An efficient, pure fuel that is so plentiful that the full year's supply
could fit in a swimming pool. That is the ideal, but science also
exists.
Contrary to popular belief, a machine located close to the village of
Culham in south Oxfordshire is really the hottest spot in our solar system.
JET, or the
Joint European Torus, is a
nuclear fusion
experiment that is housed inside a huge hangar. Temperatures here, while
operational, may reach 150 million degrees Celsius, which is 10 times hotter
than the Sun's core.
JET achieved a new record
on December 21st, 2021, by continuously generating 59 megajoules of energy
through nuclear fusion.
Only enough to run three household tumble dryer cycles,
59 megajoules
isn't much. Nevertheless, demonstrating that nuclear fusion is possible is a
huge deal for civilization. Atomic nuclei are fused together to create
energy in
fusion, as opposed to all nuclear power plants, where atomic nuclei are
broken apart by nuclear fission. Fusion has the potential to create so much energy from so little raw
material when it is harnessed on a large scale that it may, among other
things, instantly solve all of humanity's energy concerns.
The famous question of "what problem do you believe science will address
before the end of the 21st century" was posed to
Professor Stephen Hawking. He said, "I would like nuclear fusion to become a workable power source.
"It wouldn't cause pollution or global warming, just an endless source of
energy."
JET currently uses more energy to function than it generates. The
scientists at JET, as well as every other scientist working in this sector,
have yet to achieve net energy gain, the holy grail of nuclear fusion since
it would result in the release of more energy than it consumes.
Star in a bottle
JET is very amazing up close. While the experts at the
Culham Centre for Fusion Energy
(managed by the
UK Atomic Energy Authority) are intimately familiar with every square inch of this massive machine,
to the untrained eye it appears to be a bewildering, asymmetrical jumble of
steel bars, joists, cages, ladders, wires, cables, pipes, ducts, switches,
monitors, valves, plugs, scaffolding, catwalks, and steel runners.
It has a diameter of more than seven meters and is 12 meters tall on the
exterior. 2,800 tonnes are the total weight of the device. The tokamak, a
doughnut-shaped (or toroidal) vessel, is concealed somewhere in the center.
(The term "tokamak," which is an abbreviation created from the Russian words
for "toroidal chamber" and "magnetic coil," is
based on early Soviet concepts from the 1950s.)
The security and safety at Culham are appropriately tight, despite the fact
that nuclear fusion reactors are far safer than nuclear power plants (more
on this later). During operation, one-meter-thick, 20-meter-tall concrete
walls that surround JET itself close in order to largely confine the
potentially harmful neutrons produced by the fusion process. Each visitor
must pass through a security turnstile, and their radiation levels are
checked on entry and leave by a dosimeter.
JET, which began operations in 1983, has generated nuclear fusion pulses
tens of thousands of times. It will perform its farewell song at the end of
next year after 40 years of service before finally being dismantled. The
upcoming tokamak fusion initiatives will make use of the scientific
knowledge and much of the technology it has demonstrated.
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, is currently being built close to Marseille in the south of France. ITER
is a partnership of 35 countries, including the UK. Additionally, there are
proposals for a British initiative known as STEP, short for Spherical
Tokamak for Energy Production.
Its position as the West Burton power station
in Nottinghamshire was verified on October 3rd.
Professor Ian Chapman, the CEO of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, is in
command of JET. He believes that by the late 2040s, ITER will begin to
experience net energy gain. He is less specific when asked when nuclear
fusion may provide affordable energy on a commercial basis.
He told National Geographic UK that "it's an enigma question and depends so
much on energy dynamics, governmental policy, and what's happening with
carbon pricing." "I never respond to that query.
Lev Artsimovich, one of the tokamak's pioneers, is someone I frequently reference. At a
news conference in the Soviet Union in the 1970s, this topic was posed to
him, and his response was, "When mankind needs it, perhaps a short time
before that." That's still true, in my opinion.
Futures on fusion
Chapman emphasizes how the energy we produce using existing techniques will
ultimately become so expensive that governments and private corporations
will be forced to spend farther and take greater risks to harness nuclear
fusion, which is presently
dominating UK news due to the fuel crisis. He describes how the initial investment in JET began in the late 1970s,
following
the world oil crisis. Now, the Ukraine conflict-induced energy insecurity may act as a
comparable nuclear fusion trigger.
Energy strategy is implemented over decades, he continues. "Since no
parliament in the world operates on a decadal time scale, market shocks are
sadly what often spur energy action."
Even with significant investment, there are still significant obstacles to
overcome, including both technical ones—such as fuel performance and reactor
maintenance—and political ones, despite the fact that Americans, Europeans,
Russians, Chinese, Japanese, and Australians have all become more open to
the idea.
Brits have also.
The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Policy released
their nuclear fusion strategy
in October 2021. It states that this type of energy will be plentiful,
effective, carbon-free, safe, and it will also create radioactive waste that
is considerably less long-lived than what is currently produced by nuclear
power plants.
The Star Builders: Nuclear Fusion & the Race to Power the Planet is a
book
by Arthur Turrell, a
former plasma physicist at Imperial College London. It is scheduled for
publication in 2021. He claims that "the largest technological challenge
we've ever taken on as a species is regulating fusion to create energy." He
describes how fusion reactors, sometimes known as "star machines," have tens
of millions of pieces and are incredibly complicated.
