Monday, August 26, 2013

Powering the Future: What will fuel the next thousand years?


By 
CHENDA NGAK / 
CBS NEWS/ August 26, 2013, 5:40 AM

Powering the Future: What will fuel the next thousand years?

When you hear the term nuclear energy, images of Fukushima or Three Mile Island may come to mind. But harnessing nuclear power isn't limited to the reactors that we currently use, which rely on nuclear fission. Energy can also be harnessed from fusion.
"Nuclear fusion is the energy that powers the sun and stars," Mike Mauel, professor of applied physics at Columbia University, told CBSNews.com. "It takes hydrogen gas, heating up to millions of degrees, and brings the atoms together to release energy and make helium."
Instead of splitting an atom's nucleus, like in fission, nuclear fusion is the process of bringing together two atomic nuclei to form a new nucleus. And there is no need for dangerous chemical elements like uranium or plutonium -- easing the fears of nuclear proliferation. Energy derived from fusion is appealing because very few natural resources are required to create fuel.
"The fuel for fusion basically comes from sea water. Every bottle of water that we drink has heavy water -- deuterium -- inside. Enough that's equivalent to a whole barrel of oil," Mauel says.
Source: Energy Information Administration, year 2011 data.
 / U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
According to theU.S. Energy Information Administration(EIA), approximately 68 percent of the country's electricity in 2011 was generated by coal, natural gas, petroleum and oil. The next highest energy source was nuclear energy at about 20 percent. About 13 percent was contributed by renewable sources, like solar, hydropower, wind, geothermal and biomass.
A United Nations panel of scientists has reportedly agreed, with near certainty, that humans have a direct influence on climate change. The organization is expected to release its findings in an upcoming annual report.
"It is extremely likely that human influence on climate caused more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010," says a draft of the report, obtained by the New York Times. "There is high confidence that this has warmed the ocean, melted snow and ice, raised global mean sea level and changed some climate extremes in the second half of the 20th century." 
Carbon dioxide concentration at Mauna Loa Observatory. 
/ SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY
For the first time in recorded history, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air could rise to 400 parts per million(ppm) -- it's currently just over 390 ppm.
According to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, CO2 levels hadn't surpassed 300 ppm in 800,000 years.
The race to replace fossil fuels with a sustainable replacement includes advancements in solar, wind, biomass and nuclear technology. Scientists believe that energy created from nuclear fusion is not only inevitable, but the only option that makes sense as a long-term solution.
"Many people who work in fusion power look 50 to 100 years in to the future, and we say 'what else can provide sustainable clean energy source for thousands of years on a large scale,' and fusion's one of the only ways to do that," Mauel says.
"I think that advances that we're making in solar power, wind power, clean coal technology, nuclear power -- all that is going to help us get through the next 50 years. But after that, we have to have fusion power."
The ITER Tokamak will be nearly 30 meters tall, and weigh 23,000 tons. The very small man dressed in blue (bottom right) gives some idea of the machine's scale. The ITER Tokamak is made up of an estimated one million parts. 
/ U.S. ITER
In France, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is the world's largest science experiment, and aims to prove that fusion can be achieved on a mass scale. The European Union, United States, China, South Korea, Japan, India and Russia have agreed to invest in building a reactor that can conduct experiments in burning plasma.
"ITER solves the technical problems," Dr. Ned Sauthoff, director of the U.S. ITER Project, told CBSNews.com. "Then industries in each country decide whether it will build reactors."
Sauthoff says that we know fusion has been done, but not in a large enough quantity to provide electricity on a mass scale. It is estimated that ITER will produce 500 megawatts of power for about 50 megawatts put in.
Progress doesn't come cheap. In the United States, Sauthoff says it could cost $10 billion to build the first fusion reactor.
"There are a lot of cost reductions that will come in the future," Sauthoff says. "Right we have an R&D system with lots of knobs and lots of dials. And that's expensive."
Mauel believes that while it's important to continue investing in renewable energy in the interim, it's only a matter of time before fusion energy will be a viable option for producing electricity.
"The fusion power will be ready in the second half of this century, and I think that's when we're going to need it most," Mauel says.
© 2013 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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TTRAVELER1979 says:
Seems like we have plenty of clean energy already available. Solar, wind, water, etc.

