Part 1 of 2 Parts
Most of my posts on this blog have been about nuclear fission but I have also blogged about nuclear fusion on occasion. The problem with using nuclear fusion for commercial power generation is the fact that the technical challenges are so great that the possible creation of fusion reactors has continued to recede into the future as if it were the end of the rainbow and always out of touch. Today I am going to blog about a new project being pushed by fusion researchers in the U.S.
A group comprised of some of the top fusion scientists and researchers in the U.S. has just issued a report to the U.S. Department of Energy. It took two years for the report to be written and it concludes that the U.S. should commit to building a nuclear fusion reactor by the 2040s. The eighty-page report was written by the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee.
Wayne Solomon served as a committee co-chair for this research and he continues to serve as the director of Science and Technology for Magnetic Fusion Energy at General Atomics, the San Diego company long associated with fusion research. He said, “What really emerged strongly from this is a real sense that the fusion energy science portfolio should really pivot towards an energy mission and the realization of that mission is the development and operation of a fusion pilot plant in the 2040s. That (target date) is a line-in-the-sand type of thing.” The report lays out a strategic path for the U.S. as it works on developing nuclear fusion as an almost infinite source of low-carbon energy.
Nuclear fission is the process used in commercial nuclear power plants to generate energy. Nuclear fusion is an entirely different process. While fission splits the radioactive isotopes of heavy elements, fusion joins lighter atoms to make heavier atoms. Both processes release a huge amount of energy. Fusion was original researched in the development of the hydrogen bomb for the U.S. nuclear arsenal in the 1950s. For decades, researchers have tried in vain to duplicate the fusion process that powers the stars.
Operators of fission power plants have to deal with highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel that is left behind. The half-life of most radioisotopes involved in fusion is less than ten years. The components that are bombarded with neutrons by a fusion reaction can be recycled or reused within a hundred years. When there are problems with a nuclear fission power plant, in serious cases, the radioactive fuel in the core can melt through the floor of the containment vessel, spreading radioactive materials into the environment. When there are problems with the fusion process, the plasma cools within seconds and the reaction stops with no risk of a fission type meltdown.
Unfortunately, there is no operational fusion reactor that generates more energy that they consume, even after decades of research. The best experimental fusion reactors can only sustain the fusion process for a few seconds. Critics of the research say sarcastically that commercial nuclear fusion is always thirty years away.
Please read Part 2 next