The scientific portion
So how exactly does nuclear fusion operate? It involves the fusion of light
nuclei into heavier nuclei while simultaneously releasing enormous
quantities of energy. The energy that powers the cosmos is what occurs in
the center of stars like our Sun. It's important to note that this process
is the opposite of
nuclear fission, which is the method employed in nuclear power plants to release enormous
quantities of energy when nuclei are split apart to generate smaller
nuclei.
Despite the Sun, there are currently two primary fusion techniques being
tested by humanity. JET, for instance, uses a process called magnetic
confinement fusion in which two hydrogen isotopes, tritium and deuterium,
are heated to temperatures as high as 150 million degrees Celsius to form
plasma, an electrically charged gas that is contained inside a tokamak and
subject to magnetic field control.
Deuterium and tritium
combine to form helium and high-speed neutrons, releasing a tremendous
amount of energy in the process—10 million times more energy per kilogram of
fuel than is generated during the combustion of fossil fuels. The amount of
deuterium-tritium fuel needed to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, as
expertly put by Turrell, would contain more energy than the world's
population would require in a year.
The second fusion technique is known as inertial confinement fusion, and it
works by heating and compressing deuterium and tritium inside a capsule
using strong lasers.
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California is home to one of the most significant advancements in this
area.
Of course, demonstrating the viability of nuclear fusion is not the same as
using it commercially. Nuclear scientists used to frequently joke, "Nuclear
fusion is 30 years away; and always will be," or something to that
effect.
Just as nuclear fusion is beginning to gain popularity, that old adage is
beginning to lose it. Fusion pioneers from all around the world are on
Promethean missions to reproduce the Sun's energy-generation mechanism on
Earth. There are reportedly more than 100 experimental fusion reactors
operational or in the planning stages throughout the world right now.
"Public and private, big and small, star machines are taking off," says
Turrell.
There are four significant facilities in the UK alone, all of which are now
located in Oxfordshire: Tokamak Energy, First Light Fusion, and General
Fusion, in addition to JET.
They are all ultimately aiming for net energy gain. When you ask Turrell
where he thinks this may happen for the first time, he points to the
National Ignition Facility in California, where they have already attained
70% of net energy gain. He asserts that they are just "a minor adjustment
away" from achieving 100%.
Chapman enjoys all of the rivalry. All of this is beneficial to the
neighborhood, he claims. We all desire the occurrence of nuclear fusion. We
ought to experiment with a wide variety of choices. More money spent, more
risks taken.
He draws parallels between this admirable endeavor and the 1960s space
competition between the US and the USSR. "It was unthinkable
when Kennedy gave his address that a man would walk on the moon seven years later. You can do amazing
things if you have the political need to move quickly and spend money. The
US was investing more than 4% of its GDP on the space race.
Fusion proponents assert that this renewable source of energy may
ultimately supplant all of our nuclear power plants. There are some obvious
advantages.
First off, there is an ample supply of gasoline. Deuterium is obscenely
widespread, according to Turrell's book. Lithium, another abundant element,
may be used to create tritium. The human race could have unlimited access to
clean energy for millions or perhaps billions of years if nuclear fusion
technology is perfected.
According to Chapman, all the fuel he will ever require is enough lithium
to power two laptop batteries and water to fill a bathtub. For 60 years, it
would be all I would need. However, some detractors point out that there
won't be enough tritium on Earth. ITER is investigating the possibility of
producing tritium from lithium via breeding blankets. These would be a
component of the reactor wall and cause the blanket's lithium to react with
neutrons to make more tritium. If it is successful, tritium supply for power
plants might become self-sufficient.
Overcoming fear
Naturally, many users of energy experience anxiety at the mere mention of
the phrase "nuclear." Chapman acknowledges the rationale behind the
statement but soon refutes it by pointing out that fusion has far less risks
than fission. This is the second obvious advantage.
He claims that a fission plant has enough fuel to last for two to three
weeks. "If anything really out of the ordinary occurs, like a tidal wave or
an earthquake, that gasoline will last for two to three weeks. You have no
power over it. If you want the fusion device to stop, it simply does so
because there is enough fuel within for around ten seconds. A chain reaction
mechanism is implausible from a physical standpoint. I've spent the better
part of my 20-year career attempting to maintain the blasted thing.
Even though individuals involved in nuclear fusion are obviously
prejudiced, they all concur that this type of energy will be essential in a
future where there is a glut of energy. Renewable energy will continue to be
significant, but they might not be sufficient.
According to Chapman, "We aim to improve the world and provide everyone
access to clean energy." "Everywhere we can, we should use renewable energy.
But if you don't have access to sunlight or wind, for instance, they just
don't function everywhere. Fusion is possible anywhere, as fuel is widely
accessible. We no longer experience energy poverty, energy equality, or
energy-related warfare. It would be such a huge change and a crucial
component of the energy mix of the future.
He thinks nuclear fusion will have the same profound effects on society as
the Industrial Revolution. Turrell goes a step further, speculating that
this type of energy may ultimately be used to propel spacecraft that carry
people throughout the galaxy. He told National Geographic UK that "Fusion
rockets represent humanity's greatest chance for traveling over the huge
expanses of space."
JET is inactive and waiting for its next experiment at the Culham hangar.
It will carry out a number of more fusion tests before being retired in late
2023, mostly for the future ITER reactor.
It is currently dozing out like a dragon. When it awakens, you should stay
away from it. The fire that this dragon exhales burns at 150 million
degrees.
