We have a much better chance of saving the planet if we can teach our politicians the difference between nuclear fission, and nuclear fusion.
So what is the difference?
Nuclear fission is what we all know, benefit from, but have secret fears of. It involves mining a really heavy element from the earth, uranium, and splitting its atoms to create a slightly lighter atoms and an awful lot of heat. We use the heat to boil water to run a turbine, which in turn generates the electricity. We then re-bury the slightly lighter atoms because they have the tendency to keep becoming lighter, i.e., they are radioactive. This is nuclear waste. The other unfortunate part is that fission is naturally pretty unstable. If the control mechanisms used in nuclear fission fail, we have, in the worst case, a Chernobyl like incident.
Nuclear fusion on the other hand, is an important potential technology to generate large amounts of power from just water, and leaving no harmful waste products. It's kind of the reverse of fission. Instead of splitting atoms to get lighter atoms and heat, you fuse atoms to get heavier elements and heat. Sounds bizarre? But we know it works because it created life on this planet and maintains life: the sun is a giant nuclear fusion reactor, turning light hydrogen and helium into a spectrum of heavier elements. We also know it works because it has been done in large scale experiments.
So what's the catch? Well, to produce the kind of fusion that generates power, you need a really, really, really hot environment. Basically the kind of temperatures you get in the sun. Just maintaining such a reactor at temperatures that melt most metals is a tough scientific and engineering challenge. And it's a political challenge because such research doesn't come cheap. But spend a fraction of the amount that the planet spends on war and defence each year, and that buys quite a few experimental reactors.
You might have heard of cold fusion. The idea is that you can fuse atoms together without the big temperatures. This is, despite some damaging frauds late last century, well proven. The big BUT is that you probably can't get power this way... there's no excess energy released by such cold processes. There's still enough hope in cold processes that the US defence agencies put money into it.
Just imagine... a source of massive amounts of energy, with water for fuel, and no pollutants. Mind-boggling up front investment is required, but you don't have to then carve up the planet looking for fuel. And best of all, with near unlimited power, you can start to actively clean up the planet by removing our dependence on fossil fuels, scrubbing the atmosphere of harmful chemicals, and reversing the trend of rising temperatures in the oceans.
So next time you have a politician to yourself, explain the difference!
I'm writing this post because I attended a dinner by a prominent federal politician, who in response to a question about fusion, managed to demonstrate that he had no clue that it is different from fission. I suspect the fusion confusion is wide spread, and that slows down funding to the area.
