Let's pretend, for a moment, that the climate doesn't matter. That we're completely ignoring the connection between carbon dioxide, the Earth's atmosphere, the greenhouse effect, global temperatures, ocean acidification, and sea-level rise. From a long-term point of view, we'd still need to plan for our energy future. Fossil fuels, which make up by far the majority of world-wide power today, are an abundant but fundamentally limited resource. Renewable sources like wind, solar, and hydroelectric power have different limitations: they're inconsistent. There is a long-term solution, though, that overcomes all of these problems: nuclear fusion.

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The Future Of Energy Isn't Fossil Fuels Or Renewables, It's
Nuclear Fusion
By Dr.Mahboob ali khan Phd
Let's pretend, for a moment, that the climate doesn't matter. That we're
completely ignoring the connection between carbon dioxide, the Earth's
atmosphere, the greenhouse effect, global temperatures, ocean
acidification, and sea-level rise. From a long-term point of view, we'd
still need to plan for our energy future. Fossil fuels, which make up by
far the majority of world-wide power today, are an abundant but
fundamentally limited resource. Renewable sources like wind, solar,
and hydroelectric power have different limitations: they're inconsistent.
There is a long-term solution, though, that overcomes all of these
problems: nuclear fusion.
Even the most advanced chemical reactions, like combusting thermite,
shown here, generate about a million times less energy per unit mass
compared to a nuclear reaction.

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It might seem that the fossil fuel problem is obvious: we cannot simply
generate more coal, oil, or natural gas when our present supplies run
out. We've been burning pretty much every drop we can get our hands
on for going on three centuries now, and this problem is going to get
worse. Even though we have hundreds of years more before we're all
out, the amount isn't limitless. There are legitimate, non-warming-
related environmental concerns, too.
Even if we ignored the CO2-global climate change problem, fossil
fuels are limited in the amount Earth contains, and
The burning of fossil fuels generates pollution, since these carbon-
based fuel sources contain a lot more than just carbon and hydrogen in
their chemical makeup, and burning them (to generate energy) also
burns all the impurities, releasing them into the air. In addition, the
refining and/or extraction process is dirty, dangerous and can pollute
the water table and entire bodies of water, like rivers and lakes.

3. 3
Wind farms, like many other sources of renewable energy, are
dependent on the environment in an inconsistent,
On the other hand, renewable energy sources are inconsistent, even at
their best. Try powering your grid during dry, overcast (or overnight),
and drought-riddled times, and you're doomed to failure. The sheer
magnitude of the battery storage capabilities required to power even a
single city during insufficient energy-generation conditions is
daunting. Simultaneously, the pollution effects associated with creating
solar panels, manufacturing wind or hydroelectric turbines, and
(especially) with creating the materials needed to store large amounts
of energy are tremendous as well. Even what's touted as "green energy"
isn't devoid of drawbacks.
Reactor nuclear experimental RA-6 (Republica Argentina 6), en
marcha. The blue glow is known as Cherenkov radiation, from the
faster-than-light-in-water particles emitted.

4. 4
But there is always the nuclear option. That word itself is enough to
elicit strong reactions from many people: nuclear. The idea of nuclear
bombs, of radioactive fallout, of meltdowns, and of disasters like
Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima -- not to mention
residual fear from the Cold War -- make "NIMBY" the default position
for a large number of people. And that's a fear that's not wholly without
foundation, when it comes to nuclear fission. But fission isn't the only
game in town.
In 1952, the United States detonated Ivy Mike, the first demonstrated
nuclear fusion reaction to occur on Earth. Whereas nuclear fission
involves taking heavy, unstable (and already radioactive) elements like
Thorium, Uranium or Plutonium, initiating a reaction that causes them
to split apart into smaller, also radioactive components that release
energy, nothing involved in fusion is radioactive at all. The reactants
are light, stable elements like isotopes of hydrogen, helium or lithium;
the products are also light and stable, like helium, lithium, beryllium or
boron.
The proton-proton chain responsible for producing the vast majority
of the Sun's power is an example of nuclear fusion.

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So far, fission has taken place in either a runaway or controlled
environment, rushing past the breakeven point (where the energy
output is greater than the input) with ease, while fusion has never
reached the breakeven point in a controlled setting. But four main
possibilities have emerged.
1. Inertial Confinement Fusion. We take a pellet of hydrogen — the
fuel for this fusion reaction — and compress it using many lasers
that surround the pellet. The compression causes the hydrogen
nuclei to fuse into heavier elements like helium, and releases a burst
of energy.
2. Magnetic Confinement Fusion. Instead of using mechanical
compression, why not let the electromagnetic force do the
confining work? Magnetic fields confine a superheated plasma of
fusible material, and nuclear fusion reactions occur inside
a Tokamak-style reactor.
3. Magnetized Target Fusion. In MTF, a superheated plasma is
created and confined magnetically, but pistons surrounding it
compress the fuel inside, creating a burst of nuclear fusion in the
interior.
4. Subcritical Fusion. Instead of trying to trigger fusion with heat or
inertia, subcritical fusion uses a subcritical fission reaction -- with
zero chance of a meltdown -- to power a fusion reaction.
The first two have been researched for decades now, and are the closest
to the coveted breakeven point. But the latter two are new, with the last
one gaining many new investors and start-ups this decade.

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The preamplifiers of the National Ignition Facility are the first
step in increasing the energy of laser beams as they make their way
toward the target chamber. NIF recently achieved a 500 terawatt shot
- 1,000 times more power than the United States uses at any instant in
time.
Even if you reject climate science, the problem of powering the world,
and doing so in a sustainable, pollution-free way, is one of the most
daunting long-term ones facing humanity. Nuclear fusion as a power
source has never been given the necessary funding to develop it to
fruition, but it's the one physically possible solution to our energy needs
with no obvious downsides. If we can get the idea that "nuclear" means
"potential for disaster" out of our heads, people from all across the
political spectrum just might be able to come together and solve our
energy and environmental needs in one single blow. If you think the
government should be investing in science with national and global
payoffs, you can't do better than the ROI that would come from
successful fusion research. The physics works out beautifully; we now
just need the investment and the engineering breakthroughs.