Project Proposal: Nuclear Fusion
Providing energy to Earth’s population is a crucial task for the continued advancement and sustainment of Humanity. The number of energy resources contained within a country’s borders that are accessible can determine whether that country is prosperous or not. Access to energy resources is a prime driver for geopolitical decisions and can affect monetary policy. The cost of produced goods and food are directly affected by the price of fuel. Increased energy production can reduce the cost of everything and provide stability for our society. One could theoretically usher in an age of prosperity for all Humanity. Most books and movies about the future have a dystopian theme. The future holds great things for Humanity, and we believe in our ability to move forward together.
The problem we have in today’s world is an increasing demand for energy resources and a finite amount of available fuel and raw materials. Earth’s population continues to increase, and energy demand per person continues to rise. Always being connected to one other, while beneficial, comes with the unseen opportunity cost of quicker depletion of our natural resources. Most energy systems today have a tradeoff. Fossil fuels, solar, wind, nuclear fission, and biofuels are all excellent solutions for the short term. But we must look ahead 20 or 30 years and begin working on the next era of energy, today.
Nuclear fusion is clean and offers four times the power production potential as today’s nuclear fission. There are many different kinds of nuclear fusion tested around the world today. Various reactor designs, different fuels, and different approaches, all being researched and attempted by different organizations. From public to private, the search for limitless power began back in the 1950s. But up until recently, with advances in plasma physics, we have not been close. Now we are closer than ever. I believe we are within 25 years of solving the energy problem.
The biggest problem plaguing the development of nuclear fusion today is the low process cycle efficiency. The timeline for today’s experiments can be as long as 20 years. The current process includes conducting experiments, analyzing the data, designing a new reactor, requesting funding/zoning, building the new reactor, and starting the cycle again. Business model innovation, rapid prototyping/iteration coupled with next-gen computer modeling, will allow for quicker experiments and further advancement in this field. The overall result leads to the development of a reactor that produces well above breakeven.
With our current understanding, fusion does not come without its hurdles. The fuel is based on Hydrogen isotopes and requires research into optimal formulas to achieve fusion at the lowest temperatures for maximum energy production. The research currently shows that the fusion between Deuterium and Tritium can optimally accomplish the above goals. Helium and Neutrons are the byproducts of this fusion process. In magnetic confinement fusion, Helium remains within the magnetic field, and the Neutrons pass through to collide with the Heatsink of the reactor. This collision generates heat, and a simple heat exchanger system provides electricity to the grid. Deuterium can be found naturally and harvested from seawater. Tritium is harder to come by; global inventory is estimated at 45 pounds (https://www.iter.org/sci/fusionfuels).
But, Tritium can be created during the reaction process by neutronic activation of Lithium 6 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium), to sustain further fusion. All this to say that there is enough fusion fuel to power the planet for hundreds of thousands of years.
When we achieve fusion, the world will fundamentally change. Accelerating change will only push our society to need more and more power. Vertical farming, sustainable clean water, quantum computers, colonization of other planets, terraforming, and the end of violent wars hinge upon the development of an energy source accessible to all.
Fusion creates a path towards a bright future, where we can begin to fix our environment and offer different solutions to persistent problems.
The cooperation of some governments to create the ITER organization is a step in the right direction, but big bureaucracies can slow progress. Instead, creating a private company funded by investors and government grants would yield a quicker turnaround time for each experiment. We can learn a lot from companies like Space X who have developed reusable rockets. Rapid prototyping and acceptance for failure can prove to be very powerful during the learning process.
Less time spent on cumbersome solutions can save a lot of capital over time. Using supercomputers with next-gen modeling created by the worlds smartest minds can help us develop the proper reactor designs for different use cases. Commercial quantum computing is less than five years away and can provide valuable insight into the behavior of the particles in a fusion reaction. The addition of this knowledge will allow us to leverage the scarcest resource of all, time.
Although the ideas presented are lofty, we have a limited amount of time to solve our collective problem. A world based on a resource that has a short life span could lead us down a path of uncertainty. Uncertainty breeds fear, and fear leads to conflict. Without clean, sustainable energy, one can expect to see the worst of Humanity within the next 200 years. Although Humans are adaptable, solving this problem sooner rather than later will help us avoid the worst outcomes.
When our goals for Humanity become so big that we must work together, we will set aside our differences. Fusion will not only get us to the stars but allow us to create them. All the technologies conceived of in science fiction novels are dependent on our ability to sustain previous improvements.
Our future is dependent on the next era of energy,
Nuclear Fusion.
