Nuclear Fusion May Be the Way of the Future

When we talk about the potential for safe, inexpensive, and (of course) low-carbon nuclear energy, we’re normally talking about fission.  Perhaps we’re discussing thorium and the promise represented by LFTRs (liquid fluoride thorium reactors). In fact, there is a whole chapter on this subject in my recent book: Bullish on Renewable Energy.

But we would do well to keep our fingers on the pulse of the development of fusion as well.  I was reminded of this during a lunch meeting yesterday with my friend Jim Boyden, who received his doctorate in high-energy particle physics from Cal Tech in 1960.  (This is the same year I graduated from kindergarten; while I was playing with colored blocks, he was working with positrons and neutrinos.)

There are a few issues in play here if we are to have success in evolving this technology.  In particular, we need a reliable way to energize the fuel sufficiently so that nuclear reactions take place.  As you’ll recall, this is what makes cold fusion impossible (or, at best, leave us with no theory to explain how it could possibly work).  A company called General Fusion is approaching this in a way that my friend Dr. Boyden calls “Rube Goldberg, with mechanical pistons that are precisely timed to compress deuterium or tritium at high energies.  Other lines of attack make use of lasers.

The problem here however, to choose just one, is neutrons; if you’re going to use deuterium or tritium, you’re going to wind up with 14MEv neutrons flying all over the place.

Jim reminded me that he favors the approach taken by Tri Alpha Energy, which invokes a toroidal-shaped field produced by a current of plasma (pictured above) to smash together hydrogen and boron 11 to produce three helium atoms.  This reaction is aneutronic (doesn’t throw off neutrons), and a recent breakthrough in the development in this technology enables the field to stay in place indefinitely (where previously it dissipated in less than a microsecond).

I nibbled at my fish tacos while feverishly taking notes.  A good time was had by all.