I’m not at all a green energy fanatic. I know that the sun’s energy hitting one square yard of earth is very sparse and the sun goes down every evening. I know that wind happens, then it doesn’t. I know that bio fuels mess with the price of food and are inefficient ways of producing dense storable energy like gas and jet fuel. I know that few have thought through the landfill disposal problem the earth faces when you have to retire the wind turbines or replace the solar panels or what to do with all the batteries and their exotic metals in the electric vehicles. I did get a chemical engineering degree a very long time ago.
However, I have been watching with interest the development of fusion energy. Current nuclear fission energy takes a radioactive material, splits it up, creates heat which boils water to steam, which drives turbines that create the alternating current we use in our lives. Unfortunately it creates a toxic waste that has to be dealt with, so while it doesn’t pollute the air, it potentially creates problems for the ground it’s buried in.
Fusion reverses that somewhat. It is taking various types of atoms and “fusing” them together, creating energy. Here’s a link to a story from the UK where they have sustained a fusion reaction for 5 seconds, a vast quantity of time in fusion research. They are getting close to producing as much energy as they have to put into the reactor to create the fusion. They need to get to positive output for fusion to make sense commercially.
Link to story on new fusion breakthrough
A chemical engineering friend of mine in St. Louis, wrote in a comment that seemed to me sound that the fuel mix used in this experiment produces a lot of neutrons, which can harm the equipment used to create the fusion reaction. Other technologies using alternative fuels may be able to more directly create the electricity without the need for heat to steam to turbine to electricity process. This should be a whole lot easier on the production equipment if they can figure that out. Something to watch eagerly as development ensues. If they can ever pull this off, the cost of very clean reliable energy would plummet. That might just be an enjoyable ride indeed!
I always ponder a sort of reverse melt down where the earth becomes a sun. The unknown is always unknown. Heck. It might work just fine.
Thanks Tom, love getting Fusion on people's radars.
For those interested in the article, here you go:
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60312633
And here's another interesting one:
https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/05/helion-series-e/
We figure this out, the world changes in the most dramatic fashion in human history.