Much of the world’s investment in nuclear fusion is concentrated in the ITER project in Provence, in which Ireland is a partner.

Energy generated through nuclear fusion could be available in the next decade, according to a world authority on the subject.

Prof Steven Cowley, chief executive of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, believes the world’s first nuclear fusion power plant in France could be producing viable electricity in the 2020s.

Nuclear fusion is regarded as the holy grail of energy. It is the same process which powers the Sun and all the other stars in the universe.

Hydrogen atoms are forced together under great heat and pressure to create helium atoms which then create huge bursts of energy.

Prof Cowley believes that, if harnessed properly, nuclear fusion can provide half of all mankind’s energy needs by the middle of the century.

He will give a lecture this evening, hosted by Astronomy Ireland, on how observing the Sun’s coronal mass ejections can provide scientists with better ideas on how to control the process of creating nuclear fusion on Earth.

Much of the world’s investment in nuclear fusion is concentrated in the ITER project in Provence, in which Ireland is a partner.

Superheated gases

It plans to use superheated gases to smash together deuterium and tritium, both isotopes of hydrogen, to create the equivalent energy of half a conventional power station.

Known as a “tokamak”, the device used is based on the design of the Joint European Torus (JET), a European pilot project at Culham in Oxfordshire, which is run by Prof Cowley.

Nuclear fusion holds out the promise of unlimited safe, cheap energy. It uses deuterium, which is abundant in seawater, and lithium, another common substance. If successful it could produce an emissions-free nuclear energy that would not leave behind harmful radioactive waste.

However, recreating the process in a cost-effective way has so far proved to be beyond the capabilities of even the best scientists on Earth.

Prof Cowley’s laboratory in Oxfordshire has had a number of firsts and remains the only place which can produce fusion energy on a regular basis.

In 1991 it instigated the world’s first controlled release of fusion energy, and in 1997 it produced a world-record 16 megawatts of fusion power, albeit for just two seconds.

The European Union has set the 2040s as a target goal to produce electricity based on fusion power, but Prof Cowley believes it can be done quicker than that.

He explained: “I hope that with ITER that in the 2020s we will be able to demonstrate a full-blown sustained fusion burn, with lots of energy coming out. It will ignite worldwide support and push through to deliver electricity at that point.

“We can see that we can do it [nuclear fusion]. It is a case of getting the electricity cheap enough and reliable enough that it will produce electricity that you want to buy.”

The lecture will take place in the Schrödinger Lecture Theatre at Trinity College Dublin this evening at 8pm.

Irish Times

17 Comments on "Nuclear fusion now a viable energy source, claims scientist"

BillT on Tue, 13th Aug 2013 12:58 am 



Once upon a time …

GregT on Tue, 13th Aug 2013 1:15 am 



We already have a source of nuclear fusion. It is commonly referred to as the Sun. It provides all of the energy that the Earth needs. It took the Earth million of years to reach a natural biological equilibrium. We have upset this natural equilibrium through our exploitation of the Earth’s ecosystems, and our exploitation of fossil fuels and human made energy sources.

The party is over. If we keep treating the Earth as our personal resource base, the Earth will cease to support us.

The choice to be made is right here, right now. Our time on this planet is rapidly running out.

SilentRunning on Tue, 13th Aug 2013 5:46 am 



Somebody is confused about the meaning of the word “now”.

You can’t say Fusion is now a viable source of energy, and in the next breath say that it might, sometime in the 2020s provide us with some unspecified amount of energy.

It’s like saying I am NOW eligible to collect Social Security – even though I won’t be able to collect it for another decade and a half (assuming it even exists at that time to collect dollar 1 from)

SilentRunning on Tue, 13th Aug 2013 5:49 am 



Oh, and PS: Please wake me up when fusion provides an EROEI of at least 2 – and preferably 5. Until then, it is a pipe dream.

mike on Tue, 13th Aug 2013 6:22 am 



Front page of the BBC news this morning was about a futurama type vacuum tube to transport people about. Of course the designer was too busy to build a prototype, and it had zero research done on it other than a basic idea. This is the front page mind. As I have said before the worse it gets the more desperate the narrative becomes to seem like “the future” is just around the corner.

Another article was about the need for engineers to dream more about the future and bring sci-fi tech to us sooner.
I think waking up would be of more use.

