Energy Crisis

Posted by Rezwan on Jul 14, 2006 at 04:23 PM
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• The Energy Crisis Narrative
 
• The “Fusion in 50 Years” Footnote
 
• The Focus Fusion Difference
 
• Reversing the Footnote

The Energy Crisis Narrative

If you spend time reading books and articles about energy, you will notice that very few of them bother to spend much (if any) time discussing fusion. Most literature on Energy and the “Energy Crisis” follows a similar narrative structure. The general outline is something like this:

1. We are dependent on energy/a civilization built on energy.
 
2. Oil is one of the most important sources of that energy.
 
3. Are we running out of oil? Debates ensue regarding conservation v. drilling in Alaska.
 
4. Other fossil fuels: Coal, Gas - Similar debates ensue.
 
5. Alternatives to oil: Nuclear Fission - Pet project of many conservatives - More heated debates ensue.
 
6. Renewable Alternatives: Hydro power is renewable, but causes massive habitat damage.
 
7. Renewable Alternatives: Biomass, Wind, Solar, Geothermal- Pet projects of many environmentalists - enthusiastic support ensues.
 
8. Conclusion.

The general trend for the conclusion follows two basic patterns:

A)  If the authors are - (warning, crude stereotype follows, actual human beings may vary) - left wing environmental pessimists, they wring their hands, say we all need to stop consuming and half the population just needs to disappear. And then they promote their pet energy project (something from group #7), but you’re left with the feeling that we’re probably doomed no matter what we do.

B)  If they are - (warning, another crude stereotype) - right wing corporatist gun lovers, they laugh at the inadequacy of the group #7 energy sources then gleefully rub their hands together and say, “See! We need nuclear energy or we’re all gonna die.” And you’re left with the feeling that in this world there are some winners and lots of losers and it’s a zero-sum game.

If they are Bjorn Lomborg they say there is no need to panic, we have plenty of oil to take us well into the future. In a single sentence, he drives home the vague rosy future when he says (in “The Skeptical Environmentalist”) :

In the longer run, it is likely that we will change our energy needs from fossil fuels towards other and cheaper energy sources - maybe renewables, maybe fusion, maybe some as-of-now unimagined technology.

This is somewhat reassuring, but it doesn’t give you anything to sink your teeth into. Hopefully in future essays, Lomborg will address the as-of-now unimagined technologies and include focus fusion in that number.

National Geographic isn’t much better. In their June 2004 article “The End of Cheap Oil,” they say that all the easily extracted oil is running out, leaving us with a dilemma: should we try to extract oil from tar sands and oil shale (which has heavy environmental costs), or “should we pin our hopes on finding new supplies of natural gas, extracting fuel from plant material, or building solar, wind or nuclear plants to make hydrogen for fuel-cell vehicles?” And that’s it. They don’t even mention fusion. This omission is perplexing, and yet not at all unusual for the energy crisis genre.

What a difference a year makes! In their August 2005 article “After Oil - Powering the Future”, National Geographic devotes a whole page to fusion. It starts with this sentence, “Fusion is the gaudiest of hopes…” Aside from the disreputable “cold fusion”, it doesn’t mention any fusion alternatives. The focus is on the “six-billion-dollar test reactor called ITER”. The “50 year” estimate is clarified thusly: “The next step would be a demonstration plant to actually generate power, followed by commercial plants in 50 years or so.”

The “Fusion in 50 Years” footnote

Why is fusion just a footnote in the Energy Crisis literature? It’s not deliberate ignorance on the part of energy crisis analysts. The problem lies with the story coming out of the conventional fusion research community. Most research is focused on the Tokomak, and results are not expected for decades. For a detailed timeline of the 50 years, See the ITER website. Click on “When will it be ready” and then “fusion development”. Why so long? An article on Physicsweb sums it up this way:

  “So we have some confidence that the tokamak can conceivably produce a fusion power reactor that works. For these reasons, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project - a multi-billion dollar international engineering design study of a burning fusion plasma experiment - has focused on the tokamak as its vehicle of choice. However, it is not clear that the conventional tokamak approach will lead to a practicable commercial power plant that anyone will be interested in buying. This is a consequence of its projected low power density, high capital cost, high complexity and expensive development path. After all, the acid test for fusion energy is, ultimately, not its scientific achievements but whether it will be adopted by the market.”

Against this backdrop, articles on the energy crisis sometimes say “we might have fusion in 50 years” and leave it at that. It’s interesting that this fifty year/decades away estimate coincides with “end of oil” estimates. Conspiracy enthusiasts might have fun with this. The status quo is maintained until we run out of oil, at which, on cue, the fusion problem gets solved. But it gets solved in such a way that power structures don’t change much. The only people who will be able to afford those big, expensive reactors will still be the big energy giants. Energy distribution will still be in the hands of a few, and vulnerable to artificial manipulation. Costs to consumers will still be high. By this time, with fossil fuels in decline, there would be many more nuclear fission reactors out there as well. This suggests that many more countries will have nuclear weapons capacity. Adding fusion to the mix, we note that the fuel used in fusion (tritium) is dangerous because it can be a key ingredient in nuclear weapons. In short, the world will feel a lot less safe.

The Focus Fusion Difference

While conventional fusion is just a footnote in the energy crisis literature, Focus Fusion isn’t even on the radar. Not many people are familiar with all the fusion alternatives out there (Click here for the history of plasma focus research). The conventional fusion community paints the picture that fusion is not obtainable for decades and requires incredibly complicated, expensive machines of epic action movie proportions. This makes the Focus Fusion approach seem incredible.

That is also the strength of our approach. By looking at the problem in a different way, we are bypassing a lot of needless complexity and expense. Click here for a comparison of Focus Fusion and conventional fusion that shows how the barriers to fusion are more likely psychological than technological.

Of course, there is only one way to verify that Focus Fusion can indeed be the difference that transforms the energy crisis story, and that is to test our hypothesis according to the research plan. Please support our project now!

Reversing the Footnote

Ultimately, we hope to complete this project and develop a working Focus Fusion reactor. Then, after a transition period in which the reactors are made available to everyone, we hope to welcome the dawn of “Fusion World.”

Someday, we hope to look back on all this and see that the “Energy Crisis” has become a footnote to the Fusion story, a little sentence they throw in at the beginning about what things were like before humanity came together to solve the fusion puzzle in the most elegant way.

Click here to support our research and make this happen!