Interesting CBS news segment from NYT technology writer David Pogue on fusion research at the National Ignition Facility, which opened in 2009 and now says it could be roughly a year away from proving the scientific feasibility of fusion energy. If so - and that's a big if - we'd still looking at another decade to demonstrate commercial feasibility.
Two weeks ago, NIF's laser array fired an energy pulse at a packet of frozen hydrogen, resulting in a fusion reaction that generated 411 trillion watts of peak power. That's 1,000 times more than the United States uses at any one moment. So why can't we immediately switch over from coal/gas electricity to fusion? Because we still haven't been able to create a sustained fusion reaction that generates more energy than is needed to initiate the reaction (i.e. "breakeven" or the "ignition" part of NIF's name).
In terms of physics, there is no barrier to fusion as a successful source of energy - the problem is that it isn't easy to achieve ignition, sustained fusion reaction, and breakeven. Given the massive benefits to society and the economy that would result from successful commercialization of fusion, we should be spending tens of billions more annually on fusion research. We really haven't put much effort (i.e. funding) into fusion given what a genuine game-changer that technology would be. There's the standard joke that "fusion is thirty years away, and always will be" - which strikes me as unhelpfully cynical when the problem is driven by the fact that we just haven't made fusion a national (or international) priority. Funding for fusion has been anemic since the late 1950s.
According to the Focus Fusion Society, a New Jersey-based non-profit that seeks to advance aneutronic fusion research,
Since 1953, when the fusion program started, the total spent on fusion energy in the US, both Magnetic and Inertial is $22.4 Billion dollars. Adjusting for inflation, total fusion spending is $29.1 Billion. That’s for 57 years of fusion funding. That’s an average of $393 Million a year - adjusted to $510 million per year in the US. This includes NIF as well as Tokamaks and alternatives. Does that seem like a lot to you?
I can't confirm those FFS numbers are correct (anyone who can provide better/official figures is encouraged to leave a comment), but the larger point is that fusion research is seriously under-funded, and always has been relative to its value to society. Moreover, U.S. spending is set to decline in Obama's proposed FY 2013 budget. There are lots of politics involved here that I'm not following - or really qualified to comment on, to be honest - such as the relative value of spending on MIT's work versus shifting funding over to ITER. My point is that we should be increasing U.S. federal spending for fusion across the board, which would render these zero-sum budget games moot.
[UPDATE 4/5/12: see my post on 4/5/12 for IEA statistics on fusion R&D investment in OECD countries for 1994-2004.]
Two quibbles with Pogue's piece: one, why give so much time to unqualified, flakey naysayers like the woman from that NIMBY group who adheres to the kind of short-sighted perspective that gives (some) liberals a bad name? Second, I follow fusion research rather loosely, but my understanding is that Europe's ITER is ahead of the U.S. on fusion research - though I could be wrong on that.
And a final point - not a quibble - is that deuterium-tritium (D + T → 3He) fusion is first generation stuff. Certainly, mastering 1G is the essential first step, but we should also be funding 2G fusion research (hydrogen + boron-11, deuterium + helium-3, and helium-3 + helium-3) because those are aneutronic - they don't blast the walls of the fusion chamber with neutrons, which shortens the life of the chamber (which increases costs) and presents radioactive waste issues (though less dramatic than fission technologies).
So as a result of this first post on fusion, I've determined that I need to get better up to speed on the subject. I've only been keeping up in passing but will have more to write on this subject in coming posts - after I'm better aquainted with the technologies.
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