Our world urgently needs an abundant source of clean energy that can help reduce the effects of climate change caused by burning fossil fuels. Nuclear fusion takes the spotlight in producing energy with almost zero carbon emissions without releasing radioactive waste. Since the 1950s, physicists have been studying the potential of fusion power, but they still find it difficult to turn it into a practical energy source.
Challenges in Generating Fusion Energy
Most experts believe te cannot generate large-scale energy from nuclear fusion before the year 2050. Decarbonizing might be possible using other renewable sources such as solar, wind, and nuclear fission. By the second half of the century, fusion can still be a key factor in the energy economy as more developing countries transition to sustainable energy sources.
However, many challenges come with this plan because generating fusion energy is like making stars on Earth. When the light atomic nuclei of hydrogen atoms combine, they release an immense amount of energy. Allowing these nuclei to merge will require tremendous pressures and temperatures to overcome the electrostatic barrier. It will only need a plasma mixture of hydrogen isotopes to release the energy in the reaction and make it self-sustaining.
So far, there is still no known material that can withstand such extreme conditions. Even extremely heat-resistant metals like tungsten will melt in an instant. Experts suggest a reactor design with magnetic confinement where the electrically charged plasma is held in strong magnetic fields. However, magnetic-confinement fusion will also require materials that can resist the treatment from plasma fusion.
Making the fusion fuel also adds to the challenges posed by nuclear fusion. Our planet has abundant sources of deuterium, one of the isotopes of natural hydrogen. But the other isotope, tritium, only forms naturally in small amounts and radioactively decays in just 12 years.
Attempts to Pioneer the Fusion Technology
In southern France, the largest global fusion project, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), plans to use a massive tokamak designed to harness fusion energy. Its construction started in 2007 with the initial goal of producing plasmas in the fusion chamber by 2020. ITER encountered repeated delays and cannot have commercial power since it is just an experimental machine intended to prepare the technology for viable power plants.
Another group of researchers attempted to develop tokamaks like the one created by ITER but used smaller devices with a more spherical shape. The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) plans to build a pilot plant called Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) with features that are in parallel with ITER.
On the other hand, the E.U. also aims to make its prototype plant called DEMOnstration Power Plant (DEMO). It is administered by the EUROfusion consortium and intended as a 500-MW plant. Technical uncertainties, however, led the consortium to scale it back to around 200 MW.
Aside from big national and international projects, private companies also express their interest in constructing small spherical tokamaks. Fusion start-up firms, such as General Fusion in Canada, Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) in Massachusetts, and Tokamak Energy in the U.K, started to follow.
Regardless of the announcements from various companies, the technology is still far from energy production on an industrial scale. Therefore, we cannot rely on nuclear fusion as an immediate solution in solving the problems of climate change.
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