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Group pushes for U.S. nuclear fusion Says it could be possible within 10 years to demonstrate the technology as a feasible means of generating clean and abundant power Alan Bailey Petroleum News
The American Security Project, a non-partisan public policy organization, has published a white paper arguing for the U.S. development of nuclear fusion technology, a technology that the organization says could give the country a leading position in producing clean, safe and abundant energy.
Nuclear fusion, as distinct from nuclear fission, the conventional form of nuclear energy in which heavy atoms are split, involves the fusion of hydrogen nuclei to form helium atoms. This fusion reaction generates energy that in principle could be used to fuel a power generation system, in a similar manner to a conventional nuclear fission power station, but with no radioactive waste products and with the use of deuterium and tritium, readily available hydrogen isotopes, as feedstock. Nuclear fusion is the reaction that powers the sun and other stars.
But the extreme technical challenges, huge costs and long research timeframes required to develop a workable nuclear fusion power system have made nuclear fusion research the prerogative of governments rather than private industry, with some people dismissing the nuclear fusion power generation concept as a science-fiction fantasy, an idea appealing in concept but impractical in reality.
Plasma technique According to the web site of ITER, an international project conducting government-funded nuclear fusion research, in 1991 a device called the Joint European Torus, located in the United Kingdom and funded by more than 20 European countries, succeeded in the first controlled release of fusion power, using an extremely hot plasma confined within a magnetic field. But, although since then similar devices in Japan and the United States have achieved similar results, upping the amount of power released, no device that can generate more energy than it consumes has yet been demonstrated, the web site says.
ITER is currently constructing a 13 billion euro nuclear fusion test facility in the south of France, to try to break that barrier of achieving a net energy gain, using a plasma heated to 150 million degrees centigrade. The European Union, the United States, Russia, China, India, Korea and Japan are jointly funding the experiment, according to the American Security Project white paper.
Confinement fusion In addition to the use of a plasma device of the type that ITER is building, nuclear fusion can be achieved through an alternative process called inertial confinement fusion, the white paper says. In this process, atoms constrained within fuel pellets are fused when a laser beam heats the pellets and causes them to implode. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has been making progress in researching this approach and is designing a demonstration power plant for construction when, as in the plasma approach, the scientists succeed in achieving a net gain of energy from the fusion reaction, the white paper says.
National commitment? The United States needs a national commitment to the development of nuclear fusion power — success in this field would bring not only a much-needed new source of clean and abundant power but also would ensure that the country maintains a leading position in science and engineering, the white paper says.
A fast-track research program, akin to the Apollo Moon program of the 1960s, would involve a commitment of $30 billion over 10 years, with a goal of achieving practical nuclear fusion power within that timeframe, setting the stage for subsequent full-scale commercial power generation. And the president should appoint a fusion power commissioner, to coordinate the efforts of the various entities involved, the white paper says.
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