Alternative Energy: Can Fusion Ever Live up to its Hype?

The alternative energy that has been hyped as the solution that would provide limitless energy with no environmental damage is fusion. Scientists have been chasing the idea of fusion for more than the last 100 years, but a way to successfully and commercially capture fusion energy has proved elusive.

Fusion occurs by combining two atoms of hydrogen together to form an atom of helium. Its a process that occurs naturally in our sun and other stars and it generates the light and heat given off by stars. During the process of fusing hydrogen into helium, energy is given off.

Over the last year numerous projects reported progress in perfecting fusion and talk of hopes for commercialization.

Jane Hotchkiss, President of Energy for the Common Good, said that “2021 has become a watershed year for fusion energy, with $5 billion of investment in fusion device efforts and recognition of fusion energy as a climate change mitigation power source by the first ever inclusion of fusion in the official dialogue of COP26, to name only two in a long list of achievements.”

Commenting on fusion achievements in 2021, Andrew Holland, Chief Executive Officer of the Fusion Industry Association, said that “Its a big deal. This is not hype, this is reality.”

But some have called the quest for fusion ‘delusional‘.

Donnachadh McCarthy, British environmental activist, argues that the money currently being spent on fusion research would be better spent on trying to solve or minimize climate change. He wrote that “it is time to halt this fusion delusion and instead invest the billions being squandered, in technologies and solutions that we know can actually work in time to potentially save us from catastrophe.”

Daniel Jassby, former principal physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, wrote that fusion energy is not all fairy-tale goodness. There will be numerous issues that are seldom talked about. He said that “if fusion reactors are indeed feasible, they would share some of the serious problems that plague fission reactors, including tritium release, daunting coolant demands, and high operating costs. There will also be additional drawbacks that are unique to fusion devices: the use of a fuel (tritium) that is not found in nature and must be replenished by the reactor itself; and unavoidable on-site power drains that drastically reduce the electric power available for sale.”