Nuclear fusion breakthrough is a qualitative step in a long journey ahead

But there is still a long way to go for nuclear fusion to be a viable source of energy, as more than a thousand per cent is necessary to generate electricity, for example, at a reasonable cost, and preparation for a laboratory experiment still takes too much time and only a few shots of input energy can be fired each week.

A commercial reactor must fire 10 rounds per second over 365 days a year, a technological challenge that is no small feat. But many startups are trying to develop a method of inertial confinement.

A second important challenge is related to fuel. While deuterium is very abundant on our planet, tritium is radioactive, and its half-life is relatively short – 12.3 years. Tritium is a substance that does not exist on its own, and the world is estimated to have only 30 kilogrammes  of it, while a nuclear fusion reactor that produces 500 megawatts of electricity would need 90 kilograms.

Economic prospects

This field — especially since the qualitative leap recorded in December — is arousing investor appetite, and there are about 30 startups developing nuclear fusion reactor concepts. In March 2022, the US government announced an ambitious plan to accelerate the development of this technology, with commercial implementation to begin in 2032.  

The plan stipulates that the technology should benefit society and includes a public-private partnership and the construction of a pilot reactor for which Washington has allocated $50 million.

But experts say the commercial application of nuclear fusion after just a decade may be nothing more than a wild fantasy given the technological challenges. Some of these experts have warned that climate degradation is proceeding at a faster pace, so we cannot rely on nuclear fusion alone as an alternative energy in the fight against this phenomenon.

Economically, too, the feasibility of commercial application depends on the decline in the costs of producing tritium, as each gram of it costs about $ 30,000 to produce, and while it is naturally formed in the highest layers of the atmosphere when cosmic rays hit nitrogen molecules, its industrial production needs "bombarding" some varieties of lithium with neutrons.

Tritium is also a by-product in nuclear reactors. If the cost continues as is, each megawatt will cost a nuclear fusion product about nine to 10 times the cost of producing it from sources available today. This is not to mention the massive government funding required for nuclear fusion projects, both government-owned and privately-owned. In general, nuclear fusion is a safe technology that, once perfected, will become an inexhaustible, near-zero carbon source of energy that mimics what happens in the Sun and other stars to provide energy that keeps them burning.

One of the main advantages of nuclear fusion is that it does not produce greenhouse gas emissions or nuclear waste that remain long-term and are difficult to dispose of, mainly, through safe and expensive landfills.

Unlike nuclear fission, which involves splitting atoms to release energy and produces radioactive waste, nuclear fusion produces only helium. This makes nuclear fusion an encouraging source of clean and sustainable energy that can help address climate change and reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

Another advantage of nuclear fusion is the possibility of supplying energy in large quantities. The fuel used in nuclear fusion, hydrogen, is the most abundant element in the universe, as mentioned above, and even a small amount of hydrogen can produce a large amount of energy through fusion.

In fact, it is estimated that the energy produced by one kilogramme of hydrogen by fusion is equivalent to the energy produced by burning 10 million kilogrammes of fossil fuels.

The helium produced by the process will not go to waste. Helium is a colourless, odourless, gaseous chemical element that is one of the rarest elements in the Earth's atmosphere.

Although used only in small quantities, it has important uses in many areas, including air balloons launched at events and celebrations; cooling in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) used in medical examinations, in nuclear reactors, in chemical and physical experiments, in electrical devices (such as laptops and smartphones), and in lasers; and as fuel for jet engines in space rockets.

Chronology

In 1934, Ernest Rutherford in the United States was the first scientist to put the Eddington theory into practice, because while examining the structure of the atom, he proved that the fusion of deuterium into helium produced a "enormous effect."

His student Mark Oliphant discovered tritium and applied the first laboratory fusion of its kind. Hans Bethe's research into stellar structure provided illumination to nuclear fusion research.

In the 1950s, scientists began to consider the application of nuclear fusion artificially, and the Soviet scientists Andrei Sakharov and Igor Tamm designed the first magnetic confinement fusion device — the tokamak.

American scientist Lyman Spitzer tried to create a rival device known as the stellarator that was controlled by magnetic fields outside of it, but the Soviet device proved more effective.

In 1973, the European Union authorised the establishment of JET, which was completed and began operating in 1983 and continued to operate with joint European-British funding despite the United Kingdom's exit from the bloc.

But the most striking achievement was the decision made at a US-Soviet summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France with the participation of other countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union.

Construction at a cost of €44bn and the participation of 35 countries did not begin until 2005, and by the end of last year, media reports said 77.7 per cent of the project was completed.

US and European partners were unable to expel Russia, the heir to the Soviet Union in countless things, from the project after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022 for fear that the project would collapse completely, despite the imposition of sanctions on it for its war, let alone boycotts in many forums.

Fusion v fission

But what distinguishes fusion from fission?

The latter — enforced peacefully to generate electricity and hostilely through a nuclear bomb — releases enormous energy by splitting heavy atoms, for example, uranium atoms, into lighter atoms, including, but not limited to, iodine, calcium, strontium, xenon and barium.

Fission is started when uranium absorbs a neutron, the nucleus of the first becomes unstable, and it fragments, releasing neutrons that hit other atoms of uranium, repeating the process. Called a chain reaction, the process produces huge energy and threatens to get out of hand, causing nuclear accidents, as happened in 1986 with the Soviet Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine, which was part of the socialist union.

The idea man, Eddington, said that the promise of nuclear fusion is possible if it is "mastered," and there is no doubt that if he were among us, he would be impressed by the 5 December achievement.

However, as mentioned above, the road to "mastery" is still long, complex, and expensive, and human beings cannot wait while they are hit by crises caused by emergency circumstances, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war.

That is why countries seek quick treatments until the desired "mastery" of nuclear fusion technology is achieved and the technology keeps pace with the desired times of hybrid and accessible energy.