Eric Roston, of Bloomberg, blogs that fusion has always drawn energy futurists. It is the perfect topic for them, since it has been 30 years away for at least four decades. While fission produces energy by splitting atoms of uranium or plutonium, fusion would eliminate planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions if scientists could only harness its power in a controlled fashion.
Such technology would not produce long-lasting radioactive waste, and unlike a sun that sets or wind that dies down, fusion would not need battery back-up. It would work all the time, not unlike the current fission plants today.
The world invests almost $2 trillion in energy every year, but just hundreds of millions of dollars on fusion research and development, according to Tom Jarboe, an adjunct physics professor at the University of Washington who studies controlled fusion. He called global investment in the topic a pittance, singling out President Barack Obama favoritism of wind and solar over fusion (and even fission) when it comes to clean energy.
But that tantalizing promise of a solution to all our polluting problems has kept investors investing and researchers researching, despite the fact that fusion has one major disadvantage .... They have not been able to make it work.
The reason everyone presses on is the enormous upside of limitless, clean, safe energy. Studies have found that fusion energy offers a favorable energy payback ratio, the lifetime output of a theoretical plant, compared with the energy required to build and operate it.
The Thiel Helion Energy Company (www.helionenergy.com) hopes to make a fusion generator that is 1,000 times smaller, 500 times cheaper, and 10 times faster than the current, more conventional, massive nuclear projects. The company is building a magneto-inertial fusion generator. The fuel (He-3) is available on the Moon in abundant supply.
for more on fusion and the fuel, see http://bit.ly/2frST2t (Chapter 9, p. 182).
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