Our species balloons like bacteria on a petri dish. But like any finite sugar supply, the fossil-based energy that permits our continued growth has its limits. Though with modern advances in the energy sector, it would seem that humankind has the ingenuity to engineer the cap right off of our own carrying capacity. Take a star, put it in a box and voilà, you have fusion power — the panacea to our impending global energy crisis and perhaps the only way to sustain human life at its current growth rate.
Fusion machinery is complicated but its principle science is actually quite simple. Within a fusion reaction, hydrogen isotopes are heated until they fuse to form helium gas, releasing energy that can then be harnessed and distributed (explained further here). One unit of fusion fuel taken directly from seawater yields upwards to a million times the potential energy contained within its petrochemical equivalent. The product — seemingly limitless clean energy and little radioactive waste to boot. Although human-induced climate change has become an irreversible reality, such a technology could offer a quick practical transition away from our current dirty energy reliance. With fusion, we could power the world without further disrupting atmospheric stability. For once, might we get to keep the cake and eat it too?
Like the fossil fuel industry, fusion power is a highly centralized method of energy supply. Unlike wind, solar and geothermal — which have the potential to transform U.S. cities and towns into self-supporting energy generators through local, collaborative projects — fusion would likely become another energy firehose, much like oil or coal albeit a bit cleaner. In other words, it would serve as an alternative provider in support of an outdated energy model, in which centralized plants feed into a national grid. Remaining fettered to a 20th century vertical energy market would likely lock us into an environmentally unsustainable growth trajectory. Additionally, a shortcut to massive clean energy supply would probably not provide the same array of job opportunities that accompany green retrofitting of private and public spaces. A decentralized grid would require an infrastructural makeover and thus a mobilization of the workforce. In contrast, fusion power would simply replace its dirty predecessors, and if left to private owners, further reinforce current cultural and socio-economic disparities by placing power (quite literally) in the hands of the wealthy elite.
Fusion may seem ideal, but incorporating such an immensely powerful technology under runaway capitalist conditions may actually pose a greater threat to the health and security of our people and environment. As any Dane would attest, future economic stability hinges on more than just a shift to cleaner energy sources. It demands warmer and wider reception to “notions of participation, dialogue, collaboration, societal responsibility and wealth distribution (or shared value, to give it its contemporary moniker).” If social responsibility and collaboration are key components of next generation’s energy economy — which has already become a burgeoning reality in countries such as Germany and Sweden — then fusion power would seem incompatible with this much needed cultural shift. Instead, fusion symbolizes a green flag for our continued celebration of excessive capital accumulation through industrialization and individualized market practice.
The fate of fusion largely hinges on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) stationed in southern France — the most ambitious fusion project to date. But as Dino Grandoni of the Huffington Post reports, “ITER is sputtering with delayed construction and ballooning costs, and U.S. physicists are increasingly worried that their work at home, such as the National Spherical Torus Experiment, will be sidelined to fund the international project.” Even projects in the United States are generating too little return to merit increased government support. The U.S. Department of Energy recently reduced domestic fusion funding to historic lows, threatening to dismantle experimental reactors at MIT, Princeton and General Atomics in San Diego. Unless ITER encounters a breakthrough in the near future, the downward spiral will likely continue.
Fusion has not yet achieved economic viability because current projected energy costs of running a single reactor would far exceed the amount of energy actually produced, yielding significant net loss. But if fusion ever becomes an operative reality, the United States should be strategic and circumspect in its application of the technology. If poorly regulated, fusion could displace other alternatives through monopolization of the energy grid. We must not forget — our continued reliance on a centralized regime would neglect the potential societal benefits of a more distributive and collaborative energy economy.
I would more readily support fusion if industrialized nations were guaranteed to employ the technology as a quick means for eliminating current reliance on nuclear fission and fossil fuels in order to quicken our transition to solar and wind. But given that most U.S. business and political cycles rarely operate in the long-term, I have little confidence that the technology would be geared towards this goal. Any silver bullet solution risks reinforcing our “go big or go home” credo, which simply does not align with the “go small and stay local” model essential to 21st century energy security. At this point in time, the American citizenry might not be culturally equipped to handle such a technology. In the end, fusion power can either reinforce the status quo or help facilitate our necessary shift towards a more ecological and equitable way of life. As with any double-edged sword, we best carefully choose which edge to sharpen.
Will Evans is an Opinion Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at w.evans@cavalierdaily.com.
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