The Ultimate Green Energy: Breakthroughs in Fusion Technology
Anyone who has played SimCity knows fusion is the ultimate power source. It has the potential to produce enormous amounts of electricity with limited radioactive byproducts and no emissions. Scientists have known about fusion for decades but have struggled to make any breakthroughs until recently. Two news releases suggests we could be on the verge of mastering the ultimate green energy source.
The first story comes from one of the most mysterious research centers in the world: The Skunk Works. Lockheed’s Advanced Development Programs department was behind the most advanced warplanes of the 20th and 21st centuries, including the U-2 Spyplane, SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117 stealth fighter, and the formidable F-22 Raptor. Their newest project, the high beta fusion reactor, could become the newest standard energy source for the military and civilian world.
Fusion is the opposite of nuclear fission. Rather than split heavy atoms, fusion combines two lightweight atoms by hurdling them at each other at extreme speeds. The reaction produces more energy than fission but, more importantly, it produces almost no radioactive waste. In addition, the waste produced from nuclear fusion decays at a much faster rate: a few decades rather than thousands of years. The fuel needed for a fusion reaction is also much safer, cheaper, and easier to find. Instead of using dangerously radioactive uranium or plutonium, the high beta fusion reactor uses deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of hydrogen. Deuterium is found in sea water while tritium can be extracted from lithium.
Skunk Works is not the only program developing fusion power but it is the only one close to developing a compact fusion reactor. Rather than be housed in massive power plants, the compact fusion reactor could be used to power ships and larger vehicles, as well as eventually become a smaller, more manageable power source. The main advantage of a smaller reactor is the ability to build and test it faster than its larger counterparts. More testing means more opportunities to problem-solve and make the necessary breakthroughs to bring the technology to market. Scientists at Skunk Works believe they can build a working prototype within five years.
The challenge in making fusion a viable technology has been creating a reaction that generates more energy than it takes to get the process going. It takes tremendous amounts of energy to initiate a fusion reaction. The lightweight atoms have to be traveling at extreme speeds in order to cause a reaction. The atoms inevitably become plasma which is difficult to control.The most advanced type of reaction is the magnetic confinement fusion reaction, including the tokamak and the stellerator. Both use magnetic fields to confine plasma and direct it in the right direction, namely a collision course.
Another approach uses lasers to crush a tiny quantity of frozen hydrogen lasting a few tens of billionths of a second to heat and compress it. Sandia Labs in New Mexico believes they’ve made a breakthrough using a hybrid of the Tokamak and laser approach. Called the Z Machine, the Sandia experiments have overcome some of the technological hurdles standing in the way of fusion power. It is not clear how close they are to a prototype power plant.
Why is fusion the ultimate green energy source? As mentioned above, it produces no emissions and only limited amounts of radioactive material. The risk of meltdown is tiny, with danger only to immediate personnel and not surrounding cities and towns. While technically non-renewable, the amount of deuterium and tritium found in nature is enough to last us an extremely long time. Fusion has several advantages over other alternative energy sources as well. It has a higher production potential than solar or wind energy. Its production is also not reliant on its location or any external factors. Solar panels need to be in places with lots of sunlight to be optimally efficient. Wind power only works in regions with significant wind.
The main drawbacks to fusion power are its high cost and the technical sophistication needed to build, operate, and maintain the power plant. However, these are the same challenges nuclear fission faced in the 1940s and 1950s, yet many countries now use it. Still, development of fusion will take time. It is possible the Skunk Works are a bit optimistic in their five year timeline, but there is reason to believe they could build a prototype faster than other approaches. A more modest timeline for the technology is perhaps twenty to thirty years. That means we could see the end of fossil fuels by 2034! For that reason, everyone should take a very serious interest in fusion technology.
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