Page - 95 - in Water, Energy, and Environment - A Primer

fewmillionths of a second. As the French physicist andNobel laureate Pierre-Gilles de Gennes once said: ‘We say that we will put theSun in a box.The idea is pretty. Theproblem is,we don’t knowhow tomake thebox.’ 7.2.4 Prosandcons Theprosandconsoffusionenergycanbesummarizedasfollows: Pros: • virtually limitless fuel availability at lowcost • nochain reaction, as in nuclear fission, and so it is easy to stop the energy release • fusion produces no greenhouse gases, and little nuclear waste compared to nuclear fission (the radioactive waste from fusion is from neutron activation of containment materials) Cons: • stillunproven,atanyscale,asacontrolledreaction thatcan release more energy than required to initiate the fusion (‘ignition’) • requires extremely high temperatures that are difficult to contain • many serious materials problems arising from extreme neutronbombardment • commercialpowerplants, ifachievable,wouldbelargeand expensive to build • at best, full scale powerproduction is not expecteduntil at least 2050. 7.2.5 Thoughts Where do I come out on all this? I am not trained as a fusion physicist and so lack proximity to the efforts of so many for so long to achieve controlled nuclear fusion. Nevertheless, I Nuclearpower 95