HOW DOES MASS BECOME ENERGY?
Nuclear power works by manipulating the nucleus of atoms. In the case of nuclear fission (nuclear power plants, atomic bombs), the large nuclei of heavy elements (plutonium, uranium) are split into smaller ones. In the case of nuclear fusion (the Sun, hydrogen bombs), two atoms of hydrogen merge to form one larger helium atom. What both processes have in common: The source weighs minimally more than the end product, with the tiny amount of missing mass having been transformed into energy. The process of nuclear fission was developed and perfected after it was first discovered in 1938 by German scientist Otto Hahn. While readily feasible today, it remains risky (see Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima). Fusion power is different: In stars like our Sun, the enormous gravitational force of the core creates the high temperature and pressure that make the fusion process possible. On Earth, however, it takes huge quantities of energy to trigger fusion and keep it going. The Wendelstein 7-X reactor (photo)— built and operated by Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics—is a fusion reactor project with tremendous potential.
On the brink of World War I, the First Lord of the British Admiralty made a risky and far-reaching decision, one that would radically reshuffle global alliances and spheres of influence. As the competition for raw materials was heating up and quickly becoming the centerpiece of strategic thinking, Winston Churchill decided to replace coal with oil as the primary energy source of the Royal Navy. The Navy was already using oil on submarines and spraying coal with oil to make it burn better, but petroleum provided other benefits for ships. Boilers could be smaller, and the new fuel enabled vessels to travel faster and farther before they had to refuel. All in all, oil promised to increase the power and efficiency of the British fleet. There was a problem, though: While Britain had an abundance of coal, the nearest readily available source of petroleum was the Middle East. Therefore the transition to oil would increase one of the world’s greatest military power’s dependence on overseas supplies. However Churchill’s gamble proved successful: When the war was over, Lord George Curzon, who would soon become Britain’s foreign secretary, enthused that the Allies had “floated to victory on a wave of oil.”
ENGINE OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM
Like a drug user addicted to heroin, our modern civilization is dependent on petroleum: Deprivation for even a short time can result in a desperate situation now that 84% of the world’s energy comes from the combustion of fossil fuels—coal, gas, and oil. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates global consumption of petroleum and other liquid fuels in 2020 was 92.2 million barrels per day. Due to COVID-19, that’s 9% less than it was a year earlier, but it’s more than nine times higher than the 1950 figure. Burning fossil fuels releases immense amounts of carbon dioxide, the most damaging of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.
Fossil fuels are unevenly distributed across our planet and confer power on any country that possesses them. Countries in short supply are locked in fierce competition to obtain more, and enormous amounts of money change hands in the process—and that sometimes involves corruption and the use of force. That’s especially true at a time when four out of five of the planet’s people live in countries that are forced to import oil.
Petroleum is often called “black gold”—and with good reason. Only combustible gases such as propane, hydrogen, and methane contain more energy (in kilojoules per gram) than kerosene, gasoline, and diesel do. The increasing usage of the internal combustion engine during the 20th century gave rise to a boom in oil consumption that has continued to the present. But what if there were a fuel that can yield significantly more energy than oil? One that is readily available almost anywhere on Earth? Switching to such a fuel would change the world even more than oil has over the past century and a half. That’s where Wendelstein 7-X, a facility in Greifswald, Germany, comes in. Here scientists are paving the way for the Earth’s first artificial Sun…
SPARKING A COSMIC FIRE
Every second our Sun fuses around 600 million tons of hydrogen to make helium in a process that lights up and heats the entire solar system. In order to duplicate this process on Earth, it would take a temperature of 180 million degrees Fahrenheit as well as immense pressure and a great deal of engineering skill. If the engineers are ultimately successful, the result would be an almost perfect source of energy: no atmospheric pollution, no radioactive waste with a half-life measured in hundreds of thousands of years, and no vulnerability to the elements, such as wind and water. About a dozen research projects all around the world are dedicated to designing and creating a workable fusion reactor, and one of them is Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) in Germany, where incredible progress has been made. Soon after construction of the primary assembly was concluded in 2014, W7-X produced its first plasma. A cooperative but competing effort is under way in the south of France, where 35 nations are collaborating in the ITER project to build the world’s
“Fusion energy could be THE energy source of the future.” ANJA KARLICZEK, GERMAN FEDERAL MINISTER OF EDUCATION AND RESEARCH
first fusion device to yield net energy. It is designed to be the largest-ever tokamak, an apparatus that uses a big magnetic field to confine plasma. This June the San Diego–based tech company General Atomics shipped the very first module of the largest of ITER’S magnets to the site in France 32 years after the ITER project began. But while ITER has yet to produce any plasma at all, the world’s largest superconducting stellarator, W7-X, is making great strides, demonstrating the potential of continuous reactor operation. Its plasma is a milestone worth celebrating, although the W7-X researchers are not yet talking about a breakthrough on the road to nuclear fusion, which they say would rank in importance with man’s discovery of fire, the cultivation of plants, and the usage of electricity. However there is cautious optimism, as encapsulated by Thomas Klinger, scientific director of the W7-X project: “If you compare fusion research with the utilization of fire, we are now cheerfully creating sparks. Now those sparks must start a fire.” If that flame is indeed ignited, a revolution will have been initiated, one that sets the stage for defeating climate change. At its 2020 meeting the World Economic Forum made it clear that climate change is dire, and threats to the climate account for all of the top five long-term risks to our planet. Therefore emissions will have to drop significantly across the globe.
Among all the nations of the world, Iceland has been demonstrating what independence from fossil fuel could mean for the environment. In the early 20th century the island nation was completely dependent on coal and oil imports to meet its energy demands. But Iceland has since transformed its energy sector and now meets 100% of its needs with hydroelectric and geothermal energy. That has raised the once-poor island to sixth place on the list of most developed nations in the world. It is also number one on the Global Peace Index as the world’s safest and most peaceful country.
Thus Iceland doesn’t need fusion to be safe and clean, but widespread use of fusion technology in the rest of the world could help solve many of our greatest problems, drastically decreasing the cost of desalinating seawater, for example, and making the deserts bloom. Fusion would also greatly lower the cost of transitioning from vehicles powered by petroleum to electric cars and trucks. And given the fact that many global conflicts are driven by competition for gas, oil, and coal supplies, the whole world could become a more peaceful place.