Give us non-polluting energy

The investment in fighting climate change is pathetically low

November 2006 promises to be a momentous month in the history of human influence on the earth

Since fusion, which is the energy principle of the sun and of the hydrogen bomb, requires no significant quantities of raw materials apart from water and produces no serious problems of pollution, success of the Iter programme would, in theory, provide the world with unlimited amounts of energy and resolve the problem of global warming once and for all.

Does this mean that we can all now relax and just wait for the boffins to deliver their miracle cures? Of course not. First, because the energy released by fusion is so enormous that many of the scientists involved put the probability of controlling and harnessing this process successfully no higher than 50 per cent. Secondly, because by the middle of the century, when the first commercial fusion reactors may be in action, the world will have suffered serious climate changes and this would become catastrophically irreversible if by then the gamble on fusion did not deliver results.

Times of London