Why is fusion so promising

The folks associated with ITER say that they'll have plasma in the reactor in and will be doing fusion by But the project has been dogged by delays, not to mention a very negative review of its management recently. So take those dates with a giant grain of salt. More broadly, fusion power research has a very long history of always promising that success is just 20 years away.

It also has had its share of wackos, hucksters, and well-meaning, but blindly optimistic scientists. For a good, pessimistic argument of why fusion power will never happen, check out journalist Charles Seife's Slate piece from a few years back. One of the reasons that people are so jazzed about fusion energy is that it should be pretty darn safe — a lot safer than our current nuclear power plants and absolutely safer than a bomb. Not an issue here. First off, plasma needs a very carefully controlled environment in order for fusion to happen.

So if something goes wrong with the reactor, the fusion reaction will simply stop. That's why there's no danger of a runaway reaction like a nuclear meltdown. And unlike fission, fusion power doesn't use require fuel like uranium that produces long-lived, highly radioactive waste. What goes into the fusion system is just hydrogen and sometimes lithium, and what comes out is helium the stuff that's in party balloons and some neutrons.

Neutron-induced radioactivity: Fusion reactions produce high-energy neutrons, which are not themselves radioactive. However, they strike the walls of the reactor with so much energy that the walls can become radioactive. However, this radioactivity doesn't last nearly as long as the kind at current nuclear plants. Tritium fuel: Tritium is a type of hydrogen that's currently used in many fusion experiments.

And it's weakly radioactive. But that's probably not a big problem. The EPA says this : "because [tritium] emits very low energy radiation and leaves the body relatively quickly, for a given amount of activity ingested, tritium is one of the least dangerous radionuclides.

Physicists like to use the deuterium and tritium forms of hydrogen, which are easier to fuse than the standard kind. Deuterium naturally occurs in water in high enough concentrations that there's plenty. And we'd need so little a few gallons of water could provide the same power as a super tanker's worth of oil that depleting our water resources isn't really an issue.

Tritium needs to be made by humans. It can be produced by fission reactors or by adding some lithium into a fusion reactor. Although lithium isn't super abundant on land, there's enough in the seas to theoretically support 30, years of fusion power.

Many people say that solar or any other kind of power is a better option than fusion. Whether or not fusion research is worth the time and money is quite controversial. But one of the major hurdles with solar power is that the sun only shines sometimes.

If we were to go completely solar, it would require large-scale battery technology that we don't yet have. Probably, although it involves dangerously high voltage.

A few years ago, a year-old built a fusion reactor in his basement. Have fun. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all. Early test reactors managed to produce a fusion reaction, but not one that was sustainable or energy efficient.

In other words, it took more energy to produce the reaction, than the reaction itself produced. ITER was originally launched way back in , amid great expectation. Its collaborative structure was designed to ensure the whole world would eventually benefit from the technology, not just one or two nations. But the initial stages of the project were problematic.

On-site construction didn't begin until And even then, it was slow to get going. It was late, it was over-budget. But a new directorate was put in on the project and they have really got the thing moving in the right direction. For ITER to be considered a success, according to Professor Garrett, it must demonstrate that it can achieve an energy gain of a factor of In both North America and the United Kingdom there are numerous projects operating on a smaller scale.

One of them involves the company Tokamak Energy, whose executive vice chairman is Dr Kingham. Tokamak Energy is yet to produce a fusion reaction at its test facility in Oxfordshire. The company's researchers are using a spherically shaped tokamak chamber that they hope will deliver greater efficiencies than the donut-shaped one designed for ITER. After that, they'll then need to demonstrate that the enhanced superconducting magnets within the tokamak have the strength required to effectively contain the plasma.

He says the company will then need to raise the additional investment necessary to fast-track the development of a small fusion demonstrator device by , the same year that ITER expects to begin its initial plasma testing.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson even made it part of his re-election pitch during December's election. He also agrees with Dr Kingham that a focus on developing high-temperature superconducting magnets is a priority. We've got to be cost-competitive with oil, gas, coal and renewables. Short summaries of some of the efforts are given below.

