Welcome to the third installment of our ‘Why You Should Give a Shit‘ series on technology. Today’s highlight is fusion.
So what is fusion? Fusion is the primary means of producing energy at use in the universe. It is the reaction that powers stars, and is the original source of all of the energy we use every day. Currently the cleanest, cheapest and most efficient source of energy we have is nuclear fission. It’s unpopular, but it’s the best. Allow me to explain the difference between fission and fusion.
Nuclear Fission happens when you take a heavy atom, like Uranium, and split it. Splitting it produces two by-products (which are rather toxic), and a lot of energy. This energy is then used to heat water to produce steam, and the steam powers turbines which in turn generate electricity.
Nuclear Fission
Fusion, on the other hand, is when you take two light elements and slam them together. When they join, they give off the excess energy they don’t need in order to remain stable, and this can then be used to heat water, etc. The difference is that the by-product is substantially less harmful: it is Helium or water vapour (depending on the type of reaction used).
A Fusion Reaction
Fusion has come into the media spotlight lately because a group of scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California are attempting to brew up some fusion using the biggest, most bad-ass laser ever created. They will use this laser to create what can best be described as a small star on the surface of the earth.
The concept is simple: take deuterium and tritium (two versions of Hydrogen that are heavier than the regular stuff), and bombard it with this giant laser. The massive influx of energy will hopefully force the nuclei of the two substances to combine, producing a controllable fusion reaction.
Tritium-Deuterium Fuel
The emphasis here is on ‘controllable’ – fusion has been available to us in the form of nuclear weapons for over half a century, but these are runaway reactions that simply liberate massive amounts of energy in a rather destructive way. Controllable fusion is the containment of this reaction in such a way that its energy can be harnessed.
Allow me to take a break here to read you some comments from the bottom of that site, because I really want to dispel some myths about this:
QuantumG says: “omgzz isnt that like kinda dangerus…I mean do we really want a star right next to us…it will be really hot n burn us all havent you people ever seen the sun…I mean i dont think teh scientists are as smart as they think they are or they woulda thoght of that…..2012 is near…”
This comment was added in jest, but it mirrors a lot of the doomsayers on that comment thread. Their concerns are as follows:
- The ‘star’ will go supernova and kill us all
- The star will burn everything and kill us all
- The star will form a black hole like the Large Hadron Collider, and kill us all
And they are all bullshit. The reaction will be the size of a ‘BB pellet’, and in the worst case scenario it will expire in a puff of smoke and radioactive particles.
The major concern, of course, is that it will take more energy to produce the reaction than we will get from it. And it almost certainly will. But it’s a stepping stone towards something much, much greater. Unfortunately, this is not the view of a lot of people, most notably some of the projects funders.
Thomas Cochran, a senior scientist and nuclear physicist at the Naturaldeu Resources Defense Council, said:
“The world needs to employ existing fixes for climate change rather than looking for a technological silver bullet that will prove to be too expensive for commercial energy production anyway… If you want to do [research and development] to alleviate climate change, you have to have technologies that can be brought online soon.”
In my opinion, this view is extremely narrow minded. As I pointed out in my article ‘5 Technologies That Will Lead to the Singularity‘ controllable fusion will be a major breakthrough for humanity – practically an end to our energy woes. This will probably lead to massive reduction in living costs, and production costs for basic goods and consumer items. It may even lead to an overhaul of the world’s financial system, as much of our need for wealth comes from fact that we trade it for energy.
Unfortunately, this kind of development is being quietly resisted by one of the biggest political forces in the world: the oil industry. If humanity has the ability to create nearly limitless energy from what is essentially broken up seawater, the world’s demand for fossil fuels will drop dramatically (not altogether – electric cars still suck). This will hurt the pockets of a lot of rich people, who wield a lot of power.
The attitude that fusion is a fruitless endeavor or a pipe dream is troubling. A valid point in the face of climate change and the need for renewable energy, but hardly a reason to give up the quest entirely. It will be a long time in coming – possibly many decades – before the first fusion power plants come online. But when they do, it will herald the start of cultural and technological change on a scale that will make the Industrial Revolution seem like the move from briefs to boxers.
Unfortunately the budgets for fusion experiments are small, and funding drops every year as people get worried about the credit crisis and the environment, etc. This is the opposite of what should be happening. We should be pouring all available resources into this massively important goal, so that our children will be able to reap the benefits of living in a world not bound by its own supply of dirty coal energy, and free from the spectre of a warming planet.
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