![]() ![]() The first challenge is to have enough fusion reactions in the pellet that is blasted by lasers to produce more energy than is put into the target. One can identify three stages of physics challenges. The recent “breakthrough” that NIF announced pertains to what I would term “physics challenges”. ![]() That would not be the last prediction about the imminence of fusion power that would be wrong. When that happens the energy problems of the world will have been solved for ever. “ I venture to predict that a method will be found for liberating fusion energy in a controlled manner within the next two decades. That took place in 1955 when Homi Bhabha, the architect of India’s nuclear programme, told the first International Conference on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva: Of course, that timescale pales in comparison to the time period of the first major announcement about fusion-generated electricity. Conceptual design work on ITER began in 1988. These incredibly high costs also explain why such announcements are made in the first place: without the excitement created by these hyped-up statements, it would be impossible to get funded for the decades it takes to plan and build these facilities. The reactor is currently being built in Cadarache, France, at an estimated cost of somewhere between $25 billion to as high as $65 billion, much higher than the original estimate of $5.6 billion. France is expected to take its turn once the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) starts operating. Apart from the United States, similar announcements have come from Germany, China and the United Kingdom. These statements have come with unfailing regularity from NIF (for example, in 2013 ) and the larger set of laboratories and commercial firms pursuing the idea of nuclear fusion. Over the last decade or so, there have been many similar announcements featuring breathless language about breakthroughs, milestones, and advances. At the same time, this experiment will contribute far more to US efforts to further develop its terrifyingly destructive nuclear weapons arsenal. ![]() US Senate majority leader Charles Schumer, for example, claimed that we were “ on the precipice of a future no longer reliant on fossil fuels but instead powered by new clean fusion energy ”.īut in truth, generating electrical power from fusion commercially or at an industrial scale is likely unattainable in any realistic sense, at least within the lifetimes of most readers of this article. On December 13, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced that the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory had reached a “milestone”: the achievement of “ignition” in nuclear fusion earlier in the month. That announcement was hailed by many as a step into a fossil fuel-free energy future. This article was originally published on The Wire Science, our website dedicated to science, health and environment reportage and analysis. ![]()
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