Courtesy: TAE Technologies. TAE Technologies. Though this is a more difficult reaction to achieve—requiring temperatures at least an order of magnitude higher—it has the advantage of not producing the highly energetic neutrons that complicate DT fusion. FRC is a magnetic confinement method forming a toroidal plasma, but without a toroidal magnetic field Figure 6.

TAE is based in Irvine, California. It is hoped this will allow for smaller, more efficient, and less expensive magnets. General Fusion. This Vancouver, British Columbia—based company is pursuing one of the more revolutionary approaches, which it calls magnetized target fusion MTS. The MTS concept uses a sphere filled with molten lead-lithium, which is then pumped to form a vortex. A pulse of magnetically confined plasma fuel is injected into the vortex, and an array of pistons creates a shock wave in the liquid metal to compress the plasma to fusion conditions.

Heat from the liquid metal will then be captured and used to generate electricity. Tokamak Energy. A UK company, Tokamak Energy is working on magnetic confinement fusion, but employing a tokamak with a more spherical shape, based on a concept developed in the U.

This device, called ST40, has been commissioned and research on it is currently ongoing. Tokamak Energy claims to have achieved plasma temperatures of up to 15 million degrees Celsius. ITER is not the only undertaking generating excitement in the fusion community. At least a dozen private start-up companies have begun investigating alternative approaches to fusion energy over the past decade see sidebar.

Some of them are working on slightly different magnetic confinement methods, others are pursuing truly innovative—if high-risk—methods that could produce dramatic breakthroughs. All of them are looking for paths to fusion that are simpler and less expensive than ITER. What will come after ITER? The details are still to be determined, but a number of targets are in sight.

If all goes well, the technology from ITER should enable electricity generation from fusion, and member nations are not waiting until the late s to begin planning. Several follow-on devices that will be even higher performance than ITER are in development. Courtesy: China Institute of Plasma Physics. Its initial phase will demonstrate fusion operation at about MW fusion power, but it will eventually be upgraded to at least 2 GW fusion power and MW net generation.

Formal construction of the device is slated to begin in the s, but construction of supporting facilities and key prototype components has already begun at a location in Hefei.

Courtesy: EUROfusion. In the U. Until recently, progress toward fusion energy in the U. Funding for the U. A report from the National Academies of Science in strongly recommended that the U.

This plant would likely have net generation of about MW to MW. The preference for a smaller design reflects the economic realities of electricity generation in the U. The study is expected to be completed later this year. When will we see fusion as a meaningful element of the power mix? In this, it is worth remembering that practical fission generation was first demonstrated in the s, yet it was not until the mids that commercial nuclear plant construction began on a large scale.

Several of the earliest fission plants were public-private partnerships between utilities and the Atomic Energy Commission. The first U. This does suggest, however, that large-scale commercial fusion energy should not be expected before the s, roughly 20 years after ITER begins DT operations.

Much of how a fusion plant would be built and operated does not fit within existing NRC regulations, a fact the NRC itself has recognized. The fusion industry has begun engaging with the NRC on what such a regulatory approach would look like, but no official rulemaking has begun, nor is it likely to until the technology of fusion power plants is considerably clearer.

Both federal and state regulatory environments will need to be adapted for fusion, a process that is likely to be drawn out and subject to extensive litigation. Though this article has focused on scientific and engineering factors, the ultimate deciding factors will be social and economic.

Fusion power plants will be built when investors and public utility commissions begin viewing them as worthwhile investments. Exactly when that point will be reached is difficult to say. Rosenberger Seminar Series. With the critical need for long-term energy solutions, the LLE is a leader in direct-drive laser fusion research, collaborating with fusion laboratories across the globe.

The neutron does not have an electric charge, so it can easily penetrate the positively charged nucleus of the atom.

The extra neutron makes the atom unstable to the point where it splits apart and releases energy. Fusion, on the other hand, involves bringing together atoms of lighter elements, like hydrogen.