There is good news for all of us. If the time is advanced to the next 15 years, we will be ready with an unlimited supply of environmentally friendly energy. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced it is working with a private company to build a nuclear fusion power plant, capable of producing 100 megawatts of fusion power.
If everything goes according to plan, this project will begin in 2033. The project has received funding of US $ 50 million (or equivalent to 704 billion rupiah) from Eni, an Italian energy company. The cost spent on research and development so far is US $ 30 million (or equivalent to 422 billion rupiah). Like what details MIT discovery?
1. This system uses nuclear fusion, so you need to understand first what is meant by nuclear fusion
A rough explanation, just imagine the pool table. If nuclear fission is a ball that bounces off to one another, nuclear fusion occurs when two balls collide. But instead of spherical, nuclear fusion energy plants use hydrogen atoms, which release enormous amounts of energy as they combine to form helium. This process is known to occur in the sun.
Basically, this is a major break in energy production. If achieved, this energy generation can provide energy worldwide, in an unlimited amount, sustainable and free from carbon. This energy source will replace fossil fuels and mitigate the worst effects of climate change. Unlike nuclear fission, this reaction will not result in dangerous nuclear waste nor the risk of nuclear accidents like Chernobyl.
2. While there are prototypes of nuclear fusion power plants already in operation, experts have not managed to produce a reaction without causing an energy deficit
What makes it different in this project is the availability of super-high temperature conductors. It is a recently commercially available asset in recent years. This will allow MIT scientists to reinforce the magnetic field surrounding the hot plasma fuel, used in the tokamak reactor, and hence, it is possible to produce cheaper reactors.
3. According to Robert Boomgaard, CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), the completion of this project is only a matter of scale and speed
CFS is a private company involved in the project. According to him, the combined efforts of academics and industrialists should be able to accelerate the process of development and bring this technology to the community in a few years.
There are several other new companies also working on similar projects, including Tokamak Energy, a British company based near Oxford. But experts say that this project (MIT and CFS) is the most promising.
4. If MIT can fulfill everything they say about this project, this will be one of the greatest technological advances
The statement was expressed by Stephen Dean, of Fusion Power Associates, an advocacy group in Gaithersburg, Maryland. On the contrary many others are still skeptical, especially where private investment is concerned.
Funding for MIT is remarkable, but it is unlikely the private sector will bear the full burden of this fusion program, according to Stewart Prager, former director of Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in New Jersey. Researchers hope to avoid this problem by attracting government funding.
As Eni's CEO, Claudio Descalzi stated that fusion energy is the true source of energy of the future, because it is truly sustainable: neither emissions nor long-term waste and potentially inexhaustible. This goal hope can be achieved soon. Hopefully it will be done as soon as possible, so more ease of life that will be environmentally friendly later.
