ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
I am a sustainability and education consultant. Previously I was a lecturer in sustainable energy. I was originally a mechanical engineer, and later a sociologist of environmental technology, focussing on institutional barriers to wind power. I have long been interested in what motivates people's behaviours in education and sustainability practices. I am now studying psychology to better understand the psychology of climate inaction and unsustainability. I hope to integrate this with an understanding of political and institutional barriers to sustainability. I am strongly committed to social justice. I occasionally write satirical verse, particularly about climate inaction.

Nuclear Fusion - No Thanks (1997)

I wrote this in 1997 and won second prize in The SEDA Prize (Sustainable Energy Development Authority of NSW). It was published under the heading “Nuclear Confusion” in the University of Sydney newspaper Honi Soit, issue date August 5 1997, pg 12.

Nuclear Fusion — No Thanks!

Andrea Bunting

To many of us, the energy crisis of the 1970s seems just a distant memory. For a short time the sudden concern about dwindling oil reserves and rising prices sent governments into a flurry. Many set their sights on a variety of new energy sources. Now in the 1990s we may have encountered the real energy crisis. Our extensive use of fossil fuels is thought to be a major contributor to global warming; the cost of nuclear fission is still spiralling upwards, with the problem of nuclear waste disposal as intractable as ever; and renewable energy systems are still a novelty, obstructed by various barriers.

Yet for many decades, engineers, scientists and some environmentalists have pinned their hopes on a technology which, one day, may deliver unlimited amounts of energy—supposedly safely and cleanly, though perhaps not cheaply—using seawater as its main fuel source. This technology would rely on the nuclear fusion reaction, quite a different kettle of fish from its big brother, nuclear fission. Existing nuclear power plants use the heat released by nuclear fission reactions, occurring when the atomic nuclei of heavy elements, uranium and plutonium, break up into smaller atoms. Nuclear fusion, the source of the sun’s energy, requires the nuclei of light elements to fuse together, again releasing large amounts of energy. This reaction occurs at temperatures in the region of 100 million ÂșC. The lightest element is hydrogen, and its two isotopes, deuterium and tritium, are the most likely atoms to be used in a nuclear fusion reaction. Deuterium is readily obtained from seawater, and tritium can be produced from lithium.

If nuclear fusion does hold the promise of freeing us from our energy worries, why shouldn’t we support fusion research? There are several more obvious reasons why we might be hesitant.

Firstly, will it work? Despite many decades of research, it is by no means certain that the fusion reaction can ever be harnessed to produce electrical power. Indeed after pouring billions of dollars into fusion research, the U.S. government has recently slashed funding to fusion. It has shut down the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor and abandoned its former strategy to have a demonstration fusion power plant by 2025. The main players left now are Japan and the European Union.

Secondly, if a fusion power plant is ever built, it would entail a massive capital cost. Only wealthy countries would be able to afford it. Surely we’ve had this lesson once before. Nuclear fission promised energy “too cheap to meter”; now plans for nuclear power plants are being abandoned because of rising costs. Nuclear fusion, still in its embryonic stage, isn’t even promising to be cheap.

Thirdly, fusion is not without environmental and safety concerns. The fusion reaction produces neutrons which would cause the reactor vessel to become radioactive and weaken the structure. Lithium, used to produce tritium, reacts violently with air or water; a small accident releasing lithium could be catastrophic.
Of course, one could argue that by raising these concerns, we are underestimating the ingenuity of scientists and engineers. Wasn’t it only last century that people said human flight was impossible? Who knows what scientific breakthrough lies just around the corner? But I think this criticism misses an important point.
We should ask why governments have sunk billions of dollars into fusion research with no guarantee of success? With such formidable technical and economic barriers, such a strategy appears irrational—and irrational it is if we believe that decisions about future energy paths are made on the basis of neutral technical and economic criteria. Such neutral criteria do not exist; rather, we need to look at the interests of the various groups concerned. Consider first the fusion researchers and research institutions. Scientists who have devoted their working lives to fusion, and institutions which have received substantial funding and tremendous prestige for fusion research are hardly going to paint a pessimistic picture of fusion’s potential. This is not deception; it is quite reasonable for people to have a strong belief in what they are doing. These expert communities have attained significant influence over several decades; thus fusion research has developed a certain degree of momentum. Pulling the plug on it would not be politically easy for any government.