It will become harder and harder to remain sane as this narrative goes into overdrive in the next decade and maybe even longer.

DC on Tue, 13th Aug 2013 9:46 am 



Q/Nuclear fusion holds out the promise of unlimited safe, cheap energy. It uses deuterium, which is abundant in seawater, and lithium, another common substance. If successful it could produce an emissions-free nuclear energy that would not leave behind harmful radioactive waste.

Once again, every fusion trope in the book on display.

There would be a special level of hell reserved for mass-media reporters that claim, nuclear fusion will be cheap(it definately WONT be that), or clean(not even close-a different kind of dirty at best), or limitless(Only limitless thing in this world is human greed and stupidly), everything else is subject to very real hard limitations.

Although I have huge problems with reporter ceaseless repeating of the fusion falsehoods above, I think the limitless ones bugs me the most. Simply because, there is no such thing as ‘limitless’. Unless where talking about the human capacity for say, greed or self-delusion. But those are special cases. In the physical world-the concept of ‘limitless’ is basically wishful thinking. Fusion has about 3-4x the energy density as fission. 3-4x is definitely NOT limtiless. Im pretty sure the Irish times does not run stories about leprechaun sightings, thus they should not be claiming fusion will cheap and limiltless(and clean) either.

DC on Tue, 13th Aug 2013 9:48 am 



Sorry, there *should be*-not would be.

*Curses the lack of an edit feature here*…

rollin on Tue, 13th Aug 2013 11:56 am 



I like Silent’s answer.

They better get the price way down and make it easier to build or it will just remain a novelty.

Arthur on Tue, 13th Aug 2013 1:31 pm 



If fusion would succeed, the NWO would be unstoppable. Endless energy means endless mobility.

Carl on Tue, 13th Aug 2013 4:40 pm 



ITER is not neutron-free.
The true emission-free energy is the aneutronic fusion.

GregT on Tue, 13th Aug 2013 5:43 pm 



As long as there is human life on earth, there will always be enough energy for those that are pursuing a NWO. One energy slave can always be traded for another.

Arthur on Tue, 13th Aug 2013 6:02 pm 



After the collapse of the Roman NWO, there was 1000 years of peace and quiet until the Portugese decided to go buy some cigarettes. Now we are facing the Spenglerian “Untergang des Abendlandes” or Buchanan’s “Death of the West”. Multipolarity is next, initiated by the Caliphate, followed by the retreat of the US from the ME and end of US hegemony –> multipolarity, with Greater European pole balancing Chinese pole. That’s all pretty foreseeable. The total wildcard is what is going to happen to the US, if it’s inherent mission for more than one century, namely the creation of a worldstate, is going to fail. Three possibilities:
1) America First reaction: retreat from world politics, devolution, Constitutionalism
2) Balkanization and devolution along racial lines (like transformation USSR –> CIS)
3) Totalitarian state (Orwell 1984 scenario: Fascist Greater Europe, Bolshevik US, totalitarian nationalist China at constant border wars/skermishes with each other; Islam as ‘disputed territories’)

http://strangemaps.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/1984_fictious_world_map.png

Bob Owens on Tue, 13th Aug 2013 6:34 pm 



This nonsense has been spouted out as long as I have been alive. It is the equal of fool’s gold. If we had spent all the fusion money on solar water heaters every home in the world would now have hot water via fusion from the Sun. Wake up America! Stop being stupid.

BillT on Wed, 14th Aug 2013 1:03 am 



Arthur, you missed the nuclear war option that is more likely than others as far as the Us is concerned. I see not a greater Europe, but a pile of ruins there as well as most of the other Western countries. I think it will come from the East this time. After all, China can lose 80% of it’s population and still have more than the US has now. Russia is so big, that much will be left after to rebuild. They will have the resources to do it. The rest of the world will not.

Arthur on Wed, 14th Aug 2013 7:53 am 



“Arthur, you missed the nuclear war option that is more likely than others as far as the Us is concerned.”

What happened to the MAD logic?

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction

BillT on Wed, 14th Aug 2013 12:37 pm 



Arthur, you are 20 years behind the times. Mad ended with the end of the “Cold War” during Reagan’s reign. Anything goes now according to Obama.

Newfie on Thu, 15th Aug 2013 8:23 am 



Limitless clean energy from nuclear fusion is only ten years away. And it always will be…