I would not take that gooey stuff out of the planet though.
Stinks anyway.
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WXWIZARD says:
I'm all for alternative energy (solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, etc), but developing fusion is also a 'must do'. At some point in our future we are going to need access to massive amounts of power, and fusion will be the only way to generate this level of power.
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SJC_1 says:
Energy in the U.S. for the next 100 years should be the topic. Fast breeders and thorium are FAR and away the best and only choice.
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SUPERDEM1 says:
So what happens when a terrorist throws a bomb into one of these reactors ? We know terrorists are dedicated to destroying what societies depend on. We need solar - every day the power to run the earth's industries and societies blows aimlessly past us to dissipate into space, while we burn sticks and coal. Every plant is smarter than we are, they know the source of endless clean energy stares us in the face every day. With Solar you don't need generating plants, you don't need grids and networks, the poorest countries could have unlimited power, there is no reason for the wars, the pollution, the poverty we see today. There is no need to destroy our environment. It is our ignorance that blinds us to the answer that shines on us every day.
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TIMSEANC replies:
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Not much, actually. The fusion process proposed here is extremely tempermental to having precise conditions (plasma temperature, containment field strength, etc) be maintained, suchthat any disruption to any of the conditions just shuts off the fusion process. No nuclear materials (except for a small amount of tritium) would remain (deuterium is not radioactive - in fact, you ingest some with every drink of water you take).
_REVENANT_ replies:
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Far safer than todays fission reactors.
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CALIFORNIADREAMING1 says:
I think nuclear fusion power or "cold fusion" as it is often referred to could be developed much sooner if we just settled on some simple compromises to get us to the finish line and put more time into it's development.

No one politician (if any) will get the credit for any of this - but that is a good thing. Meanwhile there are other things that could come to fruition sooner .... they are working on a supposedly "safe" way to use nuclear fission at MIT. Lets fund it and use that as one of our stop gap measures.
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_REVENANT_ replies:
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This article is about hot fusion.

Cold fusion is a myth. I could be wrong here.

Some have claimed cold fusion but I dont think it has ever been duplicated.
DR_PANGLOSS replies:
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Cold fusion is the New Age version of perpetual motion.
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GOOD_OLE_BOY_15 says:
Wind and solar power are a joke. Always will be.

Anti-matter and the invention and perfection of the warp engine will be our best bet. LOL!
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ELLENSMITHEE replies:
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Individual homes around the world are run on solar and wind, and very successfully. Read a book.
_REVENANT_ replies:
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GOB's only options "in his opinion" are fossil fuels.
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JDK47 says:
Obviously Don Quixote Obama needs to push his windmills and solar panels more strongly.
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ELLENSMITHEE replies:
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REALLY? You're really stupid enough to take a serious subject like this and say something so idiotic?
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ELLENSMITHEE says:
WORST! IDEA! EVER!

Hopefully, we all will build our own solar panels and windmills, and not destroy this planet. Build your own power, everyone. Don't keep giving these very evil power brokers your money. You are giving them control of your futures, your lives...and the license to destroy this planet. Go buy books on alternative energy. It's easier than you think.

This nation is in trouble because we trusted others (politicians) with our decisions. As you see, that turned out well. Take charge of your lives! Take responsibility. Build your own future. If you do not, BOOM!
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EMPIREGEORGE_---_--- replies:
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How long before I'll be able to use that solar and wind in my gasoline powered engine ?? what ??? never ???? oh, I thought that was the energy of the future.....how can that be, when we have 250 million gas powered vehicles on the road.

How do we get access to the solar and wind power energy during outages ? during storms and hurricanes, when the green power grid fails us once again ??? please explain.

What we rely on, is dirty filthy gasoline, that is very reliable during crisis and natural disasters, that we run our generators on, and fuel our vehicles/trucks during power outages, and actually go about our lives...independent from the electrical grid....the one you want us completely dependent on when reliable fossil fuels have been eliminated.
ENLIGHTENU replies:
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Best idea ever. Unfortunately is is always 40 years away. Worst written article ever.
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DICKKAHRS says:
The next thousand years? By 2100, there won't be any humans left.
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ANSWERMAN1949 says:
We have been promised fusion since I was in high school, nearly 50 years ago. However, technologies such as LFTR (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor was originally under development in the 1930s, but discarded because it did NOT produce acceptable weapons-grade material. Admiral Hyman Rickover proved LFTR was practical at Shippingport, PA during the late 1970 - early 1980s and India has it under advanced development today. Dr. Andrea Rossi's e-cat "cold fusion" technology is currently successfully producing power in Italy. Our problem is "crony capitalism," not effective alternatives to our present technologies.
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