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Some Like It Hot....
 
This week, Living on Earth looks at the promise of fusion energy.
It's easy to see why physicists say fusion is the energy source of the future. The fuel for fusion is virtually unlimited.
The Levitating Diapole Experiment at MIT is designed to achieve fusion,
or the energy of the stars, on Earth. (Photo: Bruce Gellerman)
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It's a form of hydrogen that's available by the oceans-full, and when the nuclei are forced together, or fused, they produce enormous amounts of energy that's practically pollution-free.
It may sound too good to be true, but physicists say while the technical challenges
are enormous, it is possible. Over the past sixty years, scientists have been
developing larger and larger devices in their labs that will mimic the way
fusion energy is produced in stars. And recently, the international science
community announced the construction of the largest fusion device ever conceived
and predict it will demonstrate that fusion really is the "energy source of the future." But critics say the twelve billion dollar experiment will never be economically viable and quip, fusion is indeed the energy source of the future and
always will be.
Cold
Fusion: A Heated History
March 23, 1989 is the beginning of what’s been called "the greatest
controversy in basic science in the 20th century." That’s the day
two scientists at the University of Utah told reporters at a news conference
that they had created fusion in a test tube at room temperatures.
Professor Peter Hagelstein of MIT draws a diagram illustrating cold fusion
theory. (Photo: Bruce Gellerman)
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Skeptics immediately
denounced the discovery saying it violated the fundamental laws of physics.
A scientific panel convened by the Department of Energy concluded
so-called "cold fusion" was not a nuclear reaction and did not
produce excess energy. For most scientists, cold fusion was dead and buried.
But
over the last sixteen years later a small group of scientists have continued
to investigate the phenomenon, and say not only is cold fusion is alive,
real, and reproducible, it will soon provide unlimited, and virtually pollution-free
energy.
Pebble
Bed Technology – Nuclear promise or peril?
Nuclear power held great promise when it came online in the 1960s and 70s.
Utilities promised nuclear plants would produce electricity that was clean
and cheap, and reduce dependence on foreign oil.
The kernel laboratory of the experimental pebble bed modular reactor.
(Photo courtesy of Pelindaba Labs)
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But technical problems, high
costs, and a change of public opinion turned the tides against nuclear power
and during the last two decades, the nuclear industry was a boondoggle.
But today, nuclear power may be experiencing a comeback. High oil and gas
prices and the threat of global warming have forced many to give nuclear
energy a
second chance. Living on Earth travels to South Africa to take a look at
pebble bed reactors--small-scale, affordable, high temperature plants.
Scientists
there say this technology will bring nuclear energy that’s safe to the
developing world and other nations.
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