The Obvious Energy Answer
By Kevin Roeten (06/26/07)
The answer that we all need occurs continuously right in front of our faces. We just haven't successfully tested a full scale application. It doesn't produce any CO2, so the greenhouse 'gassers' can't complain. In 2006 an agreement was signed to construct an international experiment on the full scale of a fusion power plant. It is an exothermic process that produces self-sustaining reactions.
The ITER(International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is scheduled for construction starting in 2007 per BBC News. The ITER will attempt to reproduce the nuclear reactions that power the sun and other stars, and give almost unlimited energy.
Fusion works on the principle that energy is released by forcing atomic nuclei together, rather than splitting them. Splitting is what occurs in existing fission power stations. The atomic reaction of two hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium, produces helium with very large amounts of energy. Both deuterium and tritium are found in seawater(or heavy water), which occurs in a ratio of one part for every 50 parts of seawater. Incredibly, heavy water occurs in one part in every 38 parts off the coast of Nova Scotia. In essence, the fuel for fusion is virtually inexhaustible.
The extraction of heavy water from seawater goes back to WWII, and is why Nazi Germany conquered Norway to gain access to heavy water. They believed this was necessary for building an atomic bomb.
When nuclear fusion becomes a reality, cheap electrical energy will run automobiles, buses, and trucks. There will be no alleged buildup of CO2, even though many scientists are now predicting an oncoming ice age from existing sun variations. We should be able to knock down all the polluting smokestacks of the world, and acid rain and smog will no longer concentrate over large urban areas. Fusion will not generate any CO2, so global warming ‘gassers’ will cease to exist, even though by then everyone will realize that the sun itself controls all the earth temperatures. Fusion energy will be cheap by today’s standards.
In fact, nuclear energy(fission) already provides 75% of the electricity in France and 20% in the US. (But we need to give regulation credit for that small number.) The EU and France would contribute 50% of the construction costs for the ITER, and expect the same return. Even so, the project partners are France, ‘EU’, US, Japan, Russia, China, South Korea, and India.
Dubbed “DEMO”, the reactor will be sited at Cadarache in southern France. Construction is expected to take at least a decade. Construction costs should be ~4.57 billion euros(2000 prices), and a commercial reactor to deliver energy to various locations is not expected before 2045 or 2050. Considerable investment will be required from the partners, but the potential payoffs are thought to be well worth any investment.
A gallon of seawater could produce as much energy as 300 gallons of gasoline. The first fusion experiment was done in the early 1930’s. But high amounts of energy were needed to create the beam of accelerated deuterium. The next fusion experiment was in the 1950’s, when the hydrogen bomb used fusion to release immense amounts of energy in an uncontrolled explosion. For fusion to be useful, a slow controlled reaction is required.
Most recently, 1.7 million watts were produced at the Joint European Torus(JET), and in 1993 Princeton had a fusion reactor output of 5.6 million watts. Unfortunately, both of these reactions consumed more energy than was being released. ITER is proof that that the challenges to producing energy in a self-sustaining reaction can be met. In the reaction field, the incorporated plasma touches nothing, and therefore stays hot and doesn’t burn through a typical container. To group atoms with positive and negative charges, one needs 180,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The easiest way to achieve the temperatures needed for fusion is to contain the heat in plasma, which is held in a magnetic force field.
The interesting point is that God knew exactly when the human race would figure out how to harness fusion energy. But we likely will never figure out how to harness ‘life’ itself without His help.
Kevin Roeten
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