Fusion Energy

{Note: This post is #10 in a series of 12 where I review what Scientific American magazine has called the “12 Events That Will Change Everything”. See previous posts “Pacific Earthquake”, “Cloning of a Human”, “Machine Intelligence”, “Superconductors”, “Creation of Life”, “Nuclear Exchange”, “Extra Terrestrial Intelligence”, “Extra Dimensions”, “Polar Meltdown” and “False Dichotomy” for more information.}

The Event: Scientists will eventually be able to generate electricity by harnessing the same process that powers our sun – nuclear fusion. Hydrogen atoms will be fused into helium atoms under intense heat and pressure, releasing enormous amounts of energy with no emissions.

The Impact: The “fuel” needed for nuclear fusion is heavy hydrogen, which can be found abundantly in sea water. The end product is helium, which is an inert gas. The amount of energy released per gram of fuel is much higher than other forms of energy production. So, theoretically, nuclear fusion could become a very inexpensive way to generate electricity. This would satisfy our ever increasing desire for more energy and eliminate all sources of toxic emissions from other forms of energy production (such as burning coal, diesel, even nuclear fission waste).

The Science: The nuclear power plants currently in operation use nuclear fission reactions – this means they take large, heavy atoms (like uranium) and split them into smaller atoms to release energy. This process is well understood and fairly economical so it has become quite popular world-wide (Ontario, Canada gets about 40% of its electricity from nuclear fission reactor power plants). The downside to nuclear fission is that the end products are highly radioactive so storage and disposal is difficult (the current policy is to safely store the waste indefinitely).

Nuclear fusion is the opposite of nuclear fission. A nuclear fusion reaction takes small, light-weight atoms (such as hydrogen) and fuses them into larger atoms (such as helium). This is how our sun works. It’s a very large ball of hydrogen gas – so large that the gravity has become so strong at the centre that the hydrogen atoms are fused into helium atoms which releases energy – heat, light, radiation – which keeps our planet warm and allows plants to grow.

God has crafted our sun with the right amount of hydrogen so the reaction is self-sustaining – meaning it will continue for a very long time emitting pretty much the same amount of energy it has always produced. If there was too much or too little hydrogen, our sun wouldn’t work – it would either burn out or explode.

Jac’s Analysis: Science has a great understanding about how nuclear fusion works. The problem is trying to re-create what the sun does on a much smaller scale. We have been able to start nuclear fusion reactions in laboratories, but we haven’t been able to create a self-sustaining reaction. The big problem is that in order to duplicate what goes on in the sun, we use high powered lasers to heat hydrogen atoms to the same temperature (or higher) as the core of the sun. No material can withstand this heat so to “hold” the hydrogen in place, they use strong magnetic fields. This works fine until the reaction starts, then we run into a problem – how do we get the helium out and add more hydrogen to the reaction at the correct speed so it stays stable? If you can figure that one out, you’ll win the Nobel Prize. I think this problem is almost impossible to solve, so I doubt we will see nuclear fusion power plants in my lifetime. The authors of the Scientific American magazine article agree with me on this – they rank this event as “very unlikely”.

Our Reaction? Since this event is so unlikely, I don’t think we need to do anything – except continue to use less energy whenever possible and use renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.

Questions and comments?

1. Do you understand the difference between nuclear fusion and nuclear fission? (If not, try Wikipedia or leave a comment)
2. Did you realize that our sun is a ball of hydrogen gas with a nuclear reaction taking place at its core releasing heat, light and radiation? Isn’t it amazing how God made sure the sun had just the right amount of hydrogen so the reaction would be stable, and that He placed the sun the right distance away from us so it’s not too hot or too cold?

Next week we look at the potential of a doomsday event – a large asteroid impacting the earth.

Jac