Part 1 of 2 Parts
I have been interested in nuclear fusion as a power source for decades. The progress has been painfully slow as researchers overcame challenge after challenge only to find more challenges. It does appear that we are moving more quickly now as many laboratories and private companies pursue different paths to commercial nuclear fusion.
Arthur Turrell is an economist and plasma physicist. He believes that the net-zero energy mix of the future will depend on not only renewable sources such as wind and solar but also on the development of technology that will allow scientists and engineers to “recreate the power source of the stars.”
Scientists and investors are now exploring the possibility of adding nuclear fusion to the mix of power sources such as wind and solar that are believed to be critical in the long-term mitigation of climate change.
Currently, lawmakers in Congress are working on providing significant new funding for traditional nuclear reactors that utilize nuclear fission to generate energy. Turrell and other experts say that the U.S. needs to invest more funds in the development of nuclear fusion. He said, “Climate change is so important that we are going to need to throw the kitchen sink at it.”
Nuclear fusion reactors could provide a reliable and clean baseload power source that would not produce radioactive waste or increase the risk of the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Fusion research has received over two billion dollars of private investment in the past five years. It could be a critical component of government plans to move to power sources that do not generate carbon emissions. Turrell argues for nuclear fusion in his new book, “The Star Builders: Nuclear Fusion and the Race to Power the Planet, which was released last Tuesday.
Fusion is basically different from fission which is the process utilized in commercial nuclear power reactors. Fission power generation produces spent nuclear fuel which is highly radioactive and can linger for thousands of years. In addition, nuclear fission reactors risk the kinds of devastating meltdowns that destroyed the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear power plants.
Turrel does support the continued use of nuclear fission for power generation because he believes that is it safer in some ways than other energy sources currently in use. But he believes that nuclear fusion would be a preferable source although it will be very difficult to achieve.
About a hundred experimental fusion projects, including around twenty private ventures, are currently underway around the world. However, scientists realize that making fusion a commercially viable energy source is an extremely challenging project.
One problem is that nuclear fusion requires enormous amounts of energy start the reaction. He said, “If your power source needs more energy than you get out of it, that’s a big problem. That’s not an energy source, that’s an energy sink.” Research teams around the world are racing to create fusion technology that can be used to generate more energy than it consumes. If it can be done, fusion reactors could produce ten million times more energy than the same amount of coal per kilogram of fuel. It can also generate four times the energy of a comparable amount of fission fuel.
Please read Part 2 next