The Fusion Dream----Revolution Watch

For all the techno-triumphalist out there fusion is probably one of those sources of energy they view as the ultimate source. What is interesting about this dream is that it has been around for ever. As a teen, I clearly remember hearing that fusion was 20 years off, and then as a thirty year old it was 20 years off and in 1999 it was 20 years off. After reading today's New Yorker article on fusion it would seem it is maybe 30 years off.

In fact, in reading the piece, one can not help but get the idea that the struggle itself is so great and complex the goal will never be met. He never says that but the tone of the article is such that it leaves the reader thinking the science is so complex that it will collapse in a heap as Joe Taniter has written about. Is it just a physicists wet dream? Almost a dream they know they have to pull off or life is not going to play out too well. Are the scientist using the old economist proverb, "It is easier to exploit the economics of a subsidy than the economics of reality."

Probably the most interesting aspect of the project, one aspect that is hit but not pounded, is the cost. This project has been going on for years, over there in France, and little has come of it. It is not even built because the design keeps changing as new information keeps coming in from all over the world. It is chaos. Governments are actually working together to fund the damn thing and there are forever shortfalls. Tell me just where would the countries of Africa get the funds to build one of these things? South America? Who the hell operates them? Private businesses can't afford to build the fission nuclear plant now being built in Georgia. The cost is just out of reach for the world where natural resources are diminishing---which is where our true wealth is.

But the real ass kicker is that the project to this point is just an scientific experiment. It is not a generating plant at all but just a giant experiment in creating a "Plasma" of energy. If they should do something where more energy is created than is put into it, then they have to build another one, or many as they say, along with electric generators to go with them. "TWENTY YEARS?!" you have to be kidding me? No wonder many people in the scientific community simply state this is not possible.

Interestingly, the article also has statements by famous, highly intelligent physicists, saying (but saying quietly in the piece)  that all of the alternative, sustainable options do NOT scale up and that fossil fuel sources are very, very  limited. It would seem that while the article was written to bring the public up to date on fusion, but when taken in it's entirety, lays out a rather bleak message, maybe not even intending to. In a financially constrained world, in a resource constrained world, in an environmentally challenged world where are they going to get the funds or materials to build these things. It seems a cruel joke that we are even talking about them.