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Stuart Nathan
Features editor
Energy future: time to be ambitious
The middle of a nuclear crisis is the wrong time to comment on how it could have been averted. We don’t know any more than anyone else about the safety systems or maintenance schedules at the Fukushima Daichi complex; we can’t draw conclusions about the appalling aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that stuck the plant last week; and trying to apportion blame is in extremely bad taste while plant operators and emergency services are risking their lives trying to bring the plant under control.
One thing that we can do, however, is to try to look at how technologists might respond to the aftermath of the Fukushima incident. It’s highly unlikely that this will herald the end of commercial nuclear power, but it’s inevitable that it will affect some of the ways in which plants are operated.
The problems with the cooling ponds at Fukushima could lead to new research into ways to store spent fuel. It’s clear that spent fuel represents a hazard, and new ways of handling and storing it are needed.
Many people believe that thorium represents a better option for nuclear fuel than uranium — we’ve seen several comments to that effect on our articles covering Fukushima — and more projects looking into this are likely. Thorium is more abundant than uranium and, according to some nuclear experts, can generate more energy per kilogram of fuel; it’s also believed to be impervious to meltdown. However, considerable development is needed to develop thorium technology to commercial levels.
Increased deployment of renewables is another option. Wind power is unlikely to be rolled out to any greater extent than is already planned, unless some way of solving the problem of intermittency can be found. For regions with the resource, development of tidal power could be accelerated, with widespread deployment perhaps in the next decade. But it will still only provide a fairly small fraction of the electricity requirement (although a large amount of power). Unless very large improvements in energy efficiency and a drastic reduction in energy usage can be achieved — leading to very significant changes in lifestyles — other options will still be needed.
But the biggest and most alluring development target is the elusive goal of nuclear fusion. If there were ever an example of how a concerted, international research project could reap dividends, it’s this. The potential is obvious: fusion, if it can be made to work commercially, could provide power safely, with no chance of explosion and much lower radiological hazard; sustainably, using lithium and deuterium from seawater; and with no possibility of profusion of nuclear weapons.
That’s not to say it’ll be easy. The challenges are still immense, as the recent problems besetting the ITER fusion project demonstrate. If the magnetic confinement version of fusion is to work, we need further development in superconductors to run the huge magnets the system depends upon to compress fusion fuel; we need to develop materials to build the doughnut-shaped reactor vessel that can withstand the hot plasma and neutron bombardment inside; and we need to develop the systems to convert lithium into tritium, the hydrogen isotope which fuses with deuterium to form helium, accompanied by the release of energy.
The other form of fusion, using powerful lasers to force pellets of fusion fuel to implode, also requires development: design and production of fuel pellets; the control systems to coordinate the release of pellets and the firing of the lasers; and not least, the enormous lasers themselves. These plants are the epitome of high technology and, if they are to form a commercial power source, some way needs to be found to bring the price and complexity down. The US National Ignition Facility in California expects to determine whether it can generate net energy from laser fusion in the next couple of years.
There’s no denying fusion is a huge challenge, and one that will need equally huge resources to tackle. And it might not work; it’s undeniably a gamble. But humanity has tackled huge, and seemingly impossible, tasks before; twice in the last century, with the Manhattan Project and the Apollo missions. Keeping fusion in sight as a goal could render nuclear fission in a new concept: as a stopgap on the way to a much cleaner and safer source of energy. Perhaps we need to stop seeing fusion as pie in the sky, but as a goal for this and future generations, and start thinking very seriously about it.
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Readers' comments (15)
Nathan | 18 Mar 2011 12:24 pm
A great bounty awaits the country which develops Fusion, which is why I do not understand the UK's reluctance to pursue the development of the technology alone, if necessary.
We have become so risk averse and fearful that we only ever seem to embark on projects in combination with other nations, almost always European. This is fine to an extent but is hardly inspiring and corrosive to our national independence and confidence.
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brian M | 18 Mar 2011 12:58 pm
Fusion seems like the great hope, but even so, it's not the whole solution. We are still faced with an exponentially rising population, which means an impossible demand for energy - something has to break and it will!
Fukushima is a perfect example of trying to maintain a population that far exceeds the local environments ability to supply. Nature sadly has a way of correcting our mistakes, often in a very brutal fashion.
