Fusion is arguably the perfect way to power the world. For one thing, there is enough fusion fuel to supply all of the world’s energy needs for millions of years. Furthermore, it produces no environmentally damaging wastes, no carbon dioxide emissions and there could be no accidents that require evacuating the population surrounding a fusion power plant. Fusion plants would also not need significant land area, and fusion fuels (lithium and deuterium) are available in seawater. Unfortunately, it is hard to make fusion work. Indeed, after more than 60 years of fusion research, no device has yet made more energy than it consumes.
Iter, the next fusion machine and the first to be built as an international collaboration, is designed to demonstrate the scientific feasibility of net energy production. It is expected that Iter will produce about 500MW of fusion power – 10 times the input power. Just as importantly, it will show how to integrate the many cutting-edge technologies required for efficient and reliable future power station designs. Put simply, it is the big step needed to prove the viability of fusion as a commercial energy source.
Unfortunately, Iter’s construction expenses have risen from about €5bn to over €13bn and the cost overruns have prompted some to questionw hy chasing nuclear fusion is a priority.
Stephen Cowley offers his opinion at the Guardian.
Nuclear Fusion explained at Wikipedia
I would agree that we need this tech as the next source of power. Renewable is too dependable in the weather and do gooders not objecting to their view! Alternatively Honda might like to look at hydrogen power solutions, can they make it work on a large scale to power water turbines? Water powered water generating electricity?
Although I am in agreement with most of what he writes, there is a fundamental error in the opening paragraph.
Fusion plants will not be smaller than current power plants – they will be about the same size.
The fusion reactor is one of the smallest parts of a future power plant, and will simply replace the furnace in use right now. The future fusion plant will heat water for use in steam turbines in exactly the same way as coal/gas/oil is used to heat water today.
We will still need the huge cooling towers as well.
When fusion gets to a commercially viable stage – you will be able to simply replace the current power plant furnace with a fusion furnace – and retain all the existing infrastructure.
Fusion power is vital for the long term survival of the human race, IMO. Those that are concerned with cost overruns should ask themselves – what are the costs of *not* developing it? It is a process that clearly works, we just have to make it work on Earth. Theorhetically it has been proved already, so it is just a matter of time before the practicalities are resolved. The naysayers that suggest this is science fiction need to face the reality that science fiction is becoming science fact.
We certainly do need fusion to work, and we need it soon, as the world’s energy crisis becomes more serious… Buit let’s not pretend that ITER is going to actually be what it says it is “The Way” to fusion energy. That’s just a cheap play on words with an original piece of schoolboy Latin vocabulary.
Anyone who is serious about watching fusion energy research should now be concentrating on the laser approach, which is likely to take the next big step within the next two years… at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on the National Ignition Facility in California.
If ITER is going to be “the next big thing” we’ll have to wait a decade or two for any results… at the very least !
We really need to carry on with the ITER project…its our only hope basically.
you might as well be walking on the sun…
Without steam turbines, the best way of generating electricity is by using aneutronic nuclear fusion.