But this “momentum” only partly explains governments’ support for fusion. At a broader level we need to consider the political context. Decisions about energy are made primarily to suit existing political and economic structures. A system based on nuclear fusion as an energy source would not threaten these structures; instead it would open up vast new fields of commercial exploitation for the largest energy corporations. Successful development of fusion power would enable Western governments and the giant corporations to free themselves from their dependence on politically unstable regions of the world for their fossil fuel supplies, and would place them in a powerful position to control world energy markets. Business and industry in general would also benefit from nuclear fusion. It would eliminate any pressure on industry to develop more energy efficient practices; there would be no threat to “business as usual”.

But are there alternatives to nuclear fusion, alternatives which can alleviate the energy problems that beset us? If we don’t pursue nuclear fusion, will we face a bleak energy future? Even if energy consumption can be stabilised or reduced in the wealthier countries, are there alternatives which also allow for rising energy consumption in developing countries? Indeed there are! A variety of alternative energy futures are possible and we have been hearing about them for decades, alternatives which are usually associated with the words “renewable” and “conservation”. Doubtless these alternatives will become more prominent in the future. Nevertheless, proponents of these alternatives often express frustration that they receive far less funding than do their nuclear counterparts, a funding situation that serves the interests of powerful groups.

But my aim is not just to add another small voice to the plea for a change in direction; rather it is to develop a better understanding of the track we are now on. We can start by raising the general level of discussion about energy. Current debates about future energy issues often exhibit two failings. Firstly they usually assume that energy decisions are technical and economic matters. On the contrary, patterns of energy supply and use cannot be considered separately from the political, economic and institutional interests which they serve. It is pointless to merely argue for the benefits of alternative energy practices; this neither helps us to understand the current energy situation, nor enables us to develop a strategy for change. Secondly, energy debates are often based on the assumption that there is one solution, one new energy source which will form the mainstay for the future. Backers of nuclear fusion may presuppose an all-electric future supplied by gigantic fusion power stations. That catchcry of the 1970s “Solar not nuclear” also implied that a single energy source was the solution.

Instead, what is really needed is not a single solution but myriad changes to current energy practices and a diversity of energy sources to provide a better match to different end-uses. Each of these changes will have different implications for established interests in the energy field. We can think about them as being on three levels.

On the first level are energy conservation and increasing energy efficiency: better building design, more efficient cars, improved use of natural lighting, efficiency standards for appliances, insulation regulations, etc. It has been shown that such small changes can lead to vast energy savings, such is the degree to which energy is wasted in a country like Australia. These changes have contradictory implications for established interests: energy supply companies would face reduced sales, but new markets would develop for some manufacturers and service providers. Overall, these measures would have a relatively small effect on business as usual, and some of them are already happening.

The second level is about diversifying energy supply and providing a better match between energy supply and use. This would entail, for example, substitution of renewable energy and natural gas for coal, increased cogeneration (the use of waste heat from power generation), biomass derived fuels for transportation, an end to the use of electricity for heating, and a national electricity grid to improve system reliability and smooth load fluctuations. Again we are seeing some changes in this direction, but possibly for reasons which have little to do with alleviating our energy problems. Many of these changes represent a challenge to established interests, and also require a degree of coordination and planning which may be difficult to achieve under a privatised energy industry.

The third level is the difficult one. This is about changing social patterns and institutions so we don’t need to use so much energy. Radical restructuring of freight and passenger transport systems, decentralising workplaces and services, changing the throwaway system, reducing the amount of manufactured goods which satisfy created needs: all of these could reduce energy usage as well as benefit society in many other ways. But the main benefits would only accrue if such changes were across the whole of society rather than being merely individual. Changing one’s lifestyle to reduce energy consumption does little to challenge established political and economic structures.

There is no easy answer to the energy problem, least of all portraying nuclear fusion as our possible saviour. The nuclear fusion path is not in the interests of the vast majority of people; it serves to benefit existing powerful groups. But those who would instead advocate the “soft energy path”, described two decades ago by Amory Lovins and many others since, would do well to move beyond mere exhortation to embrace the benefits of renewable energy and conservation. Social and political analysis, and the development of strategies for change are just as vital.

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