Maybe as engineers the worse thing we can do is to come up with solutions!
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Anonymous | 18 Mar 2011 1:28 pm
I absolutely agree - it's time to make an effort of the same order as Apollo and bring fusion to reality in a decade time frame rather than the 30-40 years that are currently mentioned. Have the politicians got the vision?
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Pat Gill | 18 Mar 2011 1:50 pm
I agree that the holy grail is fusion, however that is still some time away.
The intermittancy of renewables can be solved today and there are many projects on the drawing board or in early stage deployment.
In Ireland, a project which uses sea water pumped storage will enter the planning system this year, details at www.spiritofireland.org
I do not see nuclear fission being abandoned any time soon though.
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Steve | 18 Mar 2011 2:11 pm
Fusion has been the Holy Grail for the bulk of my 54 year lifetime. It has always been "one breakthrough" from commercial application. I have doubts it will ever be viable.
It is gross negligence to abandon fission power at this time. The conditions in Japan show more how safe the technology is. An 8.9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami and the public hazard, according to reports from the Nuclear Energy Institute have been relatively minor. The closing of the Yucca Mountain project in the US was politically motivated and endangers the energy future. Wind and solar are in danger of never being anything more than an expensive toy and a niche market.
I disagree that pumped storage is a good idea because it uses more energy to pump than is returned (that pesky "entropy"). Hydroelectric is better, but not available everywhere.
With the increasing population and industrialization of the world, coal and natural gas must continue to be the fuels of immediate choice. Nuclear fission plants should be built in droves, whether uranium or thorium and fuel should be reprocessed.
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Chris Johnson | 18 Mar 2011 2:23 pm
It is a gross absurdity to claim that wind and solar are expensive toys in the same paragraph as promoting nuclear fusion (the most expensive toy of all).
Yes, it would be wrong for the UK to fail to include nuclear in a balanced sourcing of power generation, but nuclear advocates demean their case when they criticise the costings of other sources.
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Pat Gill | 18 Mar 2011 3:21 pm
@Steve,
"I disagree that pumped storage is a good idea because it uses more energy to pump than is returned (that pesky "entropy"). Hydroelectric is better, but not available everywhere."
The value in pumped storage can be found in utilising energy that is otherwise wasted.
Energy enthropy is a fact of life, simply visit your local oil or gas refinery to see it in action.
The round trip efficiency of modern pumped storage is 85%. Better to have 85% of something than dump it.
The world needs all the usable energy it can find, from whatever source it can be obtained, provided it is dispatchable on demand.
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tony smee | 18 Mar 2011 5:10 pm
It's all a question of money and scale. A hundred years ago no one could see multi-megawatt steam or gas turbines, James Watt would be astonished! Perhaps a 100,000 times more power than his steam engine.
When we see the 750 kW wave powered generators off Scotland can we not imagine a similar leap in size, mutiplied by 100,000
to give an almost continuous supply of power which is coming in fact from the sun, a large fusion reactor and far enough away to be safe from any problems on earth.
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S. Martin | 19 Mar 2011 2:57 am
The biggest factor is the reticence of this country to invest in its future, and to take on major projects on our own. This applies to everything from our road and rail networks, through to our power requirement.
If we look at current emerging technologies we see they are all electricity based, electric cars being a prime example. This means our requirement will dramatically increase for electricity over the coming decades.
Could anyone imagine our Victorian forefathers standing for such apathy? no, they would have risen to the challenge and conquered it. It is this will and desire to face and conquer challenges which needs re-awakening, and for the UK to lead the world again
Fusion will always have a future, and this needs special care and nurturing, other forms of power such as wind and wave have a place, but is too much emphasis placed on them? Is too much taxpayer funded investment being ploughed into them at the behest of big business who are chasing the money, and to the detriment of other more viable solutions.
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Malcolm | 19 Mar 2011 10:44 am
I'm in favour of seriously cutting consumption. Everywhere I go i see electricity wasted as though it has no value. How many people leave their home computers and heating on all day and all night? How many people in your office turn their computer on when they go home? If you turn around and look back at your office when you leave how many lights have been turned off? Nobody cares.
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