The following editorial is a contribution of Charles Helsley, former director of the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology.
Fusion Power - NOW
The modern world survives – and sometimes prospers – by the use of prodigious amounts of energy. Our global consumption of fossil fuel energy has increased nearly 8 fold in the last 60 years although our global population has only increased 2.5 times. Our fossil fuel resources are finite so this rate of usage has a limited life – oil is likely to peak in a few years, if it has not already peaked, and coal will follow suit in a few decades. Even the nemesis to many, nuclear or fission power, has its problems for resources are stretched by the existing users and new units likely will require the use of plutonium with its unacceptable security requirements to prevent it from being used to make ‘bombs’.
Clearly, the maintenance of our current level of energy consumption, let alone its growth to satisfy the needs of less developed economies, will require a new energy source. Biomass, solar, and even wind energy are likely to grow too slowly to even meet the rapid decline of oil resources that will begin in the next few years. Our only hope is to rapidly bring fusion power on line.
Before you write off this idea as being ‘hair-brained’ for all of us have been told commercial fusion power is 50 years away and seems to have gotten further away in the last few decades, let me assure you that there are ways of making fusion power a reality much more rapidly. In the late 1970’s a viable means of producing a controlled thermonuclear reaction using Heavy Ions particle beams was researched and shown feasible by national labs such as Argonne, LBL, and LLL. Unfortunately, funding was redirected away from this promising avenue into weapons research and then into Tokamaks and ITER all of which have interesting physics but none are unlikely to produce viable commercial power sources. Only HIF (Heavy Ion Fusion) has the endorsement of renowned scientists as a practical means of generating fusion power. Essentially all the needed research has been done and it is now only a matter of money and effort to develop the first operating unit. If you want to read more see http://hif.lbl.gov/tutorial/tutorial.html .
The modern world survives – and sometimes prospers – by the use of prodigious amounts of energy. Our global consumption of fossil fuel energy has increased nearly 8 fold in the last 60 years although our global population has only increased 2.5 times. Our fossil fuel resources are finite so this rate of usage has a limited life – oil is likely to peak in a few years, if it has not already peaked, and coal will follow suit in a few decades. Even the nemesis to many, nuclear or fission power, has its problems for resources are stretched by the existing users and new units likely will require the use of plutonium with its unacceptable security requirements to prevent it from being used to make ‘bombs’.
Clearly, the maintenance of our current level of energy consumption, let alone its growth to satisfy the needs of less developed economies, will require a new energy source. Biomass, solar, and even wind energy are likely to grow too slowly to even meet the rapid decline of oil resources that will begin in the next few years. Our only hope is to rapidly bring fusion power on line.
Before you write off this idea as being ‘hair-brained’ for all of us have been told commercial fusion power is 50 years away and seems to have gotten further away in the last few decades, let me assure you that there are ways of making fusion power a reality much more rapidly. In the late 1970’s a viable means of producing a controlled thermonuclear reaction using Heavy Ions particle beams was researched and shown feasible by national labs such as Argonne, LBL, and LLL. Unfortunately, funding was redirected away from this promising avenue into weapons research and then into Tokamaks and ITER all of which have interesting physics but none are unlikely to produce viable commercial power sources. Only HIF (Heavy Ion Fusion) has the endorsement of renowned scientists as a practical means of generating fusion power. Essentially all the needed research has been done and it is now only a matter of money and effort to develop the first operating unit. If you want to read more see http://hif.lbl.gov/tutorial/tutorial.html .
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HIF provides a means of quickly bringing 10 to 100 GW of clean, safe, economical energy on line in less than a decade and perhaps as soon as a half decade. Moreover, rapid conversion from fossil fuels to non-carbon based fuels in the quantities needed by modern society is only possible using fusion. We urgently need public support and a political mandate to begin construction of such a system. It can be done, so let us do it NOW!
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I agree with Chuck that that the period around 2012 might well be the timeframe for a major global economic collapse from the combined impact of Peak Oil and Global Warming. There is no solution to overcome this calamity, but an Apollo/Manhattan effort to immediately move forward on major non-fossil sustainable options that show promise for early large-scale commercialization could minimize the agony. His fusion concept with Bob Burke is worthy of immediate exploration. This White Energy posting closes my week on Black Energy. Next week? GREEN ENERGY.
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