Part 1 of 2 Parts
     The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, more commonly referred to as COP27, was the 27th United Nations Climate Change conference, was held from 6 November until 20 November 2022 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.  More than 92 heads of state and an estimated 35,000 representatives, or delegates, of 190 countries attending. It was the first climate summit held in Africa since 2016. The world is obviously very concerned about emissions of carbon dioxide related to fossil fuel use.
      Electricity generation accounts for about thirty percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions and carbon emitting fossil fuels like coal and natural gas account for about sixty one percent of power generation. If the world is going to meet its goal of net-zero emissions in the face of rising demands for power, something is going to have to change.
      There are limits to variable energy sources like wind and solar power. By 2030, they could be the lowest-cost generation in most markets as their costs continue to fall. However, they are non-dispatchable because they only produce electricity when the wind blows or the sun shines. There is a serious need for base load power sources that can match supply and demand in real time.
     Ultimately, improved energy storage could solve this problem but currently it is small-scale and expensive. Other forms of dispatchable zero-carbon energy, such as geothermal or tidal power, are expensive with limited sites. They are also less technologically mature. What is really needed is an affordable, scalable, safe and dispatchable zero-carbon generation technology.
     Nuclear-fusion energy could be a part of the answer if it can be perfected. Fusion works by the combination of light atoms such as hydrogen into heavier atoms such as helium. When this reaction occurs, enormous amounts of energy are released. Nuclear fusion reactors under development would capture this released energy and convert it into electricity. Fusion creates no carbon emissions and, unlike nuclear fission, it creates no long-lived nuclear waste from spent nuclear fuel. Because the fusion fuel is slowly fed into the reactor, there can be no meltdowns or runaway events such as those possible with nuclear fission reactors.
     The potential of fusion as an energy source has been recognized since the 1950s. Fusion skeptics like to joke that practical fusion energy has been “twenty years away for the paste fifty years. However, fusion power generation has begun to catch up to the hype.
      3-D printing has allowed the complex geometrical shapes of parts required for the walls of fusion reactors to be produced at low cost. This has also allowed designs to be revised and tested quickly. The rapidly increasing computer capacity has made it possible for simulation programs to represent fusion reactions in much greater detail than previous simulations. Predictions about performance can be made without the high cost of building large experiments. Rapid digital controls are improving the suppression of plasma fluctuations. These fluctuations cause energy to leak out of the core fusion reaction. These and other technological advances have create the right conditions in which fusion can develop more rapidly.
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