Tempting as it is to talk about the threats to humanity posed by climate change and all the problems potentially arising from it…let’s take a more positive tack and explore the promise this new energy source holds for humankind. It’s a dense energy source suitable for electricity and industrial heat generation, variable to the needs of the electric grid, producing vast amounts of power from very small amounts of inexhaustible material attainable without geopolitical implications, producing no CO2 or methane release, and having a safety zone no larger than the building in which it is housed in the unlikely event of an emergency.
Does this sound like a story too good to be true? Well, it’s not. It’s the story of a technology with a long history of being just beyond human reach even though it provides everything around us. Just look up, it’s the source of power used and produced by our sun and the stars. Fusion energy, forever said to be “always thirty years away,” is on the verge of being a reality! Over 40 companies around the globe, 27 here in the USA, are designing and building fusion machines that will be the engines behind clean, ubiquitous, cost-effective power generated from fuels of near limitless supply. A few of these companies are on paths to power generation between now and the end of this decade.
The advancements being made in the field of fusion energy production, together with the potential to address some of society’s greatest challenges, point to the need for rapid preparation for its inclusion in global energy planning schemes. Many of today’s global regulatory agencies make a clear and dramatic distinction between fusion and nuclear fission. The safeguards and allowances in current rulemaking respect the much lower risks associated with fusion while keeping safety at the forefront of considerations. Great attention to ease of manufacture is underway in development of machines which, coupled with appropriate regulatory oversight, increases much needed deployment capacity.
While the state of fusion development inspires hope for combating some of our greatest needs, society has a significant and critical role in the successful widespread expansion of fusion’s potential. Broad-scale awareness and acceptance of fusion’s characteristics is required to create the level of preparation and deployment necessary to maximize the positive effects fusion can offer.
What does this mean? Acceptance among the environmental community as a clean source of power that will not have negative effects on the environment; governmental will to allow siting of new facilities on or near where existing production now takes place; and a funding scheme to get fusion through the difficult period of precommercial funding and commercial funding available once power purchase agreements are secured.
Fusion will be an available power source sooner than most people are aware. I invite you to reach out to Energy for the Common Good to learn what your role can be in clearing the path for rapid advancement of fusion power’s growth. Every day wasted is a day longer of natural resource depletion, GHGs, CO2 and methane emissions, geopolitical instability, and fundamental access inequity between developed north and the Global South.
Our mission is to create public engagement for fusion energy so that leaders in local communities, energy, environmental regulation, and policy are ready to implement fusion energy along with all other safe non-carbon energy innovations as soon as they are available.
This Giving Tuesday, let’s fuel the future with fusion! Every donation, big or small, brings us one step closer to making fusion energy a widely accepted and celebrated solution. Together, we can drive change, one atom at a time!