Is nuclear fusion our best hope?

Posted by Oliver Robinson on 31 January 2010 | 0 Comments

Tags: nuclear fusion, sustainability, energy

While climate change and energy reform campaigners focus on the potential of renewable energy sources that come direct from nature, such a wind and solar power, scientists have been quietly making huge strides towards the possibility of nuclear fusion and its potential as an energy source. In the climate change and environmentalist movements, there tends to be a back-to-basics, nature-based sensibility that can prevent focusing on cutting-edge technological breakthroughs as real solution to the energy and environmental crisis. Yet, a news item emerged last week that, for a change, was genuinely GOOD news.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8485669.stm

It seems that scientists have made significant strides towards creating nuclear fusion in a laboratory setting. It is important to grasp the scope of what nuclear fusion as an energy source would bring to our little planet. It would mean an "inelastic" source of energy with abundant source materials, little pollution and no carbon emissions. It has been estimated that with fusion, 100 times the current energy consumption of the world is possible.  Therefore not only could it mean energy demands are met, it could also take on the job of fresh water supply, by proving the energy required for large-scale desalination. In 2006 The New Scientists estimated that nuclear fusion power was a century away. With the latest breakthrough, it could be less than that, it could be in our lifetime. It would help usher in a new era of human existence, as for centuries humanity has been defined by meeting energy sources by raping the planet's natural resources. Perhaps our time will be known as the Oil Age. Perhaps nuclear fusion will help to bring about its demise.  In another life, I would have loved to have committed my life's energies to helping realise nuclear fusion power.  Here is the website of ITER, the international fusion organisation, which gives further information and science on fusion:

http://www.iter.org/default.aspx

Dr Olly Robinson