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Jon Excell
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The Engineer
Nuclear fusion might be the best medicine
Events in Japan have once again polarised the debate on nuclear power. While its proponents are aggressively reaffirming its role in averting a global energy crisis, there’s a fresh momentum to the arguments of its detractors.
However, as this issue’s big story looking at industrial applications of fusion reveals it’s not just our energy future that hangs in the balance; a post-Fukushima nuclear downturn could have a profound impact on the global healthcare sector.
The medical industry relies on nuclear fission for the production of radioactive isotopes - which are essential for a range of scanning techniques and cancer treatments. With the experimental reactors that produce these isotopes coming to the end of their lives and plans to prolong their lives or replace them suddenly not looking so straightforward, there are genuine fears that we’re heading for a worldwide shortage of nuclear medicine.
It’s an important reminder that sectors which superficially have little common ground often share critical links and proscribing activity in one sector can lead to damaging knock-on effects in another.
But where one technology falters, another spies an opportunity and, as our report explains, an impending radioisotope shortage could give nuclear fusion - the energy industry’s holy grail - a more immediate opportunity to prove its worth.
Indeed, nuclear medicine is just one application that could drive the development of fusion, its usefulness as a source of neutrons could also see it being used to clean up nuclear waste and even to trigger fission reactions in new, safe hybrid fusion-fission reactors.
It feels like this could one day be an important part of the back story in the development of fusion power. Despite its considerable promise, the commercial case for fusion is far from certain and in an economic climate where investment is increasingly limited to dead-certs its progress has been stuttering at best. But by providing genuine solutions to pressing short-term problems its credibility will be improved, funding should be more forthcoming and, perhaps most importantly, engineers will continue to advance the technology to the point where it can be used for commercial energy generation.
There are some intriguing parallels in our report on ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), which looks at the development of technology that can harvest solar energy from tropical oceans. Rather like fusion, it’s been demonstrated on a small scale but to become economical needs to be scaled up.
But its development could well be advanced by an unlikely ally, the US defence industry - which believes the technology could be used to power large sea bases such as Pearl Harbor. Yet another reminder that the route to commercialisation is often unpredictable, occasionally unexpected and rarely straightforward.
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Readers' comments (15)
Ole Germer | 13 Apr 2011 1:30 pm
To make a Tokamok possible new materials are needed for the superconductor and the containment wall. I believe that there has been some movement at Culham. Here may be a news story for your Jon Excell.
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Ken R | 13 Apr 2011 1:33 pm
I cannot see why new nuclear plants will not be built. The ones in Japan seemed to work OK until they were damaged by a huge quake and tsunami. This is not a risk here in the UK and even if it were then I’m sure with the experience gained since the Japanese reactors were designed and built, the new ones would be a lot safer. I saw a reactor design last week with a salt based cooling system. It looked a lot less risky than the pressurised water design. I have been interested in the progress of fusion but for the last 40 years they have been saying it is still 10 years away I don’t think I will see a commercial fusion plant in my life time. The French continue to invest in nuclear technology and generate most of their power using nuclear plants I am sure they will be pleased to help out on the medical front.
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Joseph Martin | 13 Apr 2011 1:56 pm
NIF in the US holds the key to our fusion suture. If it is successful then laser fusion should be fast-tracked either in the US or in the UK through the HiPER project.
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Jon Raimbach | 13 Apr 2011 2:23 pm
Jet Fusion has made massive advances in recent years & now there is a larger version under construction in France to develope the methods for transforming the heat
to power, once this is mastered a full size comercial plant will go ahead.
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Simon | 13 Apr 2011 2:30 pm
I would contend that the polarisation around the nuclear debate has remained pretty much unchanged (with the pro and anti views being firmly entrenched throughout). What may have changed as a result of Fujushima is an apparent shift of the undecided middle towards paying more attention to the negative side of the argument.
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Geoff Hill | 13 Apr 2011 3:44 pm
Who says that we don't have tsunamis in this country? Try the events of 30 January 1607 for size. An 8 metre Tsunami in the Bristol Channel, alongside which bit of tidal water Oldbury Nuclear Power Station is located. And it doesn't have flood protection to anything like that degree. This isn't a criticism of anyone or anything - just offered as food for thought.
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John Prendergast | 13 Apr 2011 3:45 pm
Thorium powered fission reactors are so much safer and than uranium powerd ones and have been demonstrated.
China and India are pressing on wiith Thorium reactors. Britain was one of the first to have a Commercial Power supply from a Thorium reactor at AEE Winfrith in the early 1960s.
UK has some thorium mineral near St Austell, probably only enough for afew centuries though!
The world has over 2000 times more potential energy from Thorium than uranium.
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Steven Freedman | 13 Apr 2011 6:09 pm
We have been working on a fusion reactor for over 50 years. The three constants of nature have been stated as the speed of light, Planck'd constant and 25 years to a workable (continuous) fusion reactor.
Fusion is not yet at a stage where engineering development can be started.
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Tom | 13 Apr 2011 8:45 pm
Thorium reactors should be explored, as well as some radical new fusion-fission approaches such as described at http://focusfusion.org/.
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Rob Chicken | 13 Apr 2011 9:20 pm
I heard somewhere on the news that many of the Japanese nuclear power stations were built on known rifts in the earths crust. The risk was considered worth it in order to help with their economic growth after the war. If this is true then you can only say that this was an accident waiting to happen, and should not alter our judgement on nuclear power throughout the rest of the world.
I hope also that Fusion does produce the power we were promised. A huge amount of money must have been invested in this project over the years. I remember visiting there in the mid 1980's. The place was bristling with computers and expensive scientists. This is no garden shed effort.
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