In order to keep globally rising temperatures from increasing more than
1.5 degrees Celsius this century, the international community will have to cut carbon emissions by 45 percent by
2030 and down to zero by the middle of the century. Meanwhile emissions
continue to increase every year, and the increase is accelerating, rising by
1.6 percent in 2017 and about 2.7 percent in 2018 to reach an all-time
high. Making matters even more dire, global energy demand is projected
to grow by approximately 27 percent by 2040, or 3,743 million tons oil
equivalent (mtoe). What if there was one energy solution that could solve all
of these pressing problems?
While it sounds fantastical, there is a comprehensive solution. And it’s
right around the corner.
One of the most powerful forms of power we use today is nuclear energy.
While modern nuclear is extremely efficient and creates zero carbon
emissions, it has a lot of drawbacks, and they’re big ones: potential nuclear
meltdowns and radioactive waste that remains hazardous for thousands of years
(costing
taxpayers a bundle in the process). But there is a better way. Our
current nuclear reactors are all powered using nuclear fission, the process
of splitting atoms to generate energy. For years, scientists have wondered
how we can harness nuclear fusion, the process that powers the sun by fusing
atoms together, for use on earth. Fusion is ultra-powerful, several times
more potent than fission, and generates zero nuclear waste, since its fuel is
not uranium or plutonium, but hydrogen.
“Achieving controlled fusion reactions that net more power than they take
to generate, and at commercial scale, is seen as a potential answer to
climate change,” writes Nathanial Gronewold for Scientific
American. “Fusion energy would eliminate the need for fossil fuels and
solve the intermittency and reliability concerns inherent with renewable
energy sources. The energy would be generated without the dangerous amounts
of radiation that raises concerns about fission nuclear energy.”
The dream of nuclear fusion has long been out-of-reach, but now, with
companies like the Jeff Bezos-backed General Fusion and a huge pool of fusion
startups heating up the competition, fusion is quickly becoming a reality.
Just this week, the “world’s
largest nuclear fusion experiment” has made a major breakthrough.
Officials from the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor
(ITER), a multinational project based in Southern France, have announced that
they are now just 6.5 years away from “First Plasma,” in a historic
milestone. ITER’s project, supported by a consortium of 35 nations, is now 65
percent complete according to this week’s press release. “The section
recently installed—the cryostat base and lower cylinder—paves the way for the
installation of the tokamak, the technology design chosen to house the
powerful magnetic field that will encase the ultra-hot plasma fusion core,”
reports Scientific American. Related:
The Telecom M&A Game Is Heating Up
The project is the world’s very first commercial-scale fusion reactor
project, and all eyes are on ITER’s tokamak to set the bar, as well as the
timeline, for the commercialized nuclear fusion race. While the project is
scheduled to launch at the end of 2025, it will take another decade (at
least) to bring the facility to full power. “The date for First Plasma is
set; we will push the button in December 2025,” spokeswoman Sabina Griffith
told SA. “It will take another 10 years until we reach full deuterium-tritium
operations.”
Nuclear fusion is so difficult to achieve because of the extreme
conditions--like those in the core of the sun-- needed to be reproduced here
on Earth. As explained by the United
States Department of Energy, “fusion reactions are being studied by
scientists, but are difficult to sustain for long periods of time because of
the tremendous amount of pressure and temperature needed to join the nuclei
together.”
While nuclear fusion holds an incredible amount of promise for solving
some of the modern world’s toughest issues, the clock is ticking, and many
experts say that even with fusion right around the corner, time is not on our
side. While it is hopeful that ITER’s tokamak will be up and running by 2025
and fully operational by around 2035, that could be too late. Climate experts
are now saying that the 12-year deadline the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change gave the world to turn climate change around may need to be
shortened--to 18 months. Potsdam Climate Institute’s Hans Joachim
Schellnhuber puts it simply: "The climate math is brutally clear: While
the world can't be healed within the next few years, it may be fatally
wounded by negligence until 2020."
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
