Fusion: A dream for the future ... still

(NOTE: This column was originally written 14 years ago. It follows verbatim, abbreviated somewhat.)

EASTON, Md. April 1, 1992 — I learned recently that 3,000 Russian nuclear scientists were facing unemployment as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Empire.
The thought occurred to me — the U.S. should hire the entire lot.
The Russians are well advanced in the study and testing of the theory of fusion.
Why not have America make a commitment for another “Manhattan Project” to produce the nation’s electrical energy by fusion within the next decade?
Fusion is the opposite of fission.
Fission reacts in an explosive manner. Fusion does not. Fission requires massive, prohibitively expensive strucures to control radiation. The fuel is costly uranium. It creates substantial nuclear waste.
The fuel for the fusion process is sea water — or, more specifically, heavy water. One particle of heavy water occurs at the rate of every 50 particles of sea water.
What makes heavy water unique is the fact that one of the hydrogen atoms in the H2O has twice the mass of the other hydrogen atom.
In the early 1950s, a team of Soviet nuclear scientists, under the direction of Lev Artsimovich of the Institute of Atomic Energy in Moscow, invented a magnetic chamber for its fusion reactor.
The fusion reactor was shaped like a doughnut and was named for just that, “tokamak,” the Russian word for doughnut.
In theory, the Soviet reactor was designed to accept heavy water which would be heated to extremely high temperatures (50-100 million degrees). At a point, the heavy water is converted into what is known as plasma. In this state, the molecules of heavy water separate into a sea of unattached electrons with nuclei floating in it. These magnetically charged nuclei would then go in search of other detached nuclei and combine in pairs to form helium.
The enormous energy released by the breaking away of the nuclei from the hydrogen atom and the forming of the helium atom would provide the heat required to continue the process and also produce the steam to run the turbines thereby generating electrical energy.
And, miraculously, the fusion process creates little radiation.
The fusion process works in theory and many of the elements required for complete success have been tested.
We know the supply of fossil fuels is finite. The use of fossil fuels creates most of the air pollution in the world. Fossil fuels are increasingly expensive and subject to embargo by world cartels.
When fusion becomes a reality, cheap electrical energy will work miracles for America and the world.
Electric automobiles, now a reality, will join electric buses and electric trucks on the highways. Iron ore will be smelted into steel in electric furnaces. The day will be at hand when we can knock down the smokestacks of the world. Acid rain will disappear.
The United States would hold the technology and the patents of the fusion process if there were any.
America could license other nations of the world to use our fusion technology for a cost of a fraction of a cent per kilowatt hour.
Over the years, tens of thousands of jobs would be created for American labor and trillions of dollars would flow to the U.S. treasury in fusion royalties alone.
Our balance of payments problem would correct itself — to say nothing of balancing our own budget and paying off the national debt.
All of this is possible!
-End-

Why revive a column written 14 years ago, when during that time no fusion story of major importance has been carried by the dominant media?
The American public has been kept virtually in the dark with respect to fusion during the past 20 years of energy crisis, carbon dioxide panic, and global warming hype. The knowledge that sea water could replace fossil fuels for the generation of electrical energy should have been part of a widespread national debate.
It could have produced another Manhattan Project which brought the atomic bomb, previously thought impossible, into being in three short years.
A vigorously promoted energy campagin by a supportive national press could have given the program a sense of urgency and unleashed the genius of the entrepreneurial spirit of America.
Experimental work is being carried out today in the United States and a number of countries around the world.
There seems to be, unfortunately, little coordination between the groups.
The good news is as they all agree on the design of the fusion reactor, the original “tokamak” designed by Russian fusion physicist L.A. Artsimovich in 1968.
The lead group, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (INTER), now based in France, is composed of members: United States, Russia, the European Union, Japan, China and South Korea.
What could be troubling news is that China seems to have stepped aside and is developing its own fusion reactor program under the leadership of Li Jiangang of the Chinese Academy of Physics.
China’s project is the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST).
According to Li, it “will be the first ever fusion device put into operation in the world and will be unbeatable for at least one decade.” Discharge testing is set for July or August 2006.
In the event China succeeds with its EAST fusion project, the United States and the Western World could be placed at a major disadvantage.
America’s economy could be damaged seriously and perhaps permanently in less than a generation.
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Mr. Hostetter welcomes comments at admin@americanfarm.com.