Nuclear fusion still no dependable energy source

Scientists frustrated as reactor shuts down

From Correspondent Cynthia Tornquist

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Americans are losing patience with nuclear fusion, once considered a promising energy source of the future.

The Tokamak Fusion Reactor at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory -- one of the world's most powerful experimental fusion reactors -- illustrates the point.

No fusion reactor has ever achieved a self-sustaining burn of nuclear fuel, although the Princeton reactor set a record in 1994 by producing nearly 11 million watts of fusion power for about one second. The reactor has been shut down for financial reasons.

Some scientists believe its demise is a shortsighted decision that jeopardizes future hopes of generating inexhaustible energy from fusion.

"My belief is the RFRT [Princeton reactor] is being shut down prematurely," physicist Robert Budny said. "It has a lot more potential."

Fusion is the process that powers the sun. It occurs when atoms, usually hydrogen ions in a gas plasma, collide at high temperatures and fuse. The heat energy released can be converted to electricity.

Fusion also promises environmental benefits. If it could be properly harnessed, it would emit little or no radiation, scientists believe. By comparison, deadly radiation is a byproduct of nuclear fission, a process involving the splitting of atoms that drives existing nuclear reactors.

"The purpose of the experiments is to develop an energy source that will replace existing energy sources when either the wells go dry or existing energy sources produce too much demand on the environment," said John Schmidt of the Princeton lab.

Theory vs. practice

Those who argue that nuclear fusion is a poor investment note that the United States has spent more than $10 billion on fusion research with little to show for it.

"We thought some day we'd get something back. We'd have an energy resource beneficial to our people," said U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-California. "Instead, we were talking about spending billions of dollars and they couldn't offer us any guarantees."

Proponents of fusion research concede that progress has been slow. "It is true that it has taken a much longer time," Schmidt said. "It's been a much harder problem than we thought it would be."

Pure science project

But critics say even if fusion energy became a viable alternative, it would never be economical. They say prospects are better for harvesting wind and solar energy.

Fusion "has no chance of being competitive in the short run," Chris Lotspeich of the Rocky Mountain Foundation said. "As a source of electricity, it's an interesting, pure science project, but we could get better buys in exploiting the safer existing fusion system 93 million miles away," the distance between the sun and the Earth.

One thing no one disputes: Viable alternative energy sources are needed. Three-quarters of the United States' total energy is supplied by fossil fuel. Yet some scientists warn that oil reserves will run out by 2050.

A tough sell

"It's hard to convince somebody today there is going to be an energy problem," Michael Lubell of the American Physical Society said.

"You pay $1.25 a gallon for gasoline today. It's cheaper than before the Gulf War. As a scientist, when I talk to people in the oil industry, they say we do have a problem."

Despite the closing of the Princeton reactor, experiments in hydrogen fusion will continue at the Tokamak reactor -- and around the world.

As for the billions of dollars already spent on fusion research, some say it has not been a total waste of resources. Instead, they argue it may be time to reform a costly program that has yielded too little.

Related sites:

• The Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor
• U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Energy Research
  • Panel recommends Change of Focus of Fusion Program - DOE
• Designing A Maintainable Tokamak Reactor
• Fusion Confusion - Friends of the Earth

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