Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Nuclear fusion
The hope of many scientists and politicians is pinned on a totally new nuclear
technology: nuclear fusion. Already many billions of Euros have been spent in
order to develop this technology. The model for this technology is the sun, which
produces its energy by fusing hydrogen nuclei; the aim is to copy this process on
Earth. Deuterium
2
D and tritium
3
T are fused to Helium
4
He. This reaction
generates one neutron
1
n and energy
∆
E
. The equation of this reaction is:
2
3
T
1
4
He
2
1
n
+
0
++
D
∆
E
(1.5)
1
To instigate this reaction the particles must be heated to temperatures over one
million degrees Celsius. Since no known material can survive these high
temperatures, technologies such as locking the reaction materials into intense
magnetic fields are examined.
Deuterium and tritium for nuclear fusion exist in abundance on Earth, so
this technology will not be limited by the availability of the raw materials.
However, the question whether this technology will ever work cannot be
answered today. Some critics say that the only thing that never changes for
nuclear fusion is the remaining time needed for the development of a working
reactor, which has been estimated to be 50 years for the past 50 years.
Even if this technology will work eventually, there are good reasons against
spending more money on this technology. On the one hand, nuclear fusion will
be much more expensive that today's nuclear fission. Renewable energies will
certainly be much more economical in 50 years than nuclear fusion. On the
other hand, the operation of a nuclear fusion plant also produces radioactive
materials that bear risks although the risk of an MCA does not exist for a
nuclear fusion plant. For the development of nuclear fusion, large amounts of
money have been spent that could have been used to develop other sustainable
technologies. The last and most important reason is the long time that is still
needed to bring this technology to maturity. To stop global warming today,
working alternatives to our present energy supply are needed urgently.
Therefore, to wait for a nuclear fusion reactor that might or might not work
at some time in the distant future is not the answer.
R
ENEWABLE
E
NERGIES
Even if the use of fossil fuels can be reduced significantly, and accepting that
nuclear power is no long-term alternative, the question remains as to how the
future supply of energy can be secured. The first step is to significantly
increase the efficiency of energy usage, i.e. useful energy must be produced
from a much smaller amount of primary energy, thus reducing carbon dioxide
emissions.
The increasing global population and the unsatisfied demand of the
developing countries will more than cancel out possible reductions due to
