![]() Chief engineer at ITER, Bécoulet explains how nuclear fusion – the process that makes stars shine – could be domesticated for commercial energy production, giving the world limitless power without depleting natural resources or damaging the environment. But as we enter what Alain Bécoulet describes in Star Power as the ‘third era’ of fusion energy, we are seeing the ITER project taking a ‘giant step’ in the development of a new type of power. For decades, fusion has been marginalised as a fringe area of scientific research. That world isn’t one of science fiction, but of nuclear fusion. Imagine a world where there is a clean, cheap and inexhaustible source of energy. The reactor, which is based in the south of France at Cadarache has been variously described as the most expensive science experiment of all time, the most complicated engineering project in human history and one of the most ambitious human collaborations since the development of the International Space Station. Research into nuclear fusion energy is an adventure on that scale, but to succeed in this sort of project you need to stick to a long-term plan.”īécoulet is chief engineer at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a global nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject with the mission of replicating the fusion processes of the sun to create energy here on Earth. There are still some big adventures happening, such as the exploration of Mars. But you can’t develop a nuclear reactor in that time,” he says referring to his work at ITER. “You can develop washing machines or telephones on that sort of basis. People are only interested in time-to-market of three or four years,” Bécoulet explains. “Neither governments nor the public have the attention span to deal with long-term projects. It’s more that the finishing line is simply so far away in the distant future that the idea of all this cheap clean energy seems more like science fiction than scientific reality. The problem with nuclear fusion, he says, is not so much the scientific or technological difficulties associated with making it happen. ‘Star Power’ is Bécoulet’s highly readable attempt to provide the history and context of nuclear fusion, “in a way that will help us to understand where we are going with it and what’s left to be done.” He thinks that the public doesn’t understand how the international scientific research community is engaging with a technology that will one day democratise energy with cheap, sustainable, clean and green power for everyone. "It would be totally immoral in the history of mankind not to try and exploit it.“I wanted to explain as simply as possible the science and technology of nuclear fusion and I wanted to locate its place in the energy mix today.” Alain Bécoulet is discussing why an engineer with no previous experience as an author should want to take on the task of writing a primer on the subject of nuclear fusion. Ambrogio Fasoli, physics professor and chair of the international research consortium that made the breakthrough, told CBS News. in a compatible way with keeping our planet healthy," Dr. "Fusion has such a high potential to solve, or to contribute to solving, the energy issue. The scientists haven't yet managed to conduct fusion in a way that produces enough electricity to be the clean power supply they believe it eventually can be, but they say it would be unfair to humanity and the planet not to keep pushing for it. Fusion forces particles together, and can be done, the scientists say, much more safely, with much less radioactive material and much lower risk of accidents. Fission breaks particles apart to create energy. Nuclear fusion is the opposite of nuclear fission, the technology used today in nuclear power plants around the world. The development has put them on course, they say, to tapping an unlimited source of clean power - with no greenhouse gas emissions - in a matter of decades. London - Scientists at a lab in the United Kingdom have made a major breakthrough in creating electricity through nuclear fusion.
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