Nuclear fusion has long been considered the “holy grail” of energy research. The long allure of nuclear fusion is simple: clean, safe, limitless energy for a world that will soon house 10 billion energy-hungry citizens.
Non-carbon emitting and virtually limitless energy. Sounds like sci-fi? Well it is…sort of.
The project on the radar lately has been the Iter project, the fast rising colossus in Provence, France aimed at bringing the power of the sun down to Earth. Johannes Schwemmer, the director of Fusion for Energy, the EU partner in the international Iter collaboration said. “It is a bet that is very important for humanity. We need to get this energy once and for all.”
Yes! But with over 35 countries involved and ballooning costs in the billions, at what cost?
Now it seems that the race for developing the first functioning Stellarator is between Germany and China with Japan having some success. Does America has enough billionaires interested in privately funding our efforts to get into the game?
This is something we could solve. No problem was ever too insurmountable that we weren’t able to conquer it. Even with politicians and their own personal agendas in the way. We have some brilliant US physicists – the battle cry – “Do it for the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor!”
Come on America! We’ve lost our edge.
We are too busy trying to secure the last remaining old way of fueling our soon-to-be archaic machinery and piling trillions into warfare – we’ve stopped looking to the future. Are we really so busy taking selfies and trying to get our numbers up on social media to look forward to our future?
We’ve deviated from our brand and warped it into something not as interesting and definitely not as marketable.
If you are interested in more: Read this article that explains in layman’s terms what nuclear fusion could mean to us and the future.
Or you could always watch this movie with Val Kilmer and Elizabeth Shue 😉