Nuclear Fusion: Energy for the Future?

Credit: ITER

The ITER machine.

Projects underway

Last June, £7 billion ($13.5 billion) in funding from the European Union and seven partner countries was agreed, and work has begun on a green hill in Cadarache, France, to construct possibly the world’s first viable nuclear fusion reactor. The Europe International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) contains a giant ‘doughnut’, which will spin super-heated hydrogen isotopes in a magnetic field, to produce continuous nuclear fusion. “ITER will produce more energy than you put in,” explains Chris Warrick from the UK Atomic Energy Authority. “You need 50 megawatts of power to heat it and you should get around 5,000 megawatts out.”

Plans for other projects are underway in Britain. The High Power Energy Research (HiPER) project, based in Didcot, is looking at using huge lasers to produce energy from nuclear fusion. “We need to build a laser the size of a football stadium and focus it on a pellet of fuel about 1mm in diameter,” says Dunne. “This will collapse the hydrogen isotope fuel until we achieve the same compression you get in the sun.”

Legitimate concerns remain about investing in such speculative technology and radioactive waste production. “Governments should not waste money on a dangerous toy which will never deliver any useful energy,” says Jan van de Putte from Greenpeace. “They should invest in renewable energy, which is abundantly available today.” However, scientists argue that all possible solutions to the energy crisis should be explored and any radioactive waste from nuclear fusion is short-lived.

Although using nuclear fusion is controversial, it could also be the most significant scientific breakthrough of the century. If it is a success, the energy crisis would be a distant memory, climate change could be halted and we may all be driving around guilt-free in electric cars. It still sounds like science fiction, but we may only have decades to wait before it becomes a reality.

For more information:

ITER - Europe International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor
http://www.iter.org/

HiPER Project
http://www.hiperlaser.eu/