While clearing out some work emails i came across one from the United Kingdom International Atomic Energy Agency (UKIAEA) which i vaguely remember receiving a while back but as it was woofing on about Nuclear Fusion i left it to come back to later, and by that i mean delete it once i was sure nobody was going to ask me if i had read it.
When i saw it i partly recalled a conversation at a thing somewhere with someone about how Nuclear Fusion was the way forward and maybe i was distracted by a squirrel outside or something because i guess i said something along the lines of 'That's nice' and wondered off to find out if there were anymore cheese and pineapple sticks left at the buffet but whatever come over me last week, i decided to read the email, what with it being the way forward and everything.
Fusion, it said, is among the most environmentally friendly sources of energy with no CO2 or other harmful atmospheric emissions created and uses two of the most widely available sources of hydrogen and lithium.
What we have now is Nuclear Fission which splits a heavy element to create energy while fusion joins two light elements to form a heavier element but while Fission produces waste which is radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years, Fusions waste has a very short half life and is used in lower amounts.
Fusion can also not cause a nuclear accident because it must be kept as a very high temperature (100m °C) and if there was a problem then the process would automatically come to a halt with no melt down and as nuclear weapons use Fission to detonate, it would not be possible to create a Fusion nuclear weapon.
I'm sold, everything about it sounds great so why are we not pushing for these Fusion reactors then?
Turns out we are and Britain has a cluster of 200 of them in Oxfordshire and plan to build Commercial fusion reactors by 2040 and in France there is something called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter) which has the involvement of 35 countries and there are about 90 nuclear fusion reactors operating worldwide with 130 more experimental reactors planned in 50 countries across the globe.
All sounds promising but why did nobody tell me about all this? Oh yeah right, the email i ignored....carry on chaps.
Tuesday, 26 November 2024
Note To Self: Read Emails
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2 comments:
a person can also proactively watch and research emerging technologies... there really aren't that many high impact developments to actively watch.
there were 19 successful experiments in the 1990's (created fusion reactions), but the lab equipment was damaged. so, the next phase was to control the reaction. in 2000, the US dept of energy reported that between 2010 to 2015 the US would have a working fusion reactor (meaning most likely in a military facility, aircraft carrier, or "nuclear" submarine).
high impact technologies (AI, robotics, select electronics, energy, materials, etc.) tend to be in the hands of our defense community 20 to 30 years before it reaches commercial availability. so cold fusion is on track to be available 2035 to 2040.
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