From cave dwellers to the modern humans, our species has been through a long and drastic transformation. From being ‘just another species’ on Earth, to becoming a species that has the power to change the world (for better or for worse), humanity has really come a long way.
This, of course, was made possible because of all our inventions and discoveries. But, if we look back, one could argue that the discovery of fire was arguably one of the biggest milestones we have ever crossed. In a way, it was our first interface with ‘energy’, which changed the entire course of humanity in that, it has literally been the fuel for all our technological advancements.
Apart from the fact that energy is the reason for the existence of life, we also need it for the collective human activities. Anything and everything we do requires energy in one form or the other like electricity, heat, sound, mechanical energy and so on. As the complexities of our civilisation grows, our need for energy only multiplies.
Up until now we have heavily relied on fossil fuels for our energy needs but as we have come to realise, using fossil fuels has had adverse effects on our environment causing massive and rampant unnatural changes in nature. Also, since they are limited, there is no guarantee of future supply. This has led us to identify other sources of energy like solar, wind, water, geothermal and more but one source of energy is especially intriguing which has been making waves as being the holy grail of clean energy.
Fusion Energy
The concept of fusion energy is not new to us by any measures. In fact, we have been long aware of the fact that fusion energy is what keeps the sun (and other stars) ticking. But what exactly is fusion energy and how is it different from the rest of the energy sources, one might ask.
To explain simply, it is a process in which two atoms join together to make another, heavier atom. In our sun, hydrogen atoms join together in the core to form helium. The whole reaction releases enormous amounts of energy which is evident from the fact that even at a distance of 150 million kilometres, we feel the intense heat of the sun along with it’s light.
On Earth, scientists are trying to replicate the same process for the purposes of energy generation. Instead of using hydrogen we use Deuterium and Tritium, which are both forms of Hydrogen to create fusion reactions.
So, what are the benefits of fusion energy over other sources of energy? Well, they are manifold which I’ll discuss next.
Why Fusion Energy
Fusion energy, as I mentioned above, is being heralded as the ‘holy grail of clean energy’. It has been a long standing dream of scientists all around the globe to finally make sustainable fusion energy a reality. Controlling a process which happens in the core of stars has proven to be quite difficult for decades but in the past decade or so, many promising breakthroughs have renewed excitement into this.
There are a number of benefits that harnessing fusion energy will provide that can trump even the other renewable sources of energy. Some of these benefits are:
Extremely Efficient & Clean Energy
Generating energy through nuclear fusion is very efficient. It requires very little fuel to generate an enormous amounts of energy. In fact, only one kilogram of fuel can produce the same amount of energy as 10 million kilograms of fossil fuel. (Source)
This will help us quickly replace all fossil fuels and make the entire world a carbon neutral planet. This will also have massive impacts on the environment. Things won’t get better drastically or in a short time period, but over decades, it will mitigate a lot of harm that we have done to the planet.
Safe
The nuclear energy that we use today comes from the process called nuclear fission. This process is the opposite of nuclear fusion and thus, instead of combining two atoms, it results in a splitting of an atom into two. The problem with this is that it creates huge amounts of radioactive waste which is difficult to deal with, dangerous for human beings and the environment.
Nuclear fusion on the other hand produces no direct radioactive wastes and overall, produces only about 1% waste that too short lived. This makes it a very safe source of energy.
Limitless Fuel
For nuclear fusion, the fuel that we need are hydrogen isotopes. To obtain those, we can use sea water which covers two-thirds of the Earth. As this fuel is readily available, and also because a lot of energy can be generated from a relatively less amount of fuel, it will result in nuclear fusion being a very cheap source of energy.
So, we have virtually limitless energy and too for a fraction of cost we are paying today. This alone makes nuclear fusion the ‘holy grail’ of energy source.
Space Exploration
The applications for nuclear energy do not end on Earth. In fact, if nuclear fusion reactors are made in compact size (which Lockheed Martin recently claim to have achieved) they could be used in space ship as well. The thrust provided by them would be much more powerful leading to faster space ships. It is estimated that a space ship equipped with such a reactor would help us reach Mars in just a month compared to the 9 months it takes today.