) reactor in England. Inertial fusion, a process that contains the fusion reaction with lasers, has promise for an even sooner break-even point; perhaps sometime in 2012. Subsequent to these milestones, there is a good chance that scientists and engineers will be prepared to begin the process of plants that would operate as a ‘proof of principle’. For magnetic fusion, that would be the ITER, being built in France, with a target date of sometime in the early 2020s. For inertial fusion, that would be the proposed LIFE (Laser Inertial Fusion Energy) plant, also with a proposed target date of about 10 years from now. These all require a combination of political will and a long-term funding stream.
Fusion is not easy, and getting to a commercialized level will take time, money, and overcoming some significant engineering challenges. This is not something that will automatically happen if nothing is done. However, the basic science is understood and we know that it can be a sustainable source of long-term clean energy. It should be one of the many choices that we consider. It is good to see that this is gaining a wider audience.
