Text 11. Nuclear Fusion - the Way Forward?

The challenge for the nuclear power industry is to make the technology as safe and secure as possible. After all, most people have heard of the catastrophic effects of the accident at Chernobyl in 1986 -the repercussions of which can still be seen today, with radioactive fallout contaminating large areas of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. There is also the contentious issue of dealing with the waste from the nuclearfission process, which has still not been adequately dealt with in most countries.

The question arises: can such waste be avoided in the first place? Not it would seem with nuclear fission, but nuclear fusion could be the answer if it is ever successfully developed.

In this process isotopes of hydrogen- deuterium and tritium - have to be heated up to over 100 million °C. The fission process not only produces heat but also several additional neutrons than can cause fissioning of other uranium -235 or plutonium -239 atoms. Thus, by proper arrangement of the atoms of the fuel, a sustained chain reaction can be maintained to provide a steady source of heat for operating a power plant. This chain reaction is controlled by regulating the number and the energy of the neutrons as they proceed from one fission reacting to another.

The atoms are thereby fused together thus releasing enormous amounts of thermal energy, which could then be harnessed to produce electricity. There are a number of benefits. No greenhouse gases are released, very little radioactive waste is produced - as is the case with nuclear fission - and furthermore the primary fuel is abundantly available on earth.

This technology, however, is still in its infancy. The EU, USA, China, India, Russia, Japan and South Korea have set up a project called ITER (the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), which includes an experimental reactor in Cadarache, France. The goal of the project is to make fusion commercially viable. But experts say it will take at least 30 years to achieve the target and there is also no guarantee of any success.

ITER has other critics too. Some environmental groups claim that the money invested in the project - around €10 billion - should be used to develop renewable energy, firstly because it is available today and secondly because it has a proven track record.

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