Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

Media Release Friday, 18 October 2013

Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Phone: 1800 636 432
Email: cec@cecaust.com.au
Website: http://cec.cecaust.com.au

Invest for a Fusion Economy!

Australians must join an international crash program for a fusion economy as outlined in a recent publication from 21st Century Science and Technology. Nuclear fusion promises to transform our economy, provide abundant cheap electricity and revolutionise industrial and construction processes.

Energy supplies become relatively limitless in a fusion economy, since the fusion fuel contained in one litre of seawater provides as much energy as 300 litres of petroleum. The fusion economy brings mankind into the domain of “high energy density physics”, dealing with thermonuclear reactions and plasmas with energy densities a billion times the energy density of the battery in your smart phone—and the dynamic interrelationship between plasmas, lasers, fusion, and antimatter reactions.

Energy density for fusion even trumps fission power used in conventional nuclear reactors. For example, the same amount of electricity can be generated from either two million tonnes of coal (21,000 rail car loads), 1.3 million tonnes of oil (ten million barrels), 30 tonnes of uranium oxide (one rail car load), or one half tonne of the hydrogen isotope of deuterium (one car-trailer load). Since ocean water contains deuterium, a fuel for fusion, the energy available with fusion is relatively limitless.

In addition to electricity generation, fusion offers much more, such as:

The “fusion torch” design, first proposed in 1969 by Bernard Eastlund and William Gough of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, uses an ultra-high temperature fusion plasma, diverted from a fusion reactor core, to reduce virtually any material (low-grade ore, fission by-products, seawater, garbage from landfills, etc.) to its constituent elements and isotopes. Therefore chemical and nuclear “waste” can be processed into valuable resources. Another use for the fusion torch design will be the transformation of the energy from the plasma into a radiation field for processing industrial materials and chemicals.

Transmutation of elements where material can be manipulated at its atomic level. For example, petawatt lasers have already demonstrated the ability to transform gold into platinum, and future transmutation potentials are much broader. Sounds like alchemy, but this is for real.

Peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs) utilising fusion power may be used for mining and large-scale excavation to create tunnels, reservoirs, canals and ports. The U.S. Plowshare Program of the 1960s–70s demonstrated this application and it must be taken up once again. PNEs can be used to sculpt terrains on scales difficult or impossible with conventional methods, dramatically decreasing both the construction time, and the physical costs, based on the higher energy density unique to nuclear and thermonuclear reactions.

Space travel: Only fusion propulsion can generate earth-gravity equivalent acceleration, which is ideal for the human body, in that it mitigates some of the deleterious effects of microgravity and it reduces travel time, thus limiting exposure to harmful cosmic radiation. For example, at 1 g acceleration, a trip to Mars could take as little as one week, achieving velocities of one-tenth the speed of light. Various proposals are being floated for antimatter triggered fusion propulsion systems in which velocities of just over half the speed of light could be achieved, getting within the range of our nearest star beyond the Sun—Alpha Centauri—in about 18 years.

For electricity generation, magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) may be utilised in combination with fusion power. This technology can be used with virtually any source of energy to generate electricity directly from a high-temperature plasma. There are no moving parts such as a steam turbine and high efficiencies are possible, leading to even cheaper power.

All of this is possible—the scientific principles exist, but only funding the necessary research and development will allow us to reap the benefits of new fusion technologies. Presently, the Australian government is not participating in the France-based ITER fusion research project, but scientists from ANU and other Australian universities who understand the potential are doing what they can to be involved. Australia must enter the nuclear age by building off-the-shelf fission reactors immediately. A concurrent crash program for a fusion economy will yield results for the coming generation. Join the CEC to fight for this optimistic future.

Click here to watch a video, “All the World’s a Mine”, about the fusion processes described in this release.

Click here for a free copy of the 21st Century Science & Technology Special Report, “Nuclear NAWAPA XXI: Gateway to the Fusion Economy”.

Click here to join the CEC as